Hello and Welcome to the art/life trail ride …

Happy New Moon in Aries! April 7 marks the start of our Natural New Year! This is an exciting time and we’re hopping back into the saddle! YeeHaa!!

Here on the trail we align with Natural Time which nourishes instinctive and wild creative power. We’ve been 6Moons in the underworld. From October through March we took time to rest in the womb cave for at least 15 minutes a day. Some of us might have invested longer periods sinking in and recreating our art/life. Some of us may have entered the resting and rejuvenating space less frequently. Fortunately the art/life is neither a competition or a race…each of us creates our path as we move along.

A Prayer for the New Millennium

      May All beings everywhere be awakened, healed, peaceful and free;                                                            

May there be peace in this world, and an end to war, poverty, violence and oppression;                     

 And may we all together complete the spiritual journey.   

                                                                                                  Lama Surya Das

Last moon/month’s closing moon cycle (March 8-April 7) has given us the opportunity to sink deep and wide. It’s been a one month immersion in the dream-time. I call this last moon cycle each Natural Year the in utero zone. In the final moon/month of any Natural Year we rest in the dream of what will be.

Dreaming is necessary for a healthy trail ride. Dreaming happens when we let go and suspend consciousness in meditation, relaxation and the dream state called Theta.

Each time we return from Theta we birth ideas, inspiration, direction and the courage to move forward on the art/life path.

 ‘Did I Dream This?’, Drozda, Acrylic/board, 18 x 24″, private collection

“The emotions are not always subject to reason, but they are always subject to action!”                                                                                                                                                                W. Clement Stone

I trust that you made refreshing discoveries over the past six moon/months. You may have tapped into what needs to be with you and, as a result of spending time in the stillness, you may have chucked what needed to be released. That’s grand! Notice particularly what this past month held for you.

Now in April pack your saddlebag with the treasures gathered. Take along what ignites your passion.

THIS MOON/MONTH BE ON FIRE!

April’s keyword is Clarity. Clarity sets the imagination on fire and is the first leg of the art/life trail on the Natural Calendar wheel. The wheel is like a spiral that allows us to dance as we move forward and upward Natural Year by Natural Year.

Now… I’m pretty much committed to ‘there isn’t any place to get to’ and ‘we’re exactly where we’re meant to be’….and yet….every year when the Natural Year opens with the Equinox/Aries East Gate it can be great fun to ‘knock it outta the park’  imagining ALL the possibilities for your Art/Life…with Clarity.

The first six months offer us the action oriented/masculine energy half of the Natural Year.

April_Clarity…visualizing  your art/life

May_Wisdom…researching your art/life

June_Illuminate…the radiance of your art/life

July_Growth…throughout your art/life

August_Trust…every aspect of your art/life

September_Love…your art/life

During the six-months ahead the energy is outward focused. It’s the masculine oriented half of the year and it demands active participation. We now forge our world through our vision, commitment and intention. What sets your heart/mind on fire?

 

~ MY SHORT STORY ~

Wren House Studio Garden, Spring 2016

I last posted on March 14. I have missed you!! I didn’t know that I would be a full cycle ‘underground’.  It’s been wonderful. All month I have been in my deepest dream…not asleep… rather gardening, being still, sitting back at the water’s edge, hiking 4 miles every day, staying off the grid most of each day. I’ve been clearing paths at the farm and drawing in the small works studio, I’ve begun to archive my journals and paintings. I’ve engaged in a 30 day physical cleanse and I’ve been watching vultures dip and soar.

The breeze at dawn has secrets to tell you.
Don’t go back to sleep.
You must ask for what you really want.
Don’t go back to sleep.
People are going back and forth across the doorsill
where the two worlds touch.
The door is round and open.
Don’t go back to sleep.
                                                                         Rumi

In the woods, fields and garden I immerse in my dream/vision for the coming year. At spring equinox a dynamic shift occurs. I lean into the threshold of the New Natural Year…the opening feels profound.

 Cloud bank at the farm , Drozda, 2016

Monday, March 21 my partner, BD., suggested that we drive to the courthouse. I ask why? She says we could go for our marriage license. I say REALLY? And so we did. Days later, on March 30, we laughed and sang ‘Going to the Chapel’ as we drove to a short n’ sweet ceremony officiated by our  friend Reverend Jan. My sister, Linda and brother in law, Kenny brought us flowers and stood with us as BD & I begin this new chapter.

BD, Kenny, Linda, Me, March, 30, 2016

My FaceBook page has been aglow with well wishes. Whatever unfolds within the greater vision for well-being in my art/life has the underpinning of this intimate/historic resonance.  

TELL A VISION

We are back in the saddle and this is your chance to be proactive!
Being proactive supports your greater art/life vision.

Say aloud to yourself:

I want, I choose, I desire, and I make space for my greater vision and contribution to take center stage in my art/life.

 

Center Stage is where each new trail ride begins

The Center of your Natural Year Wheel is where you meet the Ancestral energies that support and sustain your art/life trail ride.

The Ancestral and Elemental energies are seven in total: take the time to reacquaint yourself forming a vital relationship with Grandfather Sun, Father Sky, Grandmother Moon, Mother Earth, earth, air, fire, water. When you acknowledge these constants (they are present in every living being) they become alive and integrated into your whole mind; you will feel stable and at home within yourself.

WELCOME  ‘OM’

The Ancestors and the elements in the Central, Drozda, 2006

Take the time now to orient toward home port; a base camp to return to during all of your travels throughout the year. Here in the Aries cycle, as you climb back into the saddle, is the time to bring yourself back home to your center.

It’s exciting to begin a new art/life trail ride following 6 moon/months of resting, rejuvenating and mining the inner gold!

Yes, our schedules have continued to crank and call us to engage and the cultural push is to be always active. Yet beneath the surface of things, for even 15 minutes each day, there has been the undercurrent of relaxing the hectic pace…leaning into feminine time hopefully is now a part of your daily yoga.

This week we acknowledge the quality of time out of time even as we begin to step up and out into the ‘Topside World’ traveling through the 90 days of the spring quadrant.

THE ART OF THE START

This first 29.6 day moon cycle of Spring opens the door to the most natural alignment with resources, inspirations, visions and actions possible. By this year’s end I look forward to you being able to share the genuine advancement that you’ve made in feeling at peace and in harmony with your art/life. You may want to create your ‘Year of Compassion in Action’  journal recording the ways in which this takes place.  

April, May and June provide the 90 days making up the area of the Spring Quadrant that carries the codeword ME.  What we want to tap into in April is the ‘New Clarity of ME’. We’re not referring to a self-centered persona/ego-oriented me. To the contrary, we’re exploring the loving, caring, nurturing and tending ME of the Deeper Self…she that we met and refreshed our relationship with during the six months in the Underworld. What the Dalai Lama refers to as the “wise selfish” ME. Each year in the first three spring moons of the Natural Wheel a lovely rhythm helps us to harmonize.

April is your point of energetic New Beginning. As you move around the Natural Wheel of the Year 2016, each cycle will build upon the next. What you hold a vision of during this April moon cycle will be providing you with Clarity.  The moon of May will provide Wisdom that transpires as a result of that Clarity. In the June moon of the Spring Quadrant you will discover the Illumination that radiates from the Wisdom garnered in May.  

WISE WOMAN OF THE WEEK

Each week we meet a Wise Woman on the art/life path.

I wouldn’t want to miss the opportunity to share with you a glimpse into the world of my wife, Brenda Joy Davidson (BD)…funny, feisty, and a most irreplaceable of beings.

 BD at our wedding, March 30, 2016

BD touches, moves and impresses me with her worldview everyday. We have been sharing the art/life for 33.5 years and I know her to be a true Renaissance Woman. She grew up on her family’s farm and started to work out in the fields at a young age. She experienced the joy of riding her horse to school and in 4-H events. BD tended to the milk cows, baled hay and worked beside her dad, Will, mending fences, running his beagles and doing assorted chores that are so foreign to my upbringing that they read like a novel. Will showed BD that most any piece of electrical equipment, farm machinery or tool could be repaired and put back into service with a bit of wire and some ingenuity.

Jean, BD’s mom, was an avid antique collector, home economics teacher and she generously passed along her designer eye. She also set the stage for BD to become the artist with food that she is today.

Whether cooking an exceptional meal or forging a new path BD is making an art/life of wit and wonder that I am so honored and inspired to share.

BD, Bodhi and Junebug on our farm, spring 2015

~ Thanks BD for all that you bring through your compassion-in-action worldview ~

To all my wonderful readers…Enjoy being back in your saddle under the light of your New Aries Moon/Month letting Clarity be your guide!

If you are looking for a creative GPS tool that is geared to lift you beyond current roadblocks and challenges email me and I’ll send your 2 page printable 2016 Personal Year PDF.

TIME MASTERY IS SELF MASTERY

With Luna See and Lifecycle you expand your capacity and ability to experience, express, create and contribute your deepest, widest, most authentic gifts to this beautiful world.

Donna Iona Drozda, All rights reserved. © 2016