The mission of the Natural Calendar is to ‘affect the quality of the day as the highest of arts’. This line from Thoreau creates a connection to commitment….I call it a graced pace.

Pick the topic for your coming six week commitment. Trust that the natural Greening Force will create momentum as well as focus. The Greening Force lines up with the cycle of the seasons. The primary thrust of the summer quadrant is growth. The Greening Force is the rhythm of the feminine urge to birth and evolve. The six weeks ahead (August 1 – September 22) give time and space to Trust that Love can play a primary role in the work and service that you yearn to share with others and life.

Take a deep breath. Sense into the area(s) where change would bring benefit for you. Keep your sights on one to three points of interest. Commitment to more than that can cause confusion. Keep it as simple. Primary self-care invites emotional well-being. Our goal becomes to ‘do no harm’. The Dalai Lama reminds to be “wise selfish” in placing first attention on self asking…and ‘how am I doing?’

As we explore the Greening Force we divide the Natural Calendar into a series of twelve thirty-day challenges. Each thirty-day segment of the Natural Year provides time and space for a vital and highly creative check-in and check-up centered on a keyword.

In the six weeks before us Trust and Love come front and center as points of reference.

We take thirty days to create a zone of learning, each day we affect the quality with that which is fresh and new. We navigate the entire twelve moon/months of the Natural Calendar year seeking to balance and evolve our emotions. Asking for help and creating a support team is a vital aspect of the the exploration of the Greening Force.

“You can’t become your self by your self.”

Learning to travel well together is cause for celebration!

Visualize us, one by one, being well trained and capable of returning to emotional alignment.

The Natural Calendar: Summer to Fall Quarter

August 1st is a cross quarter day marking the midpoint between summer and fall. The 30 Day Challenge for August is Trust. Where do you stand within the context and container of Trust in your art/life? How do you feel about the path as it unfolds?

Check the weekly videos for the Two Minute Tune-UP^… each creates connection to the Greening Force unfolding.

August gives us ample time to Trust our competence as we develop a humble/healthy confidence. September opens the heart to creative expression that renews and regenerates Love.

Take the 30 Day ‘TRUST’ Challenge

For thirty days set your intention to Trust yourself. Also make a commitment to trust your relationships. Have the confidence to trust your connection to life. Trust how well the Greening Force works. Dream the ways that you intend to grow deeper and further toward your burning yearning. Others grow. Life grows.

As the 30 Day Trust Challenge unfolds we share a wiser and wider connection to what is possible. As we Trust that we can face our shadows/demons/strange beliefs dancing around the bed we gain courage. We notice that shadows dancing on the wall are simply that…shadow material. No substance. We are then reminded and can sense into how possible it is to be carried forward with passion and joyful focus.

May Compassionate Trust Infuse Your Heart, Soul and Mind 

The summer months move fast. There is the opportunity to Grow in Trust and Love as we pay close attention to what is manifesting. We’ve been planting seed ideas and as they appear before us we explore the Greening Force.

I’m fond of summer for many reasons, year after year I witness magic happening with young artists in the studios I design and facilitate at the Virginia Museum of Contemporary Art. I remind my young artists that we are explorers, detectives, scientists and observers…we make beauty and wonder and bring into form what we love and what we often have no words for.

Choice and Opportunity

Do you feel victimized by situations, circumstances, relationships, challenges and even routines? During this half of the summer quarter, August 1 – September 22 discover and uncover the treasure of emotional balance that can lead to creative heights…affecting the quality of each day.

The 30 Day Trust Challenge homework: address afflicted/conflicted emotions. Pay attention to troublemakers such as anxiety, confusion, fear, immobility, overwhelm and feelings of being stuck. Look at each ‘demon’ in turn. Give each afflicted emotion a name. Tell it like it is. One by one, with open heart and mind name those mischief making obstacles and obstructions.

Next: Seek beauty. Look for the gold within you. Seek out the gold within others. During the six weeks leading up to the fall equinox focus on your own emotional health and well-being. See your capacity to confront and conquer your limitations. See this and Trust this as your most useful challenge/opportunity. Notice that like water emotions are continuously in a state of flux…they will never stop and we will never be able to nail them to the floor. Watch the flowing nature of their nature.

My grandmother had a Buddhist sculpture in her curio cabinet…I was drawn to it from an early age…the three monkeys represented ‘hear no, see no, speak no evil’.

This was my grandmother’s path. What models did you have as a child? Where do you source support now? Can you locate and navigate an innate direction (up/down, in/out, past/present, yes/no) in exploring your Greening Force?

Additional support from the Menninger Foundation:

The Criteria of Emotional Maturity

The ability to deal constructively with reality

The capacity to adapt to change

A relative freedom from symptoms that are produced by tensions and anxieties

The capacity to find more satisfaction in giving than receiving

The capacity to relate to other people in a consistent manner with mutual satisfaction and helpfulness

The capacity to sublimate, 

to direct one’s instinctive hostile energy

into creative and constructive outlets

The capacity to love

William Menninger, MD

Journal page, Drozda, 1992

The 30 Day Trust Challenge 

The gut is the monitor of who and what we Trust.The 30 Day Trust Challenge engages the feeling body. Part of emotional health and well-being is to actively celebrate organic growth. YOUR organic growth! You are not the same you that you were one year ago during the previous Trust Challenge. You will not be this you one year from now. Take the challenge!! Step up and claim the Trust that is yours. It’s like a grace account with your name on it. Enter the small world of your studio or wherever you claim sanctuary…be with your deepest natural inclination to grow your Trust like a healthy seed. It’s possible to have a big TRUST experience that changes everything….again and again.

The six weeks ahead offer choice and opportunity. You can choose to work with grace, tenderness, empathy, humanness, benevolence, and kindness as though these qualities are workable in your hand like clay…because they are.

In the Buddhist tradition, a year such as 2017 calls forth the Greening Force of Metta/loving kindness meditation. This is one of those accessible and embracing practices that literally changes the way that one looks upon the world and upon the self. I speak to groups regarding the gifts and the challenges inherent in the practice of Metta/loving-kindness meditation. This is a profound exercise in Trust…and it does no harm…a sure sign that you can Trust it.

The six weeks ahead offer a challenge. Seek out (rather than shy away from) the ways in which life falls out of balance. Be willing to place a spotlight on the chaos inside you and around you. Feel your tension. Define your negative stress. Name it. I call my main trouble maker Mr. Snarkey. When Mr. Snarkey comes to call I drop everything to address the situation. I push the pause button and listen. Is this real? Can I Trust this inclination? If my body reads the atmosphere as ‘danger, danger, I Trust that. I stop. I come back to my Center and reconnect to the deepest, widest, wisest part of my Greening Force. From there I Trust the next steps.

See the potential for shifting the focus and opening to creative stress. It’s as if looking in one direction shows breakdown and a shift in direction navigates toward breakthrough. Stand still. Breathe deep. Make your choice.

Chaos = first stage in creation process

Once upon a time I moved a long distance leaving everything that I was familiar with behind. I began to reconstruct my work feeling disoriented and deeply confused. I kept singing Laurie Anderson Sharkey’s Day Today lyrics “I turn around, I turn around again, nobody knows me, nobody knows my name’. I heard it playing in a loop in my mind. I knew that I needed support. I began to work with an exceptional mentor and coach. She helped me in very specific creative ways and made it clear: chaos is not to be feared. Her reminders and guidance got me outta the poison ivy and tangled briar of my fear mind and back on the open path of Metta where I could explore the Greening Force.

As we explore the Greening Force we practice ways to achieve healthy organic growth. We keep coming back to Center, the place within you and me where sanity lives. We celebrate possibility. We connect with the healthy adult within. We welcome and remember the wise Spirit Self. We look to where the beauty trail leads…following the Greening Force of the pollen path.

During the remainder of this fast moving and exciting summertime consider your thinking patterns and how they make you feel. Don’t like what’s going on up there in the ol’ cranium? Make the switch to thoughts that point you in the direction that you want to be going and growing! The Greening Force is a natural organic feminine growth that midwife’s healthy connection.

Can you feel it? WE are lit up for the six weeks ahead! We have ideas of how balance works. We see how thoughts filter down into the emotional body. We’re growing UP^ and taking responsibility. Feelings, when witnessed, begin to flow. Weed thoughts are removed.

We feel spacious. We wiggle our roots.  We become dedicated to Explore the Greening Force.

Lookin’ UP^

Donna Iona Drozda

 

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