Welcome to our third week on the January art/life trail ride.
January’s keyword: ‘Clearing’ … relates to creating space.
Creating space seems like a topic that doesn’t need much additional investigation…and yet as we all know sometimes there is soooo much and tooooo much and we don’t know where to start…some of us suffer from what has been termed “hurry sickness”.
We “work too much, eat too quickly, socialize too little, drive and sit in traffic for too many hours, don’t get enough sleep, and feel harried too much of the time.”
Juliet Schor
While we’re in the quieting time here in The Mystery quadrant (winter solstice to spring equinox) what could be better than to get down to the roots of things with the express aim of clearing space…helping the mind slow down and calm down. Here on the trail ride we use the image of, dismounting for a time and taking the stone steps down in where we visit the inner cave, the Underworld. We rest for a time and recreate the vision that we dream of for the coming Natural Year.
‘Earth Dance’, Drozda, mixed media, 16 x 20″, private collection
The 8 weeks ahead give us ample time for digging around in cave of The Mystery…learning what we can of this topic takes us deeper into the Orenda, the inner creative well, or you may imagine a wilderness shrine… from this inner realm discoveries unfold often with a synchronicity that feels akin to magic…yes, The Mystery…
All of us can decide (and the phrase is a potent one) to take our time. But to do so, we have to set aside our busy competence and practicality, at least for a while, and adopt a gentler and more expansive way of being.
If a cave image is difficult for you… get creative and allow yourself to stand in a protected yet open clearing… a space that allows you to feel both safely enclosed and still able to move about freely, a space that let’s you lean in and sense the rich, full and fertile possibility of a ‘room without a roof’.
A field outside my retreat studio on the Virginia Piedmont, Drozda, 2015
I instinctively found a way to have each of these, cave and clearing, when I was a kid. After school I’d dash home, clip the leash onto my pup, then off we’d go into the woods. All along the edges of the creek there were dense shrubs. I had my favorite places where Tippy and I would scoot under thick stems, crunching leaves, pushing ourselves into the center of the copse…then settle in as a pair of Silent Observers. We watched long and long the comings and goings of birds and small animals. Being perfectly quiet, gazing up at the sky, cloud watching freed me…I didn’t want to be anywhere else in the world.
Back at home I also created my quiet/cave/clearing. My bedroom was in the attic and the angle of the roof made the space high and open in the center of the room while the walls were so low that I couldn’t sit up in bed without touching the sloping ceiling. My closet fit into the small space beneath the eaves and in the back of the space I made my indoor hideaway. Whenever I wanted to be in my own world I would slide back behind my hanging clothes into that snug and inviting ‘clearing’. A soft glow from the small lamp on a wooden crate illuminated my cave. It was my refuge in the chaos with six other people moving in different directions on the floors beneath me.
Throughout January spend time in the clearing where you meet The Mystery. Notice where you can go to ‘get away’ from the outside/Topside world. What you allow into your awareness in January doesn’t disappear in February…indeed… what you forge as your Clearing/womb cave/deepest sanctuary now will be a place of refuge for as long as you desire.
She was someone who could not be rushed. That seems like a small thing. But it is actually a very amazing quality, a very ancient one…She went about her business as if she could live forever, and forever was very very long.
Alice Walker
Your focus this week is to take the action to discover the quiet place that fits your natural art/life.
Here’s a story from Wise Woman, Cheusa Wend, our companion this week on the art/life trail ride:
Meditation Room, Che’usa Wend
My photographer friend Felice sent me a wonderful photo print titled ‘Nirvana’ she took while visiting Burma (I think in 2007).
I hung the print last night. It came with a white mat so I found a piece of copper colour mat and used that inside a frame I painted copper colour a number of years ago.
Last week I also hung my ‘Dreaming the Dance’ watercolor that I did in 2005. I have missed having her near me and have been taking time in bed at night and morning just looking at her.
Not sure I can put this into words.
This morning upon awakening and not ready to begin the day yet, I turned on my little mp3 player to a folder that had 8 tracks in it, but I wasn’t sure which CD it came off of…kind of soft Koto style, Japanesey music.
As I lay there and looked where the 2 pictures hang, I was focused on the boy and the light of the candles and then saw the painted lips and eyes on the Buddha in front of him (I think in some kind of cave) . . .
‘Nirvana’, Felice Willat
and then the lips and eyes of my ‘Dreaming the Dance’ Lady.
(I turned Her photo sideways here just to see what they looked like both laying down!)
Wow!
‘Dreaming the Dance’, Che’usa Wend, watercolor
2005 ‘backstory‘: Since I don’t draw, I have always just ‘moved colour with water’ to see what comes out.
My friend Susan had a wonderful charcoal drawing of a Madonna and I was taken by how the eyebrows curved down to make the nose. So I borrowed it from her for a few days and thought I would try it out.
The Dreamer is what appeared!
As I looked at both of them this morning, I began musing about the young boy, so reverent (not sure THAT is the word), focused, holding the candle, honouring the other lights burning there before the Buddha and honouring the Buddha.
All of a sudden it dawned on me that what he was doing was beyond words. It is acknowledging his light with the Greater Light.
And then it occurred to me that all this ‘protection’ people talk about needing is fear rearing its head.
This little one shows that no protection is needed . . . just an honouring, almost an ‘awe-ness’, but not worshipping as we have been taught to do. (Those words don’t really express what I felt this morning unfortunately)
In the ‘World of’ or perhaps the ‘Dimension of Nirvana’, there IS ONLY LIGHT and that sense/feeling/knowing IS Oneness that people have longed for/searched for/spoken of for eons.
I could actually FEEL from that little one’s honouring, the Oneness in all life.
Thank you for your share Bricolage Artist, Che’usa Wend and photographer Felice Willat we all become more trail ready by coming together in the cave and in the clearing.
To recap:
Between now and March 21 continue to be investing in your quiet space…remember 15 minutes a day is sufficient. This may be a ‘clearing in the woods’ of your mind, this may be the cave deep in the Underworld where you recreate your connection to your compelling vision for the year ahead. Wherever your place is be aware of its portability…you can carry this clear space with you everywhere you go.
This is also the place where you can return at any time and come back to The Mystery…we need these twelve weeks from winter solstice to spring equinox to replenish, regenerate and re-create the dream…connecting to the synchronicity and magical realm deep in the roots.
See you next week on the art/life trail ride…
Oh, Donna……….I really love this one!!……….ALL of it! – the thoughts, the art/photographs/insights…..just all of it! Things are swirling so fast that it has taken me until today to be able to finally read this week’s blog all the way through. And “Bingo, again!” – just the right words about the right things at the right time! I have felt pulled in way too many directions for peace and balance to remain steady in my life so I have been busy with “NOTS”……….not accepting invitations to go places I felt would keep me from my own inner and outer work right now, not allowing the wants of others to drag me off point, not feeling guilty for pulling back rather than doing all the normal socializing via phone and in person that friends and neighbors have come to expect from me and not beating myself up for needing still more time for and to myself that kinda goes beyond the ‘norm’. Your friend’s dreamer painting is amazing!…..an uncanny copy of the Buddha in the photo! ……… and the photograph is almost “alive” in all the life in me that leaps to meet the life in it! Beautiful! If you ever get discouraged or burdened by the blog writing you have undertaken, just know that such inspired and perfectly perfect writing is not undertaken alone but in the company of some very loving, very warm and wise angels who obviously love you and your work VERY much!!
Hi Marianne and thanks so much for leaving your comments during this time that is swirling for you…we help one another by being honest and vulnerable…it’s a challenge and an opportunity to recognize when to say no to outside distractions. We can support one another in being willing to rais a hand and say HELP!! So I thank you.
And I know that our contributing Wise Women Che’usa and Felice will also appreciate what you see in their ‘tracks upon the trail’…here too, often we might imagine that what we’re up to doesn’t really serve a purpose or impact anyone anywhere…it is such a gift to one another to applaud and support the choices we make to be visible on our creative path.
And you are also thoughtful to consider my fatigue in writing a post each week in addition to everything else that foes on in the studio…and angels do surround so I haven’t felt any sense of burden…to the contrary I am so pleased to gather us in our circle as we chart the path up ahead.
Dear I D,
I drop in every thurs to touch my feet and spirit to the seasonal Path. My sense of the spiral continues from our earlier Emerge and See which has remained fruitfully embedded. I’m re reading the Secret Garden, a childhood favorite of mine. Gardens in hidden places have been resources since I could walk around my fortunate world where children could wander without constant oversight.
I’m volunteering weekly in the underworld light of Va Aquarium with its moving shadows and cavelike temperatures.
Dear Ellis
How grand to see you here and to hear of your ‘cave dwelling’ as you are well aware …come the spring we do indeed, ‘Emerge and See’with fresh art/life eyes.
Happy being in the underworld of the water beings…have you gone out to see the whales? many visiting this year.
Love the imagery in this! Thank you so much!
Thanks Lynn
Each week I’ll be featuring the images/stories of a Wise Woman on the art/life trail ride…let me know if your would like to put your name on the list…share your beauty.