Happy First Week of Summer on the art/life trail ride!

Summer Solstice, June 20 marked the first quarter turn on our Natural Calendar. We are now inside the South Gate of the circle. We might call the ninety days of the Summer Quadrant the Va Va Voom days!

Think burgeoning! Think organic growth! Think ACTION!

Here at the South Gate we’re ready for the action oriented/masculine ‘make it happen’ thrust of the Natural Year. Giddy-UP! Passion in ACTION!!

The Natural Calendar supplies an organic and elegant rhythm for your art/life. Here as you connect to the Solstice its beneficial to pause, survey the atmosphere and breathe deeply as you imagine gazing inward toward the Central, the center, of the circle. To support this exercise you might actively draw your breath into your heart as you think ‘May I be Centered’. On the out breath you might exhale with the wish ‘May all beings be Centered.’ 

 

South Gate: Growth, Trust, Love, Drozda, Journal page

This Center/Central is where the Ancestors and the creative elements reside. On the trail ride recognize that all living beings are composed of the Ancestral energies: Grandfather Sun, Grandmother Moon, Mother Earth and Father Sky. Also within each life we find the elements of earth, air, fire and water. These relationships sustain, live within and create every living body.

Good. Bad. Monster. Saint. Every living being is made up of these creative forces.

The Central: Ancestors and elements, Drozda, foam sheets, 2010

Each of the four directional paths on the Natural Calendar (marked by the Solstice and Equinox Gates) lead attention back to the Central/Center. Here on the trail remind yourself to regularly foster a conscious relationship with the Ancestors and the elements. Year upon year this creative rhythm grows and evolves.

It’s time now to be gathering the creative tools and to forge the path marked Growth, Trust and Love. Who of us can’t see the brilliance and goodness of honing a renewed relationship with these three summer show stopping qualities?

Place a spotlight on one of the three. Choose Growth or Trust or Love as your focus. Map out your 90 day creative challenge. Where would you like to arrive in three months in relation to this chosen quality? Note the tensions that get activated with the remaining two keywords and lean into what this summer trio represents for you.

The Summer Quadrant is a natural time to take massive action. This is the time to create traction around your vision for the year (review April and what you were seeing as possible). It’s empowering now to actively pursue THE project. Stretch yourself. Your stress can be shape shifting. The potential is to turn negative and chaotic stress into the passion of creative stress. There’s a big and noticeable difference between negative and creative stress. Wouldn’t it be grand to have a class on this in elementary education? I didn’t receive such a lesson…did you?

My Short Story

For me the big stress, thus my deepest learning on the South Pathway, has been a life long need to be learning to Trust.

How to Trust?

What to Trust?

Who is Trustworthy?

By my nineteenth year I had experienced a plethora of challenging situations and by June of that year I had made the best choice (of the few options available). I relinquished my newborn son to the Catholic Charities adoption system.

Before either of us left the hospital (to begin our separate new chapters) he was brought to my room ‘by mistake’. I held the small sleeping bundle close and quickly drew his portrait: my one and only memento:

As I sketched his brand new face, with a ballpoint pen onto the envelope containing the adoption papers, I made a vow to this tiny spirit that I would do my best (should we ever meet again) to make him proud. I wasn’t aware of it at the time yet I was standing at the South Gate gazing ahead to Grow, to Trust and to Love life somehow and someway. A silent promise to this infant soul intuitively and instinctively created a shape shift.

Within weeks the story line took yet another turn pulling me deeper into a flaming hell realm. There was no air. Yet life works and for the following thirty-two years my ability to Trust slowly repaired and was able to grow. All the while I played a game that I invented called ‘There he is, that’s him.’ This exercise allowed me to imagine that I could Trust life to be raising my child well. My sport was expansive and acknowledged all boys his age as my child. I imagined him riding his bike, skateboarding in the park, walking past me on the street, in the cafe on a date, at the movie, hiking, in the farmer’s market with his little boy in hand. I met him everywhere around the world as I traveled. He was always with me as I silently declared, “There he is, that’s him!” At the same time I had the awareness that he could be alive or he could be not alive.  My pledge endured embedded in the words….“There he is, that’s him!”

 

A Deep Hunger #8, Drozda, Acrylic/board, 2003

In 1999 as a hospice volunteer I placed a call to Catholic Charities. A hospital bed needed for Nanny 90 years old and dying in her cement block hovel near the Chesapeake Bay. A week or two later the message light was flashing on my answering machine. The I.D. reads Catholic Charities. But wait. Something odd here, the area code is out-of-state. Not Virginia but Catholic Charities in my Ohio hometown.

Lightening bolt… this is ‘THE CALL’.

The Call, Drozda, Acrylic/canvas, 40 x 40″, 1991, private collection

I stare at the phone. I’m holding my breath. I drink water. I dial the number. A young woman answers. She too becomes breathless when I identify myself. Her words gush out; “I’m not supposed to do this, it’s against policy, but I had to! I put your file in the trunk of my car and brought it home. I’m not supposed to. This is against policy. I called you as soon as I got home. I shouldn’t be doing this; but I wanted you to know that…I’m just going to say it … … … …

I spoke with your son today.”

Freeze frame. Words never felt by these ears. Words enter. Words. Stop. The world. All quiet. All still. No sound.

A long silence. She resumes,

“Are you there? Are you Okay?’

“Go on,” I say. 

She then lets me know that she is not permitted to say more. Repeating that she wasn’t supposed to do this. She says, “The next step is for one of you to call Adoption Network.” My hand trembles as I write the number.

I hear blood pounding through my expanded heart. I thank her. I stand in the kitchen and the world is changed. Forever. I drink a glass of water. I dial Adoption Network. The case worker tells me that my son has just called.

“What’s his name?” I ask.

His reply, “I’m sorry, I can’t disclose that information.”

“Where does he live?” I ask.

“I’m afraid I am not able to give out that information.” he continues with his task.  “As your son was the first to call it will be up to him to determine what happens now. He did let me know that he would be traveling for a time.”

I push on. “Can you tell me how he sounds?”

“How he sounds?” the case worker is puzzled.

Yes. Can you tell me, speaking with him, can you tell me how he sounds…to you?”

Oh! Yes, well.” He softens and states gently, “He sounds as though he has an even keel.”

Tremendous comfort wells into my heart.

 

Me and my son at Wren House, 2015

I suppose it goes without saying…but I’ll say it anyway this being the moon/month to shine a brilliant light on your story...my willingness to face chaos, practice pushing into creative stress, incrementally helped me learn to Trust. This cumulative Growth has paid Love dividends beyond the beyond. 

Ask:

Where on this South Pathway do I sense my challenges and obstacles?

How do I address inertia?

Am I afraid of and avoiding Growth?

Do I have history of and reasons for not relating to Growth, Trust, Love?

Am I skeptical, hurt and hardened in my heart?

Am I afraid to Love my art/life and all that it brings?

The trail ride is very individualized. This path is not one-size-fits-all. I value that awareness a lot! Each of your actions during this cranked up and outgoing portion of the year (called summer) impacts the self while at the same time touching Others. You can think of this ninety days as the WE Field.

Out beyond ideas of right doing and wrong doing there is a field.
I’ll meet you there.

Rumi

These 90 days between Summer Solstice and Fall Equinox are for becoming more creative in your relationships with Others. I’ve quoted one of my favorite teachers before: She reminds: 

“We can’t become ourselves by ourselves”

Who are the Others that you have invited into your art/life and why?

Is there Growth happening?

Do you Trust each Other?

Is there Love of life currently being mirrored?

Is there uncharted territory to explore together?

There’s no crystal ball on the art/life trail. Growth happens when we discover that it’s time to leave a relationship we’ve outgrown.  We may be yearning to feel Trust. We may be pining for the Love in partnership that fits and uplifts. First turn toward the Center/Central. Notice the relationship with the Ancestors and their roots in masculine/feminine balance. Connect to the elements. Walk in nature. Reach in and find your masculine/feminine balance  home. The Ancestors represent a relationship with consistency. Ever sustaining.

 

EXERCISE: Breathe deep ten times inhaling and ten times exhaling. Feel the compassion of a connection to something bigger and greater than self. Notice each inhalation drawing energy toward the heart and a conscious relationship with the Central. Notice each exhalation pushing the energy out toward connection and relationship with Others. As we move through the South Gate the three moon/months ahead turns focus from Spring/ME to Summer/WE. Relational. 

Here we are. This is us!

Think compassion. Think empathy. Think balanced relationship energy. Think of broadening your creative outlook. Consider philanthropy and volunteering and ways to be generous and generative.

At this time of year I find this poem… about connecting with Other…empowering:

To give is ever possible, there’s no lack in it.

This is the lesson we all need to learn,

And we learn it by teaching.

Because it is our own doubt that limits us,

This is the issue of our time.

We must transform the scarcity of doubt

To the peace of Trust.

We are rewarded with tremendous potential,

And the power of our gratefulness

Undoes every obstacle of limitation.

Tara Singh

Giving to Other isn’t self sacrifice. Teaching doesn’t have to be formal…some of the best ways to transfer information comes through humor, kindness and simply loosening up; ventilating the space. Consider your ability to master and to evolve your relationship with the fine arts and the healing arts by saying YES! to the ways you/we can share your/our brilliance.

Brilliant and Unlimited in our capacity to Grow…let’s be that… moving through the South Gate…

See you next week on the art/life trail ride!

 

I’m a working Heartist with forty eight years of practice supporting the creative best in each of us to come forth and shine.