Welcome to our first post in June! We’re on the art/life trail ride and the keyword each June is Illumination. Our challenge this moon/month is to be bright and radiant! Are you ready to shine?
Here is a reminder of one gift we received in this year’s Lifecycle Forecast:
“In 2016, dispose of the old. Make space for the new, Go for the gold.”
Drozda, journal page, 2007
When I think gold I find myself naturally drawn to The Hero’s Journey and the work of Joseph Campbell, the originator of the term “Follow Your Bliss!”
Life as an art and art as a game, as action for its own sake, without thought of gain or loss, praise or blame, is the key then to the turning of living itself into a yoga, and art as the means of such a life.
Joseph Campbell
Our twelve touchstones for walking around the Natural Calendar bring an inherent graceful pace. The point is to hush the rush. It’s truly amazing what happens when we trust the process and release the tight grip on the reins of the art/life.
During the spring quadrant practice letting go of the thrum and drum of the media beat. In its place find a pace that you might refer to as ‘my own natural energy’… this is the place where bliss can be followed and found.
The Natural Year begins at the New Moon nearest to the March 20 Spring Equinox. This first moon/month in Aries places a laser light on Clarity. The Clarity cultivated has much to do with this starting point and your inner vision. May brings Wisdom comes to call and Clarity does indeed open the mind to a deeper awareness or wakefulness; which is Wisdom. Now as we move through the terrain of June there is the expansion of day’s length and with it the sun’s power combining to accentuate the brilliance within each of us. Truly. How fine it is to take a month to focus upon dazzle and shine!
June’s keyword of Illumination can be defined in countless ways. Find your own definition. Take time, as part of the month long challenge, to discover and to re-define what Illumination, brilliance, radiance, lights on, being lit up and being your brightest means for you.
My Short Story
I’m curious about ‘being content with my content’. Any research I conduct along these lines is useful and fulfilling. I relish the opportunity to ‘flip it!’ turning scared to sacred. I practice check and balance exercises. I want to double-check if I’m feeling inclined to point a finger ‘out there’ so that with due diligence I remember the same time three fingers pointing back at me. This simple routine helps me to stop playing a blame game.
Case in point…last week I was in a new and unfamiliar environment. I was given just a bit of information about my ‘being too much’. This opinion contained a hook that had potential to make me feel bad about myself. I could have ‘gone somewhere’ and dimmed myself down. I could have found myself, beside myself, apologizing for someone not getting me.
I could have lost my brilliance.
I might have given away my bliss.
Instead I took ten steps back so that I could look with more objective and impersonal eyes. I reached into my saddle bag and highly polished, to a brilliance, my check and balance tool.
Tarot card (detail), Drozda, 1993
I had to be honest and own the part that was mine as well as the part that had nothing to do with ME.
What practice do you have in place for times when something jumps out onto the path and takes you by surprise?
One of my favorite artists, Joan Miro states:
Courage consists of staying home and close to nature, nature who takes no account of our calamities.
Drozda, selfie, 2016
The Brilliance of A New Relationship with Yourself
In John Gardner’s book Self Renewal there is support for sanity addressing situations and circumstances that would attempt to steal thunder and extinguish brilliant flashes of lightning:
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Openness
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Independence
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Flexibility
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Capacity to find order in experience
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Confidence, self-assertiveness, sense of destiny
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The faith in one’s capacity to do the things one wants and needs to do in the area of one’s chosen work.
Gardener explains: Whether in art, in manners, or in social structure the trend to intricate elaboration often falls of its own weight, and men and women again seek a simple direct relationship to life and one another as human beings.
Let’s imagine that the timing is right and good all this year to have the compassion required to see brilliance…and follow bliss. It ain’t easy yet together we can accomplish the evolutionary art of being aware of bliss when and where we find it.
See you next week as we continue exploring the graced pace of the art/life trail.
I am a working Heartist with forty eight years of practice supporting the creative best in each of us to come forth and shine.
Join the art/life trail ride and make creative joy the vocation of your mind.
The Art/Life Trail Ride weekly blog by Donna Iona Drozda, 2016 ©
I can relate to the “fault” of too much. It’s a mighty struggle to burst forth in bloom without apology.
Hi Lynn…indeed the ‘too much’ and the ‘not enough’ polarity is one that can really do a number on confidence and willingness to take the next step along the path.
Let’s raise a glass to having the courage to continue to continue…being supportive of the journey that we share. A journey rich in all its diversity and similarity.
Good to know that you are here 😉
Very much with you.
Your words touch close to home and are right on-time. Thank you for the re-minder to let go and be open to the treasure that comes from making space for it to be discovered. Go for the gold…illumination…flexibility…be in nature. There are lots of scary false beliefs just waiting to grab our attention and leading to some very dark places. Your words provide an alternative to falling into that deep dark hole. By knowing that brilliance is always here now, just a breath away, is such a gift. Yep, that’s why they call it the present.
Hi Sara
EGAD! Let’s be brave and talk about dark places…I’ve been out in the deep woods this morning clearing paths and no matter how well prepared I am (long pants tucked into high socks, tall boots, tight sleeves, hat and well reviewed spray…there will still be a number of ticks along with some of their nymph phase babies … picture the size of a dot made by the tip of a needle crawling somewhere onto your skin and hopefully being seen before attaching to suck your blood…that will find their way over to the canine and human buffet. Expect this and you’re well on the way toward not being undone by it.
This month we can help one another to get a grip on our fears and address any predatory infiltrators that attempt to dim down the bright light of imagination…look at them, remove them by swift and appropriate means and then move along through the dazzling day.
The key is to look toward how we can help one another…this is a critical process in our current events.