I’ve missed you. It has been four weeks… to the day… since I last met up with you here on the art/life trail ride. I hope that you are well. I Trust that you are savoring this delicious point on the Natural Calendar. This mid-point in September is where we begin to harvest what has grown since spring equinox. March 20 is when this current trail ride began. This is a fine year over-all to take an inventory and September is the best month to do it. What do you cherish?

Cherish Mantra, Drozda, mixed media collage, 8 x 10″, 2008, private collection

Let’s begin with the past four weeks…I’ll go first and I encourage you to sit with a pen and paper and trace the trail back first for the month and then for the entire time period. We want to take account of what is valuable and also of what is not longer valuable. Here’s a prompt:

 

A month ago my path diverged in the wood. I took the road less traveled. I took to the idea of setting some things off to one side. I let some things go. I turned my attention to the challenge of Trust. Trust is a big life issue for me. I have every good reason not to trust and yet I learn each year during this cycle to Trust myself, Trust Others and to move into the fall quadrant with a deepening Trust for Life. 

Traditionally August is a fiery summer month in our northern hemisphere. The earth has fully warmed, the seeds planted in the cool damp of spring have now had ample time to produce their fruit. In late summer attention is turned toward the harvest. We trust that what has been planted has now grown and ripened.

If you live on this continent you know that we broke heat records all summer long. The weather map of the United States blazed red/orange for weeks. We all sizzled. Things are out of balance. The word for the year is Koyaanisqatsi which means life out of balance. We see this happening in the four directions. What we want on the art/life trail is to discover and uncover the alternatives to being so heated up that we ignite and do damage.

So I stepped aside. I stopped where I could stop. I proceeded with a gentle and steady pace. As a result many more accomplishments took place during this most action oriented time of the Natural Year than I can list…here is the short  list of what got harvested in the month of Trust at Wren House Studio:

What I value:

First and foremost I value my current health and the beauty that surrounds…then I list:

3 week-long studios at Virginia MOCA: nature painting, batik, art outside the door, and the last 3 of 7 Saturdays in the Studio. In all I worked/played and created with over 40 young artists watching wonder happen day after day.

My pup and I walk 4 measured miles each day.

I met with 14 of my beloved Lifecycle client/collaborators…most of you join me on the studio conference line…where creative magic happens!

I was one of  eight presenters at Unity’s World Day of Prayer in Williamsburg, Virginia…I shared Buddhist Metta.

I wrote and completed three proposals for gallery exhibitions. The three proposals along with 10 jpegs of new work have been sent. Fingers crossed!

I worked on five new pieces of work in my current ‘Reclamation’ series.

Three paintings celebrating ‘World Elephant Day’ were matted and wrapped in archive sleeves then shipped to Canada as a donation to auction and fund raise for the documentary film ‘Gods in Shackles’.

I was interviewed about my Virginia MOCA ‘Saturday in the Studio’ (an open studio for young artists) programs for a local newspaper.

Saturday in the Studio Artists, 2010

I am one of four Eco-artists featured in this months’ Coastal Virginia magazine.

I ate well, gardened, read good books, chatted with distant pals and also played, socialized, kayaked, hiked and simply sat back by the water enjoying the reflections dancing off the surface mirroring the surrounding trees.

 I take note of what I can inventory that is no longer valuable:

I become clearer in my ability to not engage in attempting to push, push, push.
I am more able to note when I fall out of balance. I follow the 12 Step HALT check in: Never become too Hungry, Angry, Lonely or Tired.

Now it’s your turn…you may want to post what is valuable, you may want a witness for what is no longer valuable…feel free to share your discoveries in the comments below.

Gifted and Talented Student’s poem, 2012

We are now at a turning point in the Natural year…

The Growth of July expands the Trust of August leading organically and easily to the Love of September.

Remember in September 

September is the transition month, between summer and fall. This month deepens and widens the art/ life. It’s the Virgo segment of the natural wheel bringing attention to the Earth, to our health and to the details that need to be attended to so as to infuse the fruits of our labors with Love.

Each September it fits to hold the vision of being rooted deeply into the earth. The Earth acts as the elemental bridge to harvesting the Love that you have for life. This Contemplate the power that rises within you as you Love life and from that anchored space take a giant step!

Reminder: globally we are experiencing an epidemic of anger disease. There is much ranting and raving and not much result. In 2016 consider your trajectory.  The masculine energy within us is bound and determined to get somewhere. The feminine side is waiting patiently for our return to home, center, stability. Like parents anywhere these inner constructs can be off kilter. Take the time to decide where you are actually determined to go.

In September it’s beneficial and it does no harm to look over the shoulder to see and sense and feel what has happened in the last six months.

September is the month that stabilizes and anchors so that we can turn our attention toward cherishing the ground of our being. You and I are temporary as we move across the face of the earth. Cherish is an appropriate quality to engage at this point on the wheel.

The vibration of September is connected to the harvest. Why not harvest an awareness of all that you cherish in your life? If not now, when? At this point of the calendar year, here in the Northern hemisphere, we need to look at what we’ve grown to enhance Love for this never to be repeated life.

LATE SUMMER: THIRD STONE ON THE SOUTH PATH

This stepping stone marks a turning. Now we begin to face within so as to get deeply stabilized. In late summer tend to the parts of your Vision that need to be secured prior to Fall Equinox. Now it becomes critical to consciously connect to the actions that have brought you here…how you feel about where you stand and how you got here. Nothing has happened by accident. In this late summer month we take on the challenge of Love for what is.

Your “center” …which is another word for your energy field …includes thoughts, feelings, words, and deeds. Therefore to be a co-creator with the Spirit of Love, you must think love, feel love, speak love, and act with love.

John Randolph Price

A Masterpiece of Time

Love is the glue. As you move to your third stone (represented in turn by July, August, September on the Summer Pathway) root deeply into the Center of the Wheel. Be grounded. Be anchored. Return Home.

This is the culminating stepping stone in our current 90 day summer cycle. The masculine half of our circle will soon close. It’s exceptional to consider all that can and does take place during this part of your yearly journey.

Each September the energy of Virgo organizes around paying attention to detail. This segment of the wheel is sometimes characterized by the idea of picking things apart. Avoid the tendency to nit-pick and instead see the longer view. It’s time to put things into order.

The energy of September creates a crescendo, a climactic ground swell of “YES!!”

Involute, Drozda, Acrylic/board, 14 x 14″, 1998

Dwelling in the Love Cycle

Ask these questions; each in turn…journal what comes for you…

What is Love?

Do I Love Inner Guidance?

Do I Love myself?

Virgo’s earthy influence provides the answer year by year. At this point there is a focus upon Love as true power. The call is to Love the life that has been given, to Love the opportunity to breathe in the beauty and wonder and mystery of sharing this planet home with so many Others.

The summer quadrant has the spiraling energy, year after year, of learning to Grow, Trust and Love Others as we move around the circle of the Natural Year.

It ain’t easy to Love all the Others is it? We tend to bump into one another don’t we? We naturally hold different ideas and desires for outcomes and these differences create friction and tension. Negative stress escalates and dis-ease manifests when it may have been the last thing on our radar in terms of what we thought we would create.

Remember when we placed our focus on positive/creative stress rather than projection/blame/negative stress.

So again…simply to practice…

What is Love?

Do we heed Inner Guidance?

Can I Love myself, Other and Life?

Am I able to consciously harvest Love?

Have you increased Clarity leading to a bit more Wisdom so that the lights come up a bit and allowed an open to a radiance?  Are you being Grown-up, Trusting and Loving who you are?

Did you invest the three moon/months of spring in learning just a wee bit more about the “wise selfish”  ME/Muse? Have you followed the invitation to expand into the on-going challenge of summer’s clarion call to learn to Grow, Trust and then extend Love to Others?

The summer pathway is full of ‘coyote medicine’ …tricky stuff. Easy to get in a tangle and trip up.

The art/life trail ride is pocked with shallow depressions as well as occasional rock slides and even avalanches…at any turn our trusted steed could hobble and tumble and we could fall off the edge and into the abyss.

I’ll be back next week and we’ll dance across the threshold into the fall quadrant and the three moon/month focus that turns us toward Life and all the Experience, Introspection and Strength that emerges as we become more willing to see the art/life that we’re creating.