This is the Brilliance Moon month of June. I hope that you will invest a bit of time each day in acknowledging and celebrating your creative brilliance in all the ways it comes through you. You may grow a garden, or cook a meal for yourself and those you love, you may be a volunteer in your community or active in your studio, or doing the work that you love in the world. There are endless and limitless ways to shine.
In this post, I place a spotlight on the creative brilliance of health professional and newly minted poet Valerie Sayre.
Valerie has taken the lessons from her life and crafted them into a collection of soul songs. She commissioned me to add cover art and a group of illustrations to her words. I have a gift for reading and then interpreting language into visual imagery so it has been a joy to choose five of her poems to translate into brush and ink images. Seen here along with the first few lines of the poem titled:
Transition
Tumbling through the atmosphere
Light and etheric
Unknowing but knowing
Feeling peaceful with the quiet hum
Spirit guide is it you?
As the book Soul Soaring neared completion I was invited to sit down in conversation with Valerie. You can meet her and watch our 13-minute conversation video here.
From notes on Soul Soaring:
Valerie hopes to touch your heart and turn on your inner light or illuminate it even more. Every page will have you entertaining the idea of recognizing your gifts, manifesting your visions, and feeling empowered while experiencing harmony, joy, and divinity. Take a ride with Valerie and have your soul soaring!
I hope that you will order her book and allow her brilliance to fill your heart and soul with joy because we need one another to model the courage that it takes to share our strengths.
The South Gate Opens
(watch the 2020 video addressing this period here )
June is the moon/month to shine a brilliant light on your story for the purpose of becoming more genuine and true. June 21, the day of the Summer Solstice, marks the opening of the South Gate on the wheel of the year.
When the most active 90-day period of the natural year begins it invites us to engage in personal growth because it deepens our capacity to trust life leading to a deeper level of love for all that is. We move out of the spring quadrant where the focus is placed on enhancing the relationship with ME and now it’s time to move into the twelve weeks where we practice connecting to the WE … the field that connects us all.
Out beyond ideas of right doing and wrongdoing,
there is a field, I’ll meet you there.
Rumi
Between now and June 21 take a few minutes each day to face chaos, practice pushing into creative stress, and incrementally learn to Trust. This cumulative Growth will pay Love dividends beyond where you can now imagine.
Creative prompt:
Ask yourself and journal your guidance:
Where on this 90-day South Pathway do I sense challenges and obstacles? Write them down. Name them.
How do I address inertia? Identify the places where you feel stuck or mired.
Am I afraid of and avoiding Growth? No shame and no blame, simply notice.
Do I have a history of and reasons for not relating to Growth, Trust, and Love?
Am I skeptical, hurt, and hardened in my heart?
Am I afraid to Love my art/life and all that it brings?
By taking the time to journal these inquiries you will create the momentum of breakthrough. You’ll activate the flow that is natural and will begin to move forward once more. Share, first with yourself in your journal and then with a trusted friend what you discover. We grow together and we need one another. The ninety days of summer support this practice and what we learn becomes part of our increasing sense of identity, what in Buddhism is referred to as our True Nature.
