THE ART OF CREATING THE FUTURE

Glacier National Park Deer, Kevin LeFevre, photographer

Welcome to our fourth week on the January art/life trail ride. This week we make space for new creative vision.

To facilitate this we did a dismount at the beginning of the month taking time out of the saddle. January’s keyword: ‘Clearing’ creates space for wandering and wondering in the metaphorical forest clearing. It’s natural at this time of year to slow down a bit, to create a wandering space or if it’s your choice to rest, simply rest…opening space. 

Our values are changing, and our priorities too. For many of us, the choices we’re making are the ones that we’ll be living by for the remainder of our lives.

Christian McEwen

Reflecting, Sara Wasserman, 2016

This week let’s consider the clearing of stress. Stress can be a killer.

A stress filled mind blocks the path into The Mystery. During this wintery part of the art/life trail you want to make room to de-stress and create the future as you visualize and dream. This week dream about and picture what you are willing to create. Attempting to ‘see into the future’ can in itself be stressful…and yet this is our chance to practice.

As we push into creative stress we actually identify the next step on the trail…we begin to see into the clearing with a sense of direction. We set a course.

Creative stress is actually very useful as a navigational tool. Creative Stress adds ump and motivation to either stay the course or change course.

Creative stress is different from negative, debilitating stress.

Think creative as in transformation

Place yourself into the transformation process of egg, caterpillar, cocoon and the emerging winged one taking flight.

Locate where you are in these different stages of development. 

‘Bee Tara’, Drozda, mixed media/canvas, 67 x 44”

Every blade of grass has a beautiful soul; courage consists of staying home and close to nature, nature who takes no account of our calamities.

Joan Miro

Creative space is a doorway…an edge place. Here we sense into the liminal. We feel the opportunity to make a commitment to meaningful, creative, courageous, compassionate action.

From now until the March 22 equinox there is time to continue to create the clearing. Move into renewing and eventually ‘steam clean’ and purify your efforts.

In a couple of weeks we will jump back into the saddle and get moving on the trail. We will be refreshed and ready to go.  We rest and regroup intuitively and instinctively. Most of us don’t want to take this opportunity, We keep pushing or fall into inertia.

For fast-acting relief from stress, try slowing down.

Lily Tomlin

For the next few weeks I’ll be including, each week, The Lifecycle Forecast: the 20^th anniversary edition. I hope that you will settle in with a cuppa tea and consider your year ahead compassion in action.

The 2016 Lifecycle Forecast

Also make a note in your calendar to read the report at each quarter point of the natural wheel. Reviews will offer you renewed ‘Compassion in Action’ reminders.

“Your 2016 report is glorious.”

R.G.

Our Wise Woman companion on the art/life trail this week is: Sara Wasserman…

 

Harbor View 1, Sara Wasserman. 2016

Sara is a dedicated professional in her field as well as a wanderer and a wonderer currently in-between places on a silent retreat in Washington State.

 Harbor View 2, Sara Wasserman, 2016

Washington Hike, Sara Wasserman, 2016

 I share her gentle observations of space and time as a reminder of January’s gift to create a clearing.

 

Harbor View, Sara Wasserman, pencil, 2016

Oyster Shell, Sara Wasserman, pencil, 2016

Sara’s Notes from the Hood…Canal, Washington:

These are two pictures from the same hike; the Lena Lake Trail.

To give a little context, I am staying in a small enclave of vacation homes near the little town of Lilliwaup. I just resigned from a regular corporate job of 3.5 years in Southern California and taking some time and space before returning to Cleveland.  I am ‘on the road’ and on a pilgrimage. These are some of my favorite activities. I have the blessed opportunity to be in Mother Nature’s playground.

Sara Wasserman, 2016

Back to the pictures…The first one has a deep meaning for me.

I admit that I am a tree-hugger, the bigger and older the better. I have a particular fondness for the redwoods and cedars and pines. These trees are huge. Being alone on the trail, I was able to linger in the company of these standing ones. This one had wisdom to impart. It had obviously been in a fire and was scorched and one might say, scarred or disfigured. The possible message that I intuited was quite different.  It was about the essence or spirit of the tree was deep inside, unseen.  It was alive and thriving.  It could not be seen with the naked eye. The outside appearance was insignificant. It was only a story and a memory. It was not what was happening now. What was happening, in the now, the aliveness, was visceral. I am able to relate to this. As I get older and my outside appearance is, in my opinion, less ‘attractive’, I know that my spiritual center is radiant and flourishing.  It also speaks to the judgement held about other’s which only increases a sense of separation and the resulting suffering that brings.

Indeed, that thick bark is necessary to protect the vulnerable center of this tree in the heat of a fire, but, I, also, experience the presence and strength and life that remains giving life energy to the planet with a sense of oneness, generosity, and mutuality.

The second image is from that same hike.  I saw it on the way down. This is exactly how I found this leaf, smiling from its moist and mossy pedestal. 

 Reminding me to smile and to welcome the surprise and simplicity of life in the present moment.

So…I am so grateful to Donna for inviting me to contribute to her blog. Mostly, I am grateful to the abundance of the universe for sharing her bounty.

With much love,  Sara L.

Even if you do not physically travel…each year you can make room for the pause that truly clears and refreshes.

Compassion Action for this week…

 

Write it down. Take time to journal. Write about where you are. Write about where you are passionate about going. Write yourself a list, in longhand, of your frustrations and fears about the future. 

Consider what you are ready to renew…it might be a creative practice, a relationship, a habit that really works.

Feeling soothed after reading your post. Thank you  Donna.

Robyn Gordon via Face Book

TIME MASTERY IS SELF MASTERY

With Luna See and Lifecycle your ability to experience, express, create and contribute your deepest, wisest, gifts will naturally expand.

Donna Iona Drozda, All rights reserved. © 2016