Welcome to this week on the trail! It’s the Growth moon cycle and time to push into the area of your art/life where you sense expansion happening.
How does your Creative Garden Grow?
Wren House Garden, Drozda, 2016
The wind, too, scattered seeds.
As the water reappeared, so there reappeared willows, rushes, meadows, gardens, flowers, and a certain purpose in being alive.
The Man Who Planted Trees by Jean Giono
(the title link above leads to the 30 minute beautifully animated film of The Man Who Planted Trees…well worth savoring)
An empowering way to achieve healthy organic Growth is to include a large measure of ‘thought support’ for your own brain. During this fast moving and exciting summer time consider your thinking patterns and how they make you feel. Don’t like what’s going on up there? Here is the cycle to make the switch to thoughts that point you in the direction that you want to be going.
Thinking and feelings that harmonize…these are the seeds to be growing!
Get curious and interested in creating the best trail ride you can imagine.
Last week we took on the 30 day challenge of commitment to emotional health and well-being. This is a huge challenge! What occurs now will influence all that follows. Continue the powerful experience of rooting out weed thoughts and feelings. Get dedicated about making space to plant new ways of being.
Can you feel it? WE are lit up this month with ideas of how our thoughts filter down into our emotional body. We’re growing UP^ and taking responsibility. Next we monitor those feelings, we watch them flow. We witness how we blossom as weed thoughts are removed. We get spacious. We move thoughts through us that are dedicated to healing and uplifting the self. From there we radiate healing and well-being out of us to touch Others. There is probably no more creative work that we can engage in during this cycle…get this part of the trail ride smooth and miracles happen.
Rescue, Drozda, Acrylic on board, 18 x 24″, 2001
War, Poverty, Violence and Oppression
Years ago I discovered a mantra while writing in my journal. Preparing to travel to a country wracked with violence, poverty, war and oppression I was addressing my concerns. Hours later, reading the entry, I saw that the written word endanger contained a natural lifting of the pen and my eye saw end anger.
This followed:
WE ARE EACH ENDANGERED
UNTIL WE END ANGER
ENDANGER = end anger
Swan Day, Natural Calendar gathering, 2009
Consider the ways that help you think through emotionally challenging times. Get clear about how amazing and creative your cranial tools are. Celebrate the way that you can change your mind and think different. Notice how skilled and capable your neural pathways are at providing you with alternative ways of viewing a situation or challenge. Don’t be so fast jumping onto bandwagons…make your way at your own thoughtful pace this month.
Come to think of it this is a really excellent four weeks for finding your most creative way to engage the adage,
‘Each one teach one.’
WE can all benefit, and not one is harmed, when any of us breathes deep and sends to another a thoughtful feeling of being accepted and appreciated.
My MOCA Summer Art Camp kids, Drozda, 2014
Homework this week:
What practices do you have in place for tending your relationship between thinking and feeling?
This week ask yourself:
What tools do I access for emotional health?
Anger is a well-developed coping mechanism for when we feel threatened, or when goals are thwarted. It enables us to react decisively in situations where there’s little time for reasoned analysis, and it can motivate problem solving, achievement of goals and removal of threats. It is “an emotional state that varies in intensity from mild irrational to intense fury and rage.” [1]
Our earliest memories of anger or violence have a lasting impact and influence on how anger becomes a dominant feature in adult life. Anger issues can frequently be traced back to learned behaviour from parents and significant others. Increased anger is also a product of frenetic 21st century living, where feelings of insecurity and worry on many levels influence behaviour – fear of failure, worries over redundancy / salary cuts, debt issues, loss and poverty … [2]
The stress of coping with aggressive competitive work practices, targets and tight deadlines; traffic jams and road rage . . . all take their toll, not least in high levels of stress, anxiety and depression which can fuel anger outbursts.
Holistic Anger Management
Thoughts are things and all this month WE are remembering to be golden and think in nurturing and supportive ways. In six moon/months we’ll reap the harvest of these thoughtful seeds.
“When a storm comes, it stays for some time, and then it goes. An emotion is
like that too-it comes and stays for a while, and then it goes. An emotion
is only an emotion. We are much, much more than an emotion.”
Thich Nhat Hanh
How does the adult you nourish thoughts when things get stormy?
I’m a grown-up
I have the capacity to discern
I have a track record
I can be compassionate toward ME and WE
The WE Field
Cultivate the area of your art/life where you sense expansion can now happen. Notice how your Creative Garden Grows.
Wren House Garden: South pathway, Drozda, 2016
A review of the Southern/Summer “OTHERS” trail guide:
July Mastery: Growth: This is a fine time to go on a retreat. Think of this month as a “vision quest” and note what in you is attempting a growth spurt. Have the courage to really love what you have to offer and to be about discovering and uncovering new ways to share your well-being/your true wealth.
August Mastery: Trust: Do you trust your capacity to develop deeper levels of self-care? Do that. Invest in yourself as though you are the Google of your art/life, expanding and taking on more and more brilliance and the ability to master your craft. No matter what your art/life path this month, sink deep into the resource that supplies all of your needs. Take advantage of the dividends that these last eight years are now paying. Notice how vital and important what you bring to the marketplace table is to the betterment of the whole.
September Mastery: Love: Ask yourself: “What would love do now?” Every year the month of September mirrors back to us what we have been mid-wife to during the first nine months of the year. We notice how we can support one another in giving birth to each step of creative greatness, and throughout this month, we send out those messages of gratefulness and appreciation. Look into your own mirror first and be aware of how much this year has given you opportunity to show up and shine.
Creative Keywords for your projects all this Natural Year:
Creative Traction in 2016:
agape, arts, bold, books, broad outlook, brotherhood, closure, compassion, completion, concerts, dance, development, discernment, evolution, fine arts, galleries, generosity, healing arts, here, impersonal love, interdependence, kinship, leadership, loving-kindness, mercy, Metta meditation, offerings, performance art, poetry, radiance, service, synchronicity, theater, tolerance, worldview
Create Power Leaks throughout 2016:
aimless, bullying, closed-minded, co-dependent, conflicts, constriction, disappointment, disillusion, frustration, intolerant, judgmental, manipulator, narrow interests, neglecting friendships, oppression, poverty, unfulfilled, scam, victim, violence, war All through the year you can return to this keyword list and bring your insights.
Notice when the creative power leaks happen. Rein in your energy. Find the roots of the weed thoughts and where they originate… your thinking, the media or conversation.
Use these two lists to act as prompts for a studio session:
Journal, draw, paint, dance, sculpt, craft your responses.
Thanks for being on the trail ride!
See you next week as we continue the 30 day challenge and a commitment to Growth!
