There are so many opportunities in this world to not, take care. To tell ourselves, “Ha! I can do what I want because everyone else is.”
Fact is, doing what we want to create happiness, joy, wealth… cannot be at the expense of someone else’s happiness, rights, happiness, joy.
We are inter-relational. We are inter-dependent. Like the butterfly wings disturbing air in Africa, creating a windstorm on the other side of the world, the small things we do here, ripple out to create impacts in the world all around us.
Take care to ensure every action, thought, word, idea you create is a ripple that creates better. Take care to ensure having what you want does not mean someone else is harmed.
I have started a series of art journal entries on the theme of “Home”.
It was inspired by my work in the homeless-serving sector where ‘What is Home?’ is a question that is asked everyday. It also stems from my passion to stand at the intersection of art and writing to explore my creative essence and how/where they intersect with the things I am passionate and curious about in life.
Creativity connects me to my essence; that divine space within each of us that speaks to who we are when fear, worry, habit, our pasts and our experiences do not interfere with our natural expression of who we are. I was listening to Elizabeth Gilbert talking with guest Brene Brown in one of her Magic Lessons podcasts and Brene Brown said that before she started her shame research, and before she wrote The Gift of Imperfection, she would have said she was not creative. “I have a job.” Since researching shame, and how to live whole-heartedly, she has uncovered startling research that speaks to how many of us (in the research 56% of those she interviewed) were shamed as children about our creativity.
These are the first two paintings in the series. I have no idea how long the series will be, or where it will take me. The joy is in the exploration, the uncovering, the allowing what is calling out to be heard, and what is chasing me to appear, to be brought into the light of creative expression.
No matter where your story begins, it’s never too late to begin again to create a new story.
Home is that place where no matter how bad your day, you always know you have somewhere to lay your head to dream of better days ahead.
I love to ask the question, “If you were setting off to change the world, where would you start?”
“I’d start with passion,” a friend once replied to that question. “Always start with passion.”
Someone else once replied, “I know what I’m passionate about. I know where my passion wants to lead me. I just don’t know how to get there”
Follow. Follow your passion. Whenever you are faced with a choice, a decision or an opportunity, follow your passion. The rest will fall into place.Passion.
In Isabel Allende’s 2008 Ted Talks speech, Tales of Passion, she says that passion lives in the heart and heart is what drives us and determines our fate.
Heart.
The driver of great deeds. The driver of great people.
As humans, we are born great of heart. We all possess a greatness of being just the way we are. As we expand and move into being all we are when fear dressed up as hatred, racism, discrimination, intolerance and a whole host of characteristics we express when we move through fear, does not hold us down, our inherent greatness shines through. In our drive to dig deep into our hearts, to fuel the passion of our creative spirits, we change — ourselves and the world.
And who could ask for a better world than that? A world of passion, driven with heart, filled with the desire to be the most amazing we can be. And in that desire to be our best, we will create a world of the best around us.
When I was 23, I believed I could change the world. I just didn’t know how to do it.
Now, I know that to be the change I want to see in the world, to create more love, joy, truth, kindness, caring… I must be passionate about living this one precious and awesome life in the passion of being loving, joyful, truthful, kind, caring.
“How can I change the world?” you ask.
Begin with yourself and let your heart lead the way.
Begin with being the most passionate person you can be, doing what you are most passionate about, what you love to do.
We can all do that.
And, to change the world, to make it a better place for everyone, we must all do that. Follow our passions and express our greatness in everything we do, in every way we can so that all the world can see that change is possible when we let go of our fear of never being enough and live passionately into our greatness of being human.
Happiness resides not in possessions, and not in gold. Happiness dwells in the soul. Democritus
Ask my daughters and they will confirm, I can be a bit of a pack rat. Not of the ‘hoarder’ variety, more of the, ‘let’s clutter up this space because who likes empty space?’ kind.
Regularly clearing out is not a habit I’ve developed well. I am learning. Practicing. Creating new neural pathways that favour decluttering instead of cluttering up.
It can be a challenge.
Ok. Let’s reframe that. I like to make excuses for keeping things.
You know, the kind of excuse that says, Oh, this pretty gold ribbon might come in handy to wrap around a gift, or a special card. I’d better tuck it into this drawer right here, just in case.
Or, Hmm. This paper is lovely. Really like the image on this card. I’ll save it because it may come in handy for a collage. Someday.
Fact is, that someday doesn’t come very often.
I move off of the moment of tucking it away into more things, more doings, and forget all about that ‘special’ thing I saved for moments later on when the muse calls and says, ‘You need something just like that thing you saved long ago.’
Ok. Confession. the muse calls me a lot, and she seldom calls about things I’ve tucked away for a rainy day project.
In fact, it’s not usually that I forget about the things I’ve saved. Mostly, it’s because I forget where I saved them at those times when I do remember to go looking for them. I am notorious for saving things in ‘safe’ places even I can’t find! That makes me really clever at finding safe hiding places, right?
The soul is happiest when the mind is clear.
And my mind is clearest when my environment is not cluttered up with stuff I’ve saved, just in case, or have been too laissez faire at life to bother to go through or throw out.
As I begin again to work on writing the book I’ve been working on writing for quite some time and have been stalling on getting done, I realize my office clutter has clogged up my creative process.
Time to lighten up my space by clearing out what I don’t need, don’t want and don’t know what to do with to make room for more creative thinking, and a happier soul.
What about you? Do you have spaces that need lightening up?
Go for it.
Create space for new thinking, new doing and new ways of being light of heart, mind and soul. Invite grace into your soul by creating space in your world.
Tomorrow is the last day of National Eating Disorder Awareness Week here in Canada. What have you learned about this dangerous disease that steals the lives of too many young women, and men too?
Last week, I asked my eldest daughter if she was okay with me sending in an OpEd (Opinion Editorial) to our local paper. She quickly said yes and when I sent my first draft, gave me some helpful insight into how to frame it better.
My daughter’s courage, willingness to be vulnerable, to walk with integrity and honesty inspires me every day.
After we’d gone through the piece together, she said, “Thanks for doing this mom.”
I am in awe of this young woman who is brave enough to face an eating disorder and bold enough to talk publicly about it — and to be okay with her mother doing the same.
At one point, I mentioned one of the statements I make in the article — how sometimes she’ll say something and I find this thought immediately racing through my mind, “Oh no. It’s back.”
I wish you wouldn’t do that mom. she said.
And I replied, I’m getting better at not doing it.
And I am. And it takes time.
Fact is, as I learn to let go of my fear and trust in her truth, the thought falls back into the darkness of the past, leaving me free to breathe easily in the beauty of the present.
To read the full article that was published Saturday, click HERE.
Black Eyed Peas did a new version of Where’s the Love?
I saw it on FB this morning — it’s powerful, provocative and, I sigh. If only we could listen. If only we would open our ears, our eyes, our hearts, our minds, we wouldn’t have to ask, Where’s the Love?
We’d be it.
Challenge is, to each of us, every 7 billion plus humans who inhabit this planet, our experience of Love is not the same thing.
And as I write that, I can hear my brother-in-law saying, “Don’t forget the animals. You can’t leave them out of a discussion about Love.”
See what I mean? Love is… whoever we are. However we are in this world.
We see Love through our perspectives, our worldview, our priorities, passions, beliefs, experiences.
I remember Thelma Box, the creator of Choices Seminars, saying once that she’d read an article on child abuse and in it, the author stated that for someone who abuses their own child, it is an expression of their love for that child. Not because that act is what Love Is. But rather, because in their mind, that is how they learned to express, get, show… Love.
Years ago, I was in the midst of a relationship that was killing me and finally found the strength to go to the police. The Detective I spoke with said as I was walking out the door, “You know, this isn’t love. Love doesn’t hurt that much.”
Intellectually, I knew he was right.
Spiritually, emotionally, I didn’t believe him.
In that relationship ‘love’ had become so warped by the abuse I was living within, I believed the pain made Love real — I also believed I didn’t deserve Love anyway, so the pain was better than nothing.
Love is…
Everything and all.
Love doesn’t have to change.
We do.
And that’s the challenge. Love is IN everything we do because Love is all around. It’s just, we get trapped in the darkness of our expression of the pain within, so captured by our need to create the world the way we want to see it, we forget, there are 7 billion plus expressions of Love on this earth.
Where is the Love?
Love is in the father hitting his child. The mother doing drugs on the corner, leaving her children alone.
Love is in the tender touch. The gentle look. The loving words.
Love is in the soldier raping a woman because he holds the gun and she is just a spoils of war.
Love is in the soldier putting down his gun to carry a puppy out of a bombed out building.
Love is in all these things.
There is no question about where Love is.
The question is, What will you do for Love? Where are you in Love?
Are you hiding behind your pain, denying Love access by stomping on hearts, killing your own dreams?
Are you pushing your anger out into the world to keep from caving into despair?
Are you staying locked in your room, surrounded by loneliness because you are too afraid of getting hurt by venturing into the world?
Are you using your love as a weapon, as a means to get what you want, control who you can, create a world of mass destruction?
Or, are you willing to give into Love to create a world of peace, within and all around you?
Intersections — Mixed media on watercolour paper 11″ x 14″
For the past several years, every December I meditate with the intention of being open to a word appearing that will be my guiding thought for the following year.
Sometimes, the word struggles to reveal itself as I block the process, pushing and prodding and trying to direct its natural appearance. In my desire to control the process, I test its strength, purpose, presence and put up roadblocks everywhere.
Sometimes, it appears and there is no getting away from it. It just is, and any machinations on my part simply affirm its presence more soundly.
The word for 2017 was such an occurrence. It appeared early in my process and wouldn’t leave. It stuck around, gently pushing me, instead of me prodding it.
As in past years, my intention was to meditate on the word and then, create a painting that represented it. I don’t ‘create’ it as much as it creates itself.
This past weekend was slightly different. I didn’t have an intention of creating a painting of the word. It just happened.
I was in the studio and started playing with my Gelli Print pad (a really fun rubbery pad that let’s you create prints of images – search for Gelli Print on Pinterest and you’ll find lots of references). I didn’t really have an intention for what I was doing. I simply wanted to explore, have fun and be open to whatever happened.
Using a pale yellow tissue paper as my substrate, I printed images on several pieces, experimenting with colour and texture. With some I used a bird stencil. Others, I used string and various shapes. Eventually, I decided I’d created enough prints and moved on to my canvas paper.
And that’s where the fun started.
Gelli Print image used in painting
Underneath the painting you see, is an old painting I wasn’t too fond of. It’s presence informs the process, creating interesting texture and background that would not have been as rich had I not chosen to trust in the process. Included in this painting are cut up pieces of one of my Gelli Print images as well as pieces of grey self-adhesive drywall gridded tape that I decided would be fun to experiment with.
See, often when I paint, I don’t really have a ‘destination’ in mind. I simply have a desire to express my creativity and be open to the process.
For me, that’s where the excitement, the joy and the contentment intersect.
The painting for my 2017 word, INTERSECTION, is the outcome of trusting in the process, leaning into creativity and letting it lead the way. There was no path, no guaranteed outcome, no sure and safe way to do it. There just was ‘the way’.
Which once again affirms that when I trust the process, the way appears.
Dare Boldly 