WILDNESS

It's almost five months since I last posted,  where does the time go?  I have been taking some classes in watercolours and acrylics and am enjoying learning some new techniques.  I do something creative pretty much every day, keeping up my date art journal.  Today I got out my beads because I feel like making some bracelets.

When I was journaling this morning I was thinking about the feeling of the loss of wildness.  I live in the middle of a city and am surrounded by concrete and glass and look out on a marina with many boats (most of them never leave their moorings).   I feel that my soul is starving for some nature - not plantings contrived by humans but real nature.  Wild grasses and weeds and ferns and moss and all those lovely things we find in the woods. 

This led me to thinking about my own wildness and how I am feeling separated from it and how I might reconnect with it.  I remembered I had a copy of Women Who Run With The Wolves by Clarissa Pinkola Estes.  I haven't looked at it for years but it was still on my bookshelf.  I picked up the book and opened it and, as so often happens, it opened to the perfect page - The Feral Woman.

"The feral woman is one who was once in a natural psychic state - that is, in her rightful wild mind - then later was captured by whatever turn of events, thereby becoming overly domesticated and deadened in proper instincts.  When she has opportunity to return to her original wildish nature, she too easily steps into all manner of traps and poisons. because her cycles and protective systems have been tampered with she is at risk in what used to be her natural wild state.  No longer wary and alert, she easily becomes prey."

"There is a specific pattern to the loss of instinct.  it is essential to study this pattern, to actually memorize it, so that we can guard the treasures of our basic natures and those of our daughters as well.  In the psychic woods there are many leg traps made of rusted iron that lie just below the leafy green of the forest floor.  Psychologically, the same is true of the greater world.  There are various lures to which we are susceptible: relationships, people, and ventures that are tempting, but inside that good-looking bait is something sharpened to a point, something that kills our spirit as soon as we bite into it."

Feral women of all ages, and especially the young, have a tremendous drive to compensate for long famines and exile.  They are endangered by excessive and mindless striving toward people and goals that are not nurturant, substantive, or enduring.  No matter where they live or in what time, there are cages waiting always; too-small lives into which women can be lured or pushed."

"If you have ever been captured, if you have ever endured a starvation of the soul, if you have ever been trapped and especially if you have a drive to create, it is likely that you have been or are a feral woman.  The feral woman is usually extremely hungry for something soulful, and often will take any poison disguised on a pointed stick, believing it to be the thing for which her soul hungers."

At this point in my life, I find that the most difficult traps and snares are the limitations I put on myself.  Limitations that come from fear and lack of confidence in my own abilities and instincts.  SELF-TRUST AND SELF CONFIDENCE MUST BE RELEARNED.  Once you have lost it it can take a long time to find it again.  I am making progress and the tattoo on my left arm reminds me that I truly am a FREE SPIRIT. 

EMBRACE YOUR WILDNESS AND BE A FREE SPIRIT!

HAPPY NEW YEAR

Every New Years I intend to start new things on New Years Day - every year I forget that I have to spend a few days clearing up the past year.  Things like taking down decorations, writing appointments on calendars, reviewing and putting away last years journals, preparing new journals and choosing words and intentions for the New Year.  I have usually chosen my words by the New Year and this year I have chosen HARMONY and four supportive words: PATIENCE, FORGIVENESS, FAITH AND ACCEPTANCE.

I have spent the past two days putting decorations away and replacing them with everyday decor and sorting out my journaling.  I have bought a scrapbook and am going to get some insert pages on Saturday with a 50% off coupon at Michael's.  I want to save cards and different ephemera and thought this would be the best way to do it.  I can also add some of my art and poems and quotes that I find.

On November 1st, I started making a calendar and finished it on December 11th.  I am so happy with it as it is the first project I have done that includes watercolours and lettering.  This is the cover and January.  The background for January is darker and has snowflakes on it.  I have sold five of them so that is very exciting for me.

I hope to blog more frequently as well.  All good intentions, I hope I can follow through.

I would like to share a poem by David Whyte called Faith:

I want to write about faith,
about the way the moon rises
over cold snow, night after night,

faithful even as it fades from fullness,
slowly becoming that last curving and impossible
sliver of light before the final darkness.

But I have no faith myself
I refuse it even the smallest entry.

Let this then, my small poem,
like a new moon, slender and barely open,
be the first prayer that opens me to faith.

from Where Many Rivers Meet.

30 DAYS OF GET YOUR ART ON WITH TRACI BUNKERS

I signed up for 30 Days Of Get Your Art On with Traci Bunker and I am having to learn this new way of using blogger.  Why do they have to keep changing things?????  

I don't know how to put this on the sidebar so it will have to go here for now.  Maybe I will figure it out later.

This guy below is a Cranky Bird that was inspired from Carla Sonheim's new book Imaginary Animals.  She is doing some special things on her blog right now to launch her book and Dar Hosta who draws these Cranky Birds has done a tutorial on her blog.  Chick it out, she has a great sense of humor.

The elephant below (yes, it is an elephant) is inspired by Carla Sonheim's Imaginary Animals and there is a tutorial for it on The Sketchbook Challenge blog.  Sorry I haven't got the address for these blogs, I'm just getting back into blogging after a year and as I said it has all changed so it will take me a while to get the hang of it.

Both of the animals were done on my calendar for September that I started last year and didn't complete so I  am completing it this year.  Below is another calendar I am doing of Illuminated numbers.  It is also an art journal.

So that is what I did for my one hour today.  I really enjoyed myself and found it relaxing.  The two animals were fun because they helped me to be more relaxed and connect with my playful side that needs a lot of encouragement.  I am far too serious with my art.

I AM BACK NOW. PROBLEM SOLVED.

This is what I have been doing the past couple of days.  I drew, then carved my very first stamp.  It was so much fun.!!

I also did a magazine collage which is something I also really enjoy doing.

It says:  I question not if thrushes sing, If roses load the air; Beyond my heart I need not reach, When all is summer there.  John Vance Cheney.

I thank you God for this most amazing day, for the  leaping greenly spirits of trees and for the blue dream of sky and for everything which is natural, which is infinite, which is yes.  E.E. Cummings.

These are both from Victoria magazine.

Another is:  The soul is already clear about who we are and what we want:  it's the mind that gets in the way, the intellect.

I was asked by my Life Coach to write what my perfect life and day would be like.  I described a cottage by the ocean with woods nearby and an English country garden style garden.  A bit wild looking. I also described having a studio where I could have different stations for the different crafts and art that I do.  She pointed out to me that I have a lot of that already.  I live by the ocean and have a studio on a smaller scale.

So I expanded on what I already have.  My neighbour gave me a beautiful faerie so bought a birdbath that is shaped like a flower and bought some more flower to go on my patio.  The daughter of a neighbour that passed away earlier this year gave me a birdcage so I put some ivy in it.  My patio is a bit wild and looks like an English country garden now.

I have to put some moss on the pots int he bird cage.  They are cut off gallon milk jugs that I had to use because the bottom didn't come out of the birdcage so I had to have something that would squish up and go through the little door.

Next, I organized all my art supplies so I can pull out a box or two at time when I am doing a specific craft or art so it will be easy to take out and put away.  Then I made my desk twice as big so I have more space to work.  It used to drive me crazy that my desk was small and everything was on top of me while I was working.  It is working out well and I love having more space.

Sometimes we just have to make the best of what we have got and create the feeling we are looking for in our dreams.  It's not the thing we are searching for, it's the feeling that we think that thing will bring us.  this is the message in many of the life coaching books.  

So, that is a little of what I have been doing.  I will take a photo of my studio tomorrow.

FRUSTRATION

I have no idea how to do my blog now.  I don't see any option for downloading pictures and without that there is no point in blogging.  I will have to ask around, if you visit me and you know how to do this could you leave me a comment.

Thanks.

RETURN TO BLOGLAND

I have been missing from blog land since last November - the time sure does fly by quickly!  I have continued to have sessions with a Life Coach, although a different one than I started with.  The new woman I have is around my age and really GETS the issues that many of us have to deal with when we retire.  I will tell more about this tomorrow.

The way to post has all changed and I don't know how to download pictures now.  This is very strange.

This is my October calendar. I printed off 2 x 3 pictures and fitted them in. Some of them are of other people's art and sewing that I liked and some are of fabric that I liked. I have started another one for November as it is quite fun looking for things to take photos of. Some pictures of of my own sewing and crafts:
This is an art journal page that I did today. I have been re-reading Care Of The Soul by Thomas Moore and these are some quotes from his book:

SEE THE SACRED DIMENSIONS OF EVERY DAY.

IN ORDINARY LIFE CREATIVITY MEANS MAKING SOMETHING FOR THE SOUL OUT OF EVERY EXPERIENCE.

WE CAN ALL CREATE SACRED BOOKS AND BOXES - A VOLUME OF DREAMS, A HEARTFELT DIARY, A NOTEBOOK OF THOUGHTS, A PARTICULARLY MEANINGFUL ALBUM OF PHOTOGRAPHS - AND THUS IN A SMALL BUT SIGNIFICANT WAY CAN MAKE THE EVERYDAY SACRED. THIS KIND OF SPIRITUALITY, SO ORDINARY AND CLOSE TO HOME, IS ESPECIALLY NOURISHING TO THE SOUL.

This is how I wish to live my life.

A soulful, healthy meal:

Tomatoes, cucumber, orange pepper, walnuts, German butter cheese, brocconini cheese balls (it's the first time I've had these and they are pretty tasteless), basil leaves and sour cream for a dressing/dip. Very delicious (except for the brocconini!!!)