Welcome to the art/life trail ride! And Happy New ‘Illumination’ Moon!

If you are new here on the trail it’s so good to have you join us!

We’re making our way around the Circle of the Natural Year.  The Natural Year extends from the Aries New Moon (near the spring equinox) and carries us through four seasonal quadrants spiraling around to the next spring equinox when we begin a fresh new Natural Year.

Finding your creative rhythm within this ‘slow time’ container allows transformation to happen.

I envision this cyclic pattern of the Natural Year like that of being a Flow*er. 

Cycles of the Seasons, Drozda, oil pastel/illustration board, 18 x 18″

By lining up with ‘slow time/grace pace’ you can discover an exciting way to move with time…it’s natural.

The Natural Calendar lines up with the Center of the Circle. or Central.  

The Central is where the energy of the Ancestors (Grandfather Sun, Father Sky, Mother Earth & Grandmother Moon) and the elements (earth, air, fire, water) reside. In order to locate (and to relocate as needed) your own Center of Balance and Stability it’s powerful to hold this vision. Think of this as your creative well or inner gold mine.

Balance and stability cannot be overthought…these qualities come to meet you in a most nurturing organic fashion…over analyzing sends them packing.

Fake Balance/Pretend Stablility

It isn’t possible to be balanced or stable without embarking, getting moving, setting out on your path. You have to be willing to take action and advance. Here on the art/life trail we ride together so as to encourage and to celebrate one another. We remind one another that no one else can embark on the path for us.

You can’t pretend to be on a path of balance. You can’t be a wise guy and pull one over on others. Not for long. Things simply begin to fall apart. I know. I was the pretender. I was an out of touch, pained, flippant and sarcastic version of myself for the early part of my art/life. I was the wise guy. Malnourished and out of alignment there was no there there. 

Life Happens

Chaos and crisis can signal the turn on the path that thankfully spirals you down and in.

My wish and my hope is that as we travel this Natural Year you sense into this critically creative time.

A Deep Hunger #8, Drozda, Acrylic/board, 24 x 24″

Each moon/month on the Natural Year we engage a 30 day challenge. The month of May brings us the Wisdom Challenge leading to the challenge for June which is to be Brilliant!

As this month winds down I encourage you to locate the wise guy inside. Inside each of us lives judgment of self and others. The wise guy needs to be right, needs to have opinions, opinions and more opinions. The wise guy knows what everybody else needs to know. The wise guy is a menace and a detractor. The wise guy is nobodies friend. 

This is the close of the Wisdom Challenge and its an opportune time to dismiss the wise guy within.

This is the part that tells you there’s no use and no reason to place a creative idea or project onto the circle of the season. The wise guy is the part that will damp down and dim down the brilliance that is yours to experience, express, create and contribute.

The wise guy actually doesn’t know any better.

It’s your job to press the pause button and have a conversation with this inner terrorist. Here on the trail we are reminded again and again the power of the moon by moon challenge. Each 30 day focus point kindly supports a creative evolution. Moon by moon we add to the combined healing and fine arts forming a healing revolution. 

The year long challenge is to make it once around engaging all 12 of the 30 day opportunities for creative expansion.

Throughout the Wisdom challenge it can be helpful to remember that wisdom comes from experience. Wisdom does not from books or the ideas of others, though these outside forces can act as sign posts along the path.

 

From spring equinox until summer solstice you travel the 12 weeks of the ME quadrant. This 90 days places emphasis upon the alchemical ME. This ME is a depth connection to the Ancestors, the elements and to ‘all the yous that you have ever been throughout time.’ How cool is that! The word ME in this context serves as an alchemical code for the divine feminine nurturer within. Complete. Brilliant. Radiant. Worth traveling to meet upon the path. 

There is a poem that comes to mind:

“She who knows and knows that she knows doesn’t know.
She who knows and doesn’t know that she knows knows.

For in this context to know is not to know
and not to know is to know.”

I haven’t found the source and I don’t see the poem on line. I place it here to remind myself …and you… that the Wisdom challenge isn’t about knowing.

Wisdom is deeper and wider and a bit more instinctively wild than the intellect…wisdom maybe lives more in the gut, in the orenda…that part of the body that acts like its brain and that is closer to your roots than to your cranium.

A Deep Hunger #1, Drozda, Acrylic/board, 24 x 24″, private collection

I was raised to be a wise guy. I was a sweet, naive child. I was taught to be clueless and flippant. I became a sad and mean girl. I was taught. I was shown. I was treated flippantly and repeatedly told that I was stupid. Children don’t comprehend sarcasm. Children swallow put down and it lives inside of them. Children don’t understand how to process sarcasm, what my 9 year old artists at the museum refer to as ‘mean and cheap’ behavior.

Fire, Water, Earth, Air

One of my beloved teachers reflected upon my confused childhood saying, “You weren’t watered properly.” 

 

Eventually I received the first of many big wake-up calls and from then on I had no excuse. I had to change the program. I had to find a new channel. I had to cancel a majority of stations that I had been tuning into. I had to install a new satellite dish and pick up a new signal…my true signal lining me up with balance and stability.

Your Potential to Evolve 

This is a beginning Creative Energy year. Reach for more Balance and Stability within. That’s a form of wisdom that we can all take on. There’s no competition.

I have come to love this art/life walk as it allows limitless choice for creative expression while at the same time providing a laser focus so that vision leads to action. Action leads to reflection. Reflection leads to gratitude. Gratitude leads to dreaming the next step. And on we go as the vision gains clarity and continually evolves.

I look forward to seeing you here as the June Challenge to be Brilliant unfolds.

How do you let your light shine?