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Art As Medicine #1 - Mandala con...

I struggled with the bright Fuschia at first thinking it was too "much" but I charged along with it anyways.

Water
What is flowing through me?

As I color I pay attention to the thoughts, feelings, memories, impressions etc. that surface.  I also pay attention to what other themes pop up when I am not creating.

• a deeper understanding/acknowledgment of my trauma history and the direct effects the unhealthy ways I've adapted have on my everyday life
• currently in transition and uncomfortable in the unknowns

All finished!

Earth

What is shifting and integrating?

After finding myself thawing out of a cycle of stuffing and freezing my feelings it seems that my emotions are relocating themselves into my daily life.  Feeling into the discomfort as it arose during the creation of this mandala helped me to understand, accept, and integrate this rather than revert to older patterns of stuffing, judging, and condemning my experience.

Art As Medicine #1 - Mandalas

Amazing fungus found along the trail...looked very ethereal in the forest....

Yesterday, I woke up from a dream where I was an apparition standing over my sister's bed with two other apparitions.  She was just starting to wake up because the other two appartitions were doing things to get her attention.  When they would make movements and noise to mess with her the lights would blink and there would be wind moving at her.

I didn't realize I was an apparition and was growing quite frustrated that every time I tried to talk to or get my sister's attention she couldn't hear me.  Eventually, the other two increased their efforts and she started to yell into thin air, "What the hell is happening?!?" and started clawing at the air trying to feel around for something causing it.

I started to become pretty distressed watching her struggle and increasingly frustrated that I couldn't get through to her.  I increased my efforts and started yelling and realized my words and movements were creating wind and light.

That's when I realized I was an apparition too!!

Mask Off

My voice

Underneath these tears

The thick welling caught in the back of my throat

Still I chant

Extremities of my skin

Tight with holding

Still I chant

Emotions

Trapped deep within

Buried from long ago

Rise to the surface

Still I chant

You can know no pain

Like the present

Facing it fully

Steeped in vulnerability

Still you chant

These moments

Doorways

A deeper experience

Into walking as you

You chant

Mask off

Eyes open

Thank you

Grandmother Maple - Keene, NY

The universe dances in mysterious ways

Do you dare to call them in

Your dreams

They await you

The Doorway

You stand at a doorway

You are so full

All it can do is pour forth

And expand those around you

It is up to you

To allow your fullness to exist

To be and believe in that stillness

That fullness

These are your gifts

We are waiting to be opened up

To experience the depths

Of who we are

To experience the depths

Of being alive

Thought

Is a pathway into that

You hold the key

To your doorway

For yourself

And those who resonate with you

Move Water Move

Move water move

I need to make it

Move water move

I need to breathe

Move water move

There's no more room here

Move water move

I need to breathe

Move water move

This place is crazy

Move water move

Nowhere to go

Move water move

No time to waste now

Move water move

No more to hold

They told me young

No room for tears here

They tell me now

To stand up strong

Move water move

There's no more room here

Move water move 

I need to breathe

I know this place

Is filled with guns now

I know these men

That they'll use bombs

I know this place

There might be children

Move water move

No time to waste

I know our hearts

They hold the world's song

I know our eyes

We see it all

Just one more day

Of holding in me

Move water move

It won't be long

Move water move

This place is crazy

Move water move

I need to breathe

Locust? growing from Maple - Interspecies Canoodling

Move water move

No time to waste now

Move water move

Please let me breathe

I know our hearts 

Can hold the world's pain

I know our minds

Don't make no sense

Move water move

We need to stand strong

Move water move

This has to end

I know our hearts

Want something different

People I meet

Don't want this pain

So tell me friends

What can we do now

Don't hide yourself

Don't hide your pain

Move water move

We can do this

Move water move

We will breathe

Move water move

We are ready

Move water move

It's time to change

Float

Chapel Pond - Adirondacks, NY

There is a beautiful moment held between this land looking up at the clouds

Heart turned towards the skies, floating in a mountain pond

Ears under the water

The only sound is the effort of my breath

It doesn't sound so effortless after all

The earth can support us

That which we are made from

A beautiful space to be

Dragonfly dances around me

There is beauty everywhere

Practicing Is The Practice

The Weaver - Point Au Roche, NY

That moment in meditation when you decide to return to the practice.

Even when you've opened your eyes a couple of times.

Started to talk to someone in the room.

Picked up your phone to search for something online.

These moments are the juice of the practice.  It is easy to sit when life is in the flow that you want.  But, do you abandon your practice when things get tough?  How about when there's people around?  Or, when your mind is racing over and over and over?  I know I do!

It is in these moments that the practice transmutes into life and the two become much more woven together.  The need to achieve something from the practice lessens.  It won't be another thing to add to your "I'm not good enough at this" list.  You'll know there is nothing to be good at here.  

The practicing is the practice.

The beautiful practice.

Your strength is in choosing to return.  Each time you choose to return your path becomes stronger and more woven together.  It's a shift from placing attention on all the things you may be doing wrong or not doing enough of.

When you focus on returning to the practice, you build a "muscle" and begin to see your inner strength.  It is important to see that.

Like Building A Muscle...

You are never out of alignment

It is simply about remembering love

Remembering the love you have for yourself

Remember love is always with you

No matter how you feel

BREATHE

Into your heart

Send your heart love

You can continue to build this muscle

Self love exists on a continuum

There is no end goal

It is always expanding with you

Interconnected

Weeping Beech - Smith College - Northampton, Ma

Our ancestors understood this network of communication and interaction.  We are now ready to understand this deep connection.  At this moment we have within us and within our grasp the capacity to KNOW and UNDERSTAND this connection.

We stand at the doorway with the capacity to marry our knowing that is written within our blood and bones with the knowing that the pieces of our logical/rational mind can grasp and prove.  Even to the most skeptical among us.

We are ready for this.  We have been waiting for this. 

What we need is for those amongst us who believe that this is possible to keep believing and keep connecting.  It is time to discontinue discounting the phenomena that happens within our experiences, the people we are connected to, or those who cross our paths.

These experiences are valid and they show us their is interconnection.  When we are open to seeing it the world may open us in the most unexpected and beautiful ways.  We are ready to be re-enchanted with something that has been enchanting us since the day we took our first breaths and opened our eyes to to experience the whole world.

We are at the beginning of a new world.  You are part of its unfolding and for that I sincerely thank you.

Soul Collector

Life long learners have found themselves alive in a time where it is easier than ever to consume knowledge, learn, and pursue personal growth with fervor.  What the heck is this all for?

We are on a journey of collecting and transmuting the lost and wounded parts of our souls and spirits.  As we comb through this knowledge available to us, we are healing not only our immediate situations but are the catalyst of healing generations of physical and spiritual trauma.  Lets admit it…humanity has a sordid history.  As we peel the layers of our onion deeper than the problems of our present day we open the door to healing deeper patterns embedded in our energy field.  Have you ever felt angry not just for yourself but for the plight of all women?

You are opening the doorway towards releasing the pain of the past…  When you stop, breathe, and allow this energy to pass through you, you release it back into the universe transformed…  you allow the earth to hold it…transmuted.  You break the repeating cycle of pain.

When we heal ourselves we gain the ability to heal those parts of ourselves in the universe.  We are one.  We heal as one.  We break as one.  We grieve as one.

We are one.

When we start radiating our healed souls outward; we touch those around us with light and peace.

We care so much about healing ourselves and others because we know healed people means healed planet.

Sounds Radiates The Whole Being

The world needs your gifts
Will you dare to bring them out into the light
Allowing others to see them
Allows light to reflect back on them

Summer sky in Pennsylvania

It's a beautiful process
Your heart grows
Their heart grows
It all makes sense

Can you see?
How important this is?

Singing With The Coyote Sunset

I was welcomed back to the mountains after some days with family by this amazing sunset.  I knew I had to stop the car which seemed to be what many people were thinking because there were cars pulled over all along the side of the road.  After the crowd left I started singing to the sunset and when I was finished heard the response from coyotes in the distance.

August sunset from Spruce Hill - Adirondacks, NY

Trust

As you set the course

You will rise to meet it

Setting the course

Provides the opportunity

For what you've been longing for

This longing to matter

To make a difference

Marcy Field - Keene, NY

You know you have not been here before

Yet, you have woven your thoughts

Your consciousness 

Throughout this space

Full Moon at Cascade Lakes

These nights are doorways

You step through them

You never return to your life in the same way again

You can't go through things the same way

You have expanded and grown

With the rhythm of the cosmos

The same light that reflects from this moon

Reflects from your heart

Remember that always

Allow yourself to open up

To who you truly are

I've had a strong connection with crows for many years.  About two and half years ago they started to fly with  my car and every so often it still happens.  I love traveling down a back road and slowing down to drive/fly at "crow speed" with them.  Here's a song I wrote to honor the beauty of this bird that looks like darkness but when you catch them just right the light reveals a world of blue iridescence.

It's also a tribute to my friend and fellow crow sister Greta!