Just back from a 5 day tree farm retreat. We are off the grid. Lighting is managed by plugging a low wattage lamp into an alternator that is connected to a deep cell marine battery. There is a deep cell battery in my small works studio and another in the cabin. From this same set-up we can recharge cell phones and my laptop computer (an appreciated tool in my small works and writing studio).  

Seven gallon water containers are brought from home and used for drinking and cooking. There is a fifty gallon rain barrel outside the cabin for showering and outdoor clean ups…like dog baths. We have a separate building which houses composting toilet and solar shower hook up. It’s a wonderful farm/camp.

I look forward to being on the land; we have space… hiking trails and stars like I’ve never seen other than in New Mexico. At night I have a new personal reference point for “being happy, like a room without a roof.”

 

However I would not say that being on our fifty acre ‘lab’ is blissful. Rather being this deep into the ‘calamities’ of nature is often unnerving. This land is wild. Wild land is defined by the presence of ticks. We collect ticks, often dozens throughout the day, off of the dogs. The dogs also receive monthly treatments so the ticks die within a short time whether we remove them or not…though the vet says best to pick them as soon as they are seen. There are adult deer, lone star, dog and brown dog ticks along with the nymph stage of each. Nymph phase are smaller than the dot of a ball point pen on a sheet of white paper. Far fewer are found on ourselves but it’s no fun to find any…each one discovered gets wrapped in clear tape (a brilliant way to stop them in their tracks) and put into the tick jars by the doors.

I find bear scat on the creek path in the morning. In the afternoon I think I see adolescent snapping turtles settled into a ‘puddle pond’ motionless as fossils. I gently tap tap the back of the closest one with my walking stick…off they scuttle, digging down and in disappearing into the oozy mud.

Hopefully most of the hundreds of spermy tadpoles swimming in a frenzy weeks ago were able to morph into frogs before becoming snapper snack food. Snakes regularly cruise among the dozen blue bird houses looking for nestlings. My heart skips a beat as wild turkey blasts up from the forest floor heavy bodied yet able to fly easily into the dense undergrowth… out of sight. An unmistakable blurred flash of coyote captured on the wildlife camera. Next frame doe with fawn. Sometimes I don’t want to connect the dots.

Doe and fawn captured on wild life camera June 2016

Mostly there’s a bliss element to experiencing ‘time out of time’. I am in a state of near ecstacy that is hard to put to words. I feel most myself when I am able to be so close to the elements. Here is our cozy cabin compound…all mowed to keep the ticks at bay… 

Blue Bird Gulch Tree Farm, Drozda, June 2016

Cabin interior, Blue Bird Gulch Tree Farm, June 2016

More like tent walls than anything else. It’s camping. It’s wild and the days unfold in a kind of

S l o w  m o t i o n

This intro brings us now to the review…our first three steps on the Eastern Pathway: April’s Clarity leading to May’s Wisdom opening the mind to June’s Illumination make up the first quarter of the Natural Year on the art/life trail ride.

Do Your Review

These first 90 days have brought ample opportunity for assessing the way that you’re being as you move along the art/life trail. Remember that for these first three months (between spring equinox and summer solstice) the spotlight has been on ME.

ME within our art/life context represents an alchemical code-word pointing to the ME part of you that is content to nurture and nourish your brilliance. She is fiercely and divinely feminine and she creates a powerful bridging element as a means to take you into the summer’s full-out active/creative thrust. She is the relationship expert that reminds you of the bright idea of being true to both your feminine (the focus during fall and winter) and masculine (focus during spring and summer) sides.

This is an excellent time to be sensing into your courage and willingness to be seen. Recognize, during this last moon/month of spring, what a humbling walk it is when we permit, even volunteer, to be visible.

Ask yourself:

Am I hiding my brilliance?

Am I afraid to be seen?

The East Gate will be closing as we approach the South Gate at Summer Solstice, Monday, June 20. While this Gemini/Illumination segment of the wheel spirals up and out you may feel into the ways that you have been able to integrate Clarity & Wisdom into your vision.

Open to the Illumination that comes as you think different and bring change to your mind.

June enlists the element of air as metaphor for opening and ventilating thought processes. This is a natural time to allow in a higher level of relational balance and increase communication skills. 

Illumined You

Accelerated transformation is usually experienced as an “involuntary” process resulting from a crisis in one’s outer life…such as the break-up of a cherished relationship, the death of a loved one or a near-death experience. Some people, however, may actually volunteer for the roller- coaster ride to a whole new level of being by consciously choosing to hit bottom…suddenly quitting a job, attending a transformational workshop, and so forth.

Whatever the case, when we undergo such an all-encompassing change, our inner seasonal birthing process becomes more accelerated. We begin to rapidly experience dramatic death/rebirth sequences.

Jacqueline Small

Take note of how your life is orchestrating opportunity to help you to change your mind. Open to subtle luminosity. It sometimes arrives like morning light filling up a canyon…slowly, steadily, relentlessly. At other times it comes like a lightning flash in the dark of night.

CREATIVE EXERCISE:

This week notice how easy…or not…it is to shine from your interior. It’s time to engage in a bit of buffing. Note how Clarity brought Wisdom that you didn’t have before. Now grab the ring of illuminating Brilliance. Feel your radiance as it ebbs and flows all this moon/month. A lot of what we experience on the art/life trail has to do with the way that we communicate. This is a grand month to consider your communication skills…be seen and heard for who you are.

 Ask:

What do I stand for?

How do I show support for what I believe in?

Young student thank you note to Drozda, 2014

Our word for this entire year  is: Koyaanisqatsi, which translates to life out of balance or chaotic life.

Chaos or Compassion?

This year each one of us can engage in conscious reflection on the ways in which our own life is out of balance and in chaos. I learned many years ago from my first mentor/coach that chaos is not to be feared.

Chaos represents the first stage in the creation process

 … take all the time you need this year to inventory what is of value: make a list… include yourself in your inventory. You are so very brilliant and valuable. Then also notice what is no longer valuable to you. Make that list.

Breathe deep ten times inhaling and exhaling. Feel the compassion of a connection to something bigger and greater than self. Notice each inhalation drawing energy toward the direction of expansion. As we move through the South Gate in the three moon/months ahead the key focus turns from ME to Others. We are relational and these 12 weeks ahead will offer us new ways to navigate our communication with increased trust and organic growth. 

Think compassionate energy. Thank your ability to cultivate empathy. Think of broadening your outlook. Consider philanthropy and volunteering and of all the ways to be generous and generative. Visualize your ability to master and to evolve your creative voice, your heart/song.

Bodhichitta Heart, 20”x16”, Drozda 2011©

See you next week as we enter into the South Gate of the Natural Calendar continuing our celebration of the brilliance that shines from within.

 

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 ©