I create as a way to navigate my life's journey.  This is my personal and spiritual practice.  In fact, all this other "living business" filters through my creativity.  Each time I find myself at the art-table, I am gazing into a mirror.  I trust it...deeply.  I trust it to show me the way, to reveal the higher road or to knock me down when surrender is a really good option.  

Creating helps me:
reflect, investigate, map, assess, release, reconnect, commune, heal.

Some day soon I hope to share more about my journey as an energy practitioner.  There is a simple explanation as to why I am open to this way of walking in this world; this open communication to these energetic multi-realms.  It was an initiation that didn't look like one and to tell you the truth, there are many that continue to present themselves as doorways in which I must step through.  The simple explanation is: trauma broke me open and the need to survive became my lessons.  I became hypersensitive; a sensing soul to all those subtle energies, that eventually became my guides.  My soul was cast and over the years I've been shamanic-ally pulling back the layers revealing the tightly knitted web that gently houses my essence. It's the part of me, and the part in you that is untouched, sacred, holy, pure, eternal. Art making is a way home to this.  A way back, centered into this realization.

The image below is a captured moment of my creative process.  I call this the crap-painting stage.  I say it with a frustrated tone as well.  I call it this because when I am face-to-face with the things I perceive to be awful, ugly, dark, shadowy (within myself) it manifests onto the canvas.  I am not saying this is "THE" process for everyone, I am just sharing my process here. 

How can I say there are these damaged parts and pieces of myself, you might be thinking.  

And, I'm responding with yes, of course there are these unmet pieces of me, sometimes hidden in the shadows.  

Most of the time, I don't even have a clue what they might be because I'm too busy projecting them.  And, I haven't met anyone who doesn't do this (jus-sayin).  This is just one way to notice them and bring some conscious light to them.  I don't necessarily think this is a bad thing, unless you are not willing to look at your part in it.  Which, again, isn't easy.  I know...I know.

This is a stage in art-making or life-making that is formless, unknown, in between.  It's the grit and grind before the smooth and shine.  This place always feels challenging.  I have no control and I feel so powerless.  I don't know what to make of it.  I'd rather throw it out and start over.  I want to quit and deem myself a sucky-artist.  Never having to take responsibility for my own expansion again.

Ever experience this?

Well, dear tender-heart...please stay with me here, 

What's happening here is: I've forgotten to see the beauty in the cycle or in my creative process.  My vision became blurred by the illusion of perfection, And perfection cuts us from many different angles,  For example: the false illusion to a permanent happiness or worse, a great fear that we won't be accepted, loved or seen.

This is some huge, deep work.  I know this, because this is my current work. But, there is hopeful movement making its way through.  It's all such a journey to be taken in and held with reverence and grace.  Hold that so-called "ugly" art with compassion because it's just the early stages of becoming or emerging.  

​Just like you.  

Now, I'm going to get real with you here...time for some #realtalk.  

:::Vulnerability Alert:::

As much as I'd rather not even share this, I've realized the hunt for approval is still a not so healed wound in my life.

This is the kind of #realtalk I am committed to and this is why I decided one brisk January morning to claim 2016 as #myyearofgentlerevival.

There is much to look at here, much to sift through, this is why I am also choosing to go gentle.

Gentle Revival: allowing the soul to rise, be in it's most authentic and original form.  All knowing intact.  All wisdom collected.  Noticing all the beauty.  Gently reminding the pulse to find it's rhythm and wake up.  Awaken to the life that is already full of meaning. 

If given the chance to truly speak your voice...truly- without judgement, without criticism from self and others, what would it sound like? 

To allow your voice an authentic, unscripted freedom to truly say what you mean would be delicious.  In it's most natural alignment, it may sing.  It may give nothing more than sweet poetry, a holy hymn, or a heavenly sigh.

It may even be slightly Shakespearean.  Maybe dramatic and highly toned; a vibrational pitch if you will.
Your delicate voice matters.
It matters, because it frees your most Inner Self into precious melody.
It vibrates along with the sound of the Universe, the sound of the ocean, the rhythm of the stars.

What?  Really? (you may be thinking).

Yes.  Hell yes.  #aBIGsoulYes

Sometimes, when I am facilitating an energy session, my voice brings through a vibration.  It may be words, affirmations, chants, whispers, breath or a song that is most aligned to the soul work you are engaging with in that moment.  Other times, I may ask the receiver to freely express what the voice wants to give.  A wondrous teacher and dear friend taught me a beautiful and sacred art of speaking in love. It's almost as if tendrils of heartful energy flowed with each word that my lips uttered.  She is a woman who knew her voice and understood the healing that could take place with a gentle song, sometimes a whisper...

A naked voice; in it's most natural state is one to behold.  We nurture it by listening to the way it carries words into this existence.  Allowing it to embolden you and inspire others is an act of radical worthiness.  It asks you to be it, own it...remember it.

The voice is such a powerful force.  It is central piece in our expressions.  So, it is true when I say your voice is needed.  It gives way for your inner healer to step in and share the wisdom embedded in our soul.  Let's explore our unfiltered voices to recognize and remember what we are bringing to our experiences.

Come, tell me.
Speak.  Sing.  Whisper.
Let me hear all about it.
I want to listen to the song of your heart. 

Awareness is continually re-birthing.  We do some plowing through the thick and slog our way through the mud until we reach the crystal clarity.  

This is intense work...agree? 

When I set up to play with paint, I plan nothing.  I go around rummaging through my trays and bins pulling things that say, YES, pick me!  I might even try every medium I've gathered at the work table before I feel satisfied.  Thank goodness for this open and free form of expression.  It is a personal process of catharsis for me.  It is a space were I allow a flow instead of a bucking the current.  There is also a freedom in knowing that it doesn't have to look like, or be anything that is considered "good-art" by societal standards.  

I proudly splash paint, glue things down and watch each layer give meaning to my experience.  It's this process that brings me to new ideas; new ways of being.        

Afterwards, messages or clues may appear in the painting.  I may see a shape, image, etc. or I may get a string of words...sometimes poetry rushes in.  In some cases, the process alone gives important and valuable information.  This art-making is worth more than becoming a recognizable picture.  This may lead to some deep soul work.  Sometimes, I don't willingly go there.  I get there by thrashing my way in with a painting I may not like at first.  I have to persevere through this stage.  Over time as I reflect on my messy art-work, it begins to grow on me and then I see it's medicine.

Today, I made the conscious decision to leave my old stories where they lay.  Today, I will honor them differently.  I choose not to pick them up and carry them without recognizing their true purpose.  I will treasure what they have taught me and return home with the most beautiful gift I have received, the one they wish to always give...I l l u m i n a t i o n.  My old stories are continuously encouraging me to start fresh, to start over, reminding me that I already went that way.  "Try another," they whisper.  

#newstory claim & tweet this!

My wish for you and I is to create for the purpose of expressing our true light.  To create without barriers...because WE CAN.