Hello and welcome to the art/life trail ride!
Our journey is one of creative exploration and discovery. On the trail ride we connect to relaxed right brained feminine/receptive power, the fuel that propels forward movement.
Forward movement is about to amp up here at the East Gate of spring.
‘Steppin’ In’, Drozda, Acrylic/board, 48 x 36”, private collection
During this second and third week of March explore the ‘Purity’ Moon. Her energy began Monday, March 8. This cycle contains both the closing of and the opening to the Natural Year.
One year ago, March 2015, the trek began. In these last days before the spring equinox we say, ‘Fare Thee Well’.
Darkest Before Dawn
Imagine being deep in your dreams. Imagine the moments just before waking up. That’s what this cycle offers. There is a stirring. A dream that stirs something inside. There is a dream that is pushing you. The push is to wake up.
At this time of year we engage in the heavy lifting of transformation. Begin to turn dreams into action. Expand the art/life outlook. Spiral into the center of your true nature.
It’s time to take the dream out of The Mystery. Time to come h’OM’e to the Central. The Central refers to the home of The Archetypal Ancestors: Grandfather Sun, Grandmother Moon, Father Sky, Mother Earth and to the Elements: earth, air, fire and water…these are forces that sustain us all.
“…The power of the World always works in circles, and everything tries to be round. …The sky is round, and…the earth is round like a ball, and so are all the stars. The wind, in its greatest power, whirls. Birds make their nests in circles, for theirs is the same religion as ours. The sun comes forth and goes down again in a circle. The moon does the same, and both are round. Even the seasons form a great circle in their changing, and always come back again to where they were. The life of a man is a circle from childhood to childhood, and so it is in everything where power moves.”
Black Elk Speaks
I also celebrate this turn of the wheel with the words of Gary Snyder:
PRAYER FOR THE GREAT FAMILY
Gratitude to Mother Earth, sailing through night and day–
and to her soil: rich, rare and sweet
in our minds so be it.
Gratitude to Plants, the sun-facing light-changing leaf
and fine root hairs: standing still through wind
and rain; their dance is in the flowing spiral grain
in our minds so be it.
Gratitude to Air, bearing the soaring Swift and the silent
Owl at dawn. Breath of our song
clear spirit breeze
in our minds so be it.
Gratitude to Wild Beings, our brothers, teaching secrets,
freedoms and ways; who share with us their milk;
self- complete, brave, and aware
in our minds so be it.
Gratitude to Water: clouds, lakes, rivers, glaciers;
holding or releasing; streaming through all
all bodies salty seas
in our minds so be it.
Gratitude to the Sun: blinding pulsing light through
trunks of trees, through mists, warming caves where
bears and snakes sleep–he who wakes us–
in our minds so be it.
Gratitude to the Great Sky
who holds billions of stars–and goes yet beyond that–
beyond all powers, and thoughts
and yet is within us–
Grandfather Space
The Mind is his Wife.
so be it.
Gary Snyder after a Mohawk prayer.
Welcome H’OM‘E
As the East Gate opens on the spring equinox we begin a new walk round the art/life circle. In the tree illustration above the poem notice the area where all of the roots come together. We call this The Central. See a similar coming together within the center of your physical body (between the heart and the solar plexus), this is your natural place of balance. This is your Central. This is your home port… I like to call it: h’OM‘e. Welcome OM.
This is where you ground and center. When you are grounded in your Central there is an electrical current that plugs you into deepest calm connection. At this time of the Natural Year there is a sense of beginning again…think spring. Spring gives us a creative focus and sets us off on the art/trail with an enthusiasm and lightness. We are lighter because we’ve been six moon/months in the Underworld. We’ve been resting in the womb cave. Life on the Topside has continued yet we’ve tended to the inner experience of dying to what no longer functions’ We’ve re-birthed a current strength. We’ve cleared the mind and heart so as to renew the commitment to the art/life. We’re ready now for moving forward with much of our baggage unpacked.
We’ll have 13 tune-up points in the year ahead. Each New Moon turns your attention toward your current INNER vision, the compelling vision, for your Art/Life.
Journal page detail, Sybil Mays, 2016
‘HOMing’ is natural. We welcome and remember what it feels like to ‘come back home’.
In the first week of March we took an end of life view. Now we are ready. It takes courage to reconnect to the meaning that we intend to make in the year ahead.
‘Hail (detail)’, Drozda, Acrylic/board, 14 x 16”
Imagine this week that you are turning to your deepest inner power. It might be imagined as a rebirth of sorts. There is something accomplished and triumphant in this part of the cycle.
March brings us full circle and allows us to celebrate the progress that we have made solely because of the sustained support that has made it all possible. As my teachers remind; “You don’t become yourself by yourself.”
‘I Once Had Other Dreams’, detail, Sybil Mays, Lampshade, Media Blend, 2016
During the days between now and March 20 (when spring begins) take time to expand your dream. Prepare to reach up and out. Purify the creative practices that you are most invested in. Let some worn out habits and entrenched ideas go. Soon you will climb back into the saddle and be off and running.
The art/life trail ride this year lines up with Compassion in Action. 2016 is going to sync in with slow time, wholistic, integrative time….natural time…this kind of relationship with time emanates from the Central and allows for a more effortless ease.
In the Dream, Drozda, Acrylic/canvas, 64 x 64”, price on request
Here’s our link to The 2016 Lifecycle Forecast …check in on the Global Year to support each next step on your path of ‘Compassion in Action’. These two weeks prior to the Spring equinox is a good time to make your commitment to what you will create in the new Natural Year.
WISE WOMAN OF THE WEEK
Welcome our Wise Woman companion on the art/life trail…in the second week of each moon/month I choose a well known powerful force for change. I choose a wise woman who stands the test of time.
Elisabeth Kübler-Ross
Her five stages of grief model (denial, anger, bargaining, depression, acceptance), can be applied in many different ways to this point of winding down The Mystery quadrant of the year. Kübler-Ross was a catalyst for personal change. She faced head on the emotional factors resulting from death and dying.
My Brother Myself, Drozda, Acrylic/board, 12 x 14″, private collection
Thanatology (from the Greek word ‘thanatos’ meaning death) is the study of death and dying. Elisabeth Kübler-Ross, a thanatologist, is considered to have contributed significantly to the creation of the genre.
Elisabeth Kübler-Ross’s book On Death & Dying, published in 1969 introduced and explained her ‘five stages of grief’. We could say that sharing this information was her healing dream. Hers was an outspoken and bold revolutionary vision at the time. Her desire to change the way that we approach end of life and the loss of those we love is her legendary strength. She sensitively and compassionately pioneered the valuable concepts that we can apply to our own experience.
Thanks to the spirit of Elisabeth Kübler-Ross for gifts from The Mystery given action and voice in the world.
Compassion Action for this week…
Consider your Sacred Dream. What would be good here? What will you allow to come to meet you on the fresh trail up ahead?
Journal your ideas. Mind Map your direction.
Thank you for this, Donna. It came at a good time for me, particularly the quotation from Kubler-Ross.
Hi Patty
Being the butterfly and perceiving the ability to understand, laugh and grow…quite the prescription indeed.
Hugs to you
_/\_