Our keyword for December is Strength

May resilience be radiant within all living beings.
That even in the darkest of times,
a light shines forth from the heart.”

Winter Again, Drozda, Acrylic/pastel/Arches paper, 5×7″

As the North Gate opens at Winter Solstice, on December 21, we enter the twelve weeks of our deepest yearly journey inward. Slowly we settle. We let the mind be. The turbulence of thought settles… even if only for fifteen minutes a day.

Now, our imagination carries us down and in. Imagine the gold mine within you that holds all of your hopes, wishes, and dreams. To access this treasure trove listen to a brief meditation recorded by Sogyal Rinpoche author of The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying …

Think hibernation

Late fall and early winter is the natural time to watch things die to make space for spring’s to rejuvenate, regenerate, and dream of the possibility of the coming spring. We are gardeners, each pondering the seed catalogs considering what it is we choose to plant and grow in the season ahead.

I’m sitting in a favorite live oak tree (imagine the seed that started this growth) at First Landing State Park 

“To open a door in one’s mind, whether in writing, in prayer, or in writing-as-prayer, is to invite an experience of “the deep.”

It is rather like standing on the edge of a cliff overlooking the ocean at night, a cliff from which I can hear the pounding surf below me, and see in the distance a multitude of stars.

I am aware of danger, but I am also aware of my own freedom and my own good sense.
Although I could do so, I will not back up, close down, and refuse to see or hear.
Although I could do so, I will not step out and lose myself. I will not fall to my death.

I will stand where I am and allow the vast expanse to come to me through my eyes, through my ears, through wind moving the tiny hairs on my skin, through the pressure of the solid rock against the soles of my feet.

I feel awe, I feel my own smallness, but I feel that I, too, belong.
If I am open to the possibility, I sense that I am seen;
I am known;
I am held in the attention of the mystery.”

– from How the Light Gets In by Pat Schneider

 

Saved from poet, Jasper Lotus Hawkins FB page in 2017

See the Patterns

As winter approaches we practice creatively walking the Natural Year. We line up with its circadian rhythm. We find a way to be in sync by looking at where we have been since last spring’s equinox and then considering where we want to be as we prepare to enter the spring of 2024.

We choose what works best at any given time. For example, Days before the West Gate opened (September 22) at the fall equinox I experienced a health setback.  Fatigue lasted a full two months. What worked best during that time was accepting and adjusting to a different level of engagement. To make the best of the circumstances I needed to be more and do less. (Consider listening once again to the mediation link).
This fatigue ran counter to what the energy outside of me was dictating and yet to be true to my well-being I listened to the Inner Counsel and slowed it way down.

I kept testing; can I do more today? Not yet. When I pushed I made problems for myself. I also noticed that when that happened I intuitively understood the need to drop it, let it go, and stop thinking that I could push the river. I also had to not judge myself harshly or feel guilty because I wasn’t doing what I thought I should be doing. I guess that this is why the test failed again and again as I came to terms with learning that everything was okay if I just let it be.

 

The twelve weeks of winter increase the Mystery of our story. As we travel inward we move down and in … even if only for fifteen minutes a day. We are here, in the deep interior, to discover where our interior aliveness resides.

Here’s a journal page that presented itself to me bringing useful questions as well as areas to contemplate … see if your ideas are ignited;

 

We are made to grow and change!

Each year the global creative energy provides us with the power to craft our life stories. Being the gardener of our creative life requires making good choices. Then we need to have the courage and the trust in the Art of Allowing so the process can unfold. Consider your ideas as seeds. Make a note of them in your journal and realize that support will be there forming intuitive prompts, hunches, and inspirations.

As Creatives, we know that we can change a composition, a musical score, a stitch, or a storyline at any time and most certainly in the year ahead. The energy for 2024 is protective as well as challenging. We might consider 2024 as the Power Year in the current global creative decade. This means that the creative energy is at a culminating point as it has been expanding and contracting, like a huge breathing earth following a creative trajectory that is now at a climactic point.

What will you bring to the table as your harvest in 2024?

If you want to learn more about the way that your creative energy adds to your health and benefits the planet, near and far, email your birth month and day (format example: 2/15) for your 2024 Creative Energy Report. I will reply with your three-page printable PDF. Your report is rich in prompts and key phrases to keep you on track in 2024.

 

IN THE STUDIO

I usually begin my studio year having done Alyson Stanfield‘s year-end review. It’s amazing to me how much happens that easily becomes background rather than acknowledged as the next powerful steps forward.

In early February 2023, I was at the weekend teacher’s training seminar near Washington, D.C. where sixty artists invested in creating connections and communication with armed service veterans.  Do you know a veteran? Check out the array of free classes and courses offered:  ASAP (Armed Services Arts Programs)

In March I was invited to take part in a large work painting show at PACC (Portsmouth Art & Culture Center for ‘Color Outside the Lines’ running mid-June through mid-October.

 

The faculty show at the Virginia MOCA (Museum of Contemporary Art) allowed me to display three of my black-and-white commissions.

Transition, for Soul Soaring by Valerie Sayre, I Dreamed of Things Impossible, 2022 Luna Press, Lunar Calendar design, and Lotus Moon, linocut for the CBPC (Chesapeake Bay Print Collective)

Continuing along the black and white lines, I created my twenty-third illustration for the beautiful Lunar Calendar. Order yours from Luna Press

Quan Yin’s Full Moon Journey, Drozda, white ink/pastel/black Strathmore paper, 8 x 10″

 

Quan Yin is a goddess of compassion. It is taught that she hears the cries of the world. As we step through the opening of the North Gate of winter (in the northern hemisphere) it can be helpful and it will not harm to consider the ways that our art can be of benefit to all living beings.

~ May your compassion shine bright during this Season of Light ~