Fire Dreaming, 14"tx7"wx12"deep, Fired clay, stain and metallics $600

You’d think finding an elephant would be easy.

In the early 2000s, I went to Zambia for 2 weeks.  I was sent by my local chapter of the League of Women Voters to act as ambassador and trainer to NGOs (non-governmental organizations) focused on women’s empowerment and voting rights.

My host, Mary, told me wonderful stories.  One was about being in a car, traveling in Zambia and getting stuck.  There’s really only one road outside of the capital and everything else you’re on your own.  She tells of being broken down in the brush and hearing the elephants, but she never saw them because, broken vehicle or not, she made it back to the main road (getting home:  another story.  There’s no AAA in Zambia!).

Later during the visit she took me to see Victoria Falls (indescribable and the rainfall from the falls killed my camera so I have no pictures).  On the way we stopped at a game reserve and we saw the results of the elephants – they pretty much go where they want and leave a trail of poop and broken plants, i.e. trees, behind.  Word had it they had crossed over into Zimbabwe.

It seems one can be in the midst of elephants and never see them.  Maybe not want to see them.

There are three ways to find elephants if you really want to catch up with them:  follow the poop and broken stuff at ground level, climb a tree to get the big picture, or hire a guide. The guide will do what has worked for her before:  follow the poop or climb a tree.

One of the first questions to ask yourself on your trek is:  “Do I really really want to catch up with an elephant?  Or do I just want to see one?  From afar.” Or: “Do I want to touch and live with this elephant, become one with her and deal with all the things one does with a wild elephant.”  Or: “Do I want to catch this elephant and tame her, and how and what does that mean?”   These are important questions, and there are no  right or wrong answers.  It is more about getting to know your heart’s desire, and, once knowing that, what the next step is.

Next comes: “How do I like to learn about the world?”  Do you like to meander, to gather puzzle pieces and fit them together?  Do you like to conjecture and theorize, take byways as well as highways.  Do you enjoy knowing what the elephant had for dinner and for breakfast and do you delight in learning how to fix what is broken to open up possibilities for yourself?  Do you like epic poetry?  Do heights make your stomach turn over?

Or do you like getting to where ever “there” is at the moment so that you can savor “there.”  Perhaps a short hike on the ground, then up the tree because mazes aren’t your thing and an overview tells you more about what you want to know than the details, which can be left for someone else to do and then brief you.  You like haiku: sweet, to the point and a surprise “aha” of a twist at the end.  Heights give you a chance to try your latest set of wings.

As for guides: they know their areas of expertise and can share that with you.  If you’re a tree climber, a ground explorer can help fill in the blanks; you’re a ground explorer?  The tree climbing guide can show your way by pointing in a direction you cannot yet see.

However you get to your elephant, what you do upon finding her is entirely up to you.  Or maybe a beginning point for the next adventure.

My elephant’s name is Art.  I’m a “climb in the tree, soar around a bit if necessary, become one with her” kind of gal.  What’s your elephant’s name and how are you finding her?

(Many thanks to Wylde Woman Anne Rutherford who sent me off thinking about elephants over coffee this morning!)

Wylde Women’s Wisdom:

The great adventure of the creative life lies not only in the territory seen but in the fact that much of what we see has not been seen before…The artist does not see as others fsee.  Julia Cameron

Technorati Tags: art, Business of Art, follow your heart

Glazed Porceline and Ocean Jasper Wall Hanging $145

There they are:  the perfect shoes.  They look stylish, they match perfectly.  And the store doesn’t have your size.

What to do?

Do you buy the size they have?  Smaller: squish foot in and suffer?  Larger:  rubs a nasty blister, trips you as you go down the stairs.

Or do you chalk it up to knowing that, although these appeared perfect, a bit of research (not your size)  let you know that they aren’t, which means the perfect pair of shoes is still waiting for you somewhere?

How about those shoes that you paid too much money for because they seemed to fit all the prerequisites, but just never lived up to your expectations?  Do you keep them because they cost so much?  And if you kept them, how do you feel every time you see them in your closet?

And those shoes that you have worn completely out to the point of their falling apart.  They were so perfect in their day.  No others have come to take their place.  No others will ever take their place.  They were perfect.  Were they really so perfect?  Well, after you wore them in – to be honest, they pinched a bit at first.  But everyone loved them so much on you, and were so jealous, you soon ignored all that pinching stuff and accepted them and decided to believe they were perfect and irreplaceable.

What shoes do you have in your closet?

Wylde Women’s Wisdom:

There are many people who do not live the lives they desire.  Many of the things that hold them back from inhabiting their destiny are false.  These are only images in their minds.  They are not really barriers at all.  We should never allow our fears or the expectations of others to set the frontiers of our destiny.  John O’Donohue

Technorati Tags: shoes, shoes as life

Mask. Untitled $225.00

How many times have you thought about leaving your day job, your “safety” job as an artist friend of mine calls her job, to follow your heart.

How quickly and how many times have you then thought:  “Oh, but I can’t afford to do that.  How would I (make your own list – we all have one).

How many times have you looked at someone and thought:  “Oh, she is so lucky.  Her husband (or ‘his wife’) must support her/him”; variation:  bet s/he has a trust fund; variation: wonder who s/he slept with.

You can’t afford this type of thinking.

It will keep you stuck and small.

Recognize that when your heart and spirit and soul yearn toward something, that is a clear sign that you already have it! “It” can be talent, inspiration, imagination, technical skill, courage, and the means to support all that.  We don’t get these yearnings for nothing – they are guideposts along our path.

Recognize that when you feel lost it is because you have been ignoring your guide posts.

I realize that my preferred way of negotiating the world, i.e. jump and learn to fly or a net will appear, is in the minority; so I’m not going to tell you to quit your job and find the nearest cliff to jump off so you can practice flying.  Not that you couldn’t.  Amazing things happen when bold action is taken.

What I am going to tell you is that starting right now, this very instant, you can take a baby steps toward your heart and spirit and soul’s desire: 

• Clear away all the excuses and say what you want – preferably out loud and to one other loving soul.  But say it.
• Don’t wonder about how.  Just get really really REALLY clear on what you want.
• Pretend you already have it (because, after all, you do).  Imagine how you feel, how your carry yourself, how others look at you, how you spend your days – these are the only “hows” you’re to think about from now on.
• Walk into a store wearing this new persona.  See if things look any different than before.
• Sign all your checks wearing this new persona ($400 for heat?  pfft!  Nothing.  My next sketch/client/sale will cover that today!).  Think,  “I am CEO of [your business name - if you don't have one, create one]” with each signature.
• Find something to hold onto:  a friend, a group of like minded people, your own true heart, soul, spirit.  When we learn to walk we don’t just stand up and go.  We pull ourselves up, we fall down.  We take 1 step or 3, we fall down.  In the background, we have people exclaiming how wonderful we are for these amazing accomplishments.  Find your rah-rah team and let their energy buoy you up.

The world needs us to be who we came to be, not the drugged, sleep-walking, quietly desperate people we have squished ourselves into.  None of us can afford this.  Start spending your heart and soul and spirit on things that matter.  The world is depending on it!

Wylde Women’s Wisdom:

And this is what I learned:  if I change my belief system, I can change my life…If we change what we believe, we change what is possible; we change reality.  the mind changes the world.  Consciousness is the tool of our liberation.  Christina Baldwin

Technorati Tags: being conscious, heart's desire, making choices, You can't afford

Calypso, 24" x 36" acrylic on Canvas $295

What brings you joy?

How do you know when joy arrives?

What does joy look, feel, taste like?

Sometimes you just have to stop and think about these things.

Here’s my take on joy:

Joy comes when I am doing things without judging myself.  In art it means I am playing and not looking to how much this particular piece will bring or even if it will sell.

Joys is getting lost in following the energy which wants expression through my art and allowing that energy to manifest.

Joy is making time.  It is taking walks and listening to the sounds of the world which are always there but seldom noticed; like watching a glorious sunset and knowing that sunset happens every single day whether or not I pay attention.

Joy is writing by hand slowly enough that my hand doesn’t cramp, which means slowing my head talk waaaaay down so I can keep up.

Joy was once go-go dancing – I think that was joy in knowing how good I looked and how well I managed any beat; in being watched.  I danced all the time – out.  Seldom home and alone.  Now I dance mostly in my head during my workout as I listen to the songs I used to dance to. Joy is realizing how in my head and out of my body I have been – and how I can change that any time I choose.

Now a dance of joy would be slow, some twirling now and then, arms outstretched, palms up, head back, outside, barefoot.  It would be spring or fall and there would be no mosquitos.  There would be some stamping of feet and snapping of fingers.  Thre would be no thought and no watchers.  There would be my body and acceptance of my body as it is now and no thought given to age, aches, and pains.  There would be free hair, long pants (bell bottoms) and the music would come from inside – perhaps my heart beat and breath and there would be no prepackaged song running through my head.

Frog song would be nice – so it must be evening.  Maybe dusk.  Maybe a campfire to add snap and crackle percussion.  And there would be no time.  And it might now be cold with a crescent moon and lots of stars and breath on the air as white steam.  And now it might be dawn at the ocean’s edge with the sea oats whispering and the waves shushing, and hot already, even before the sun’s fully up for the day.

Joy is snow falling and the quiet it creates (well, okay, this may not resonate with those of us who are currently buried); a warm fire of cedar logs; a toasty bed with a feather blanket.  Joy is a cool drink after a hard workout.  Joy is  traveling to new places; seeing others’ art; spending time with friends; connecting with my family; good food, good, wine, good chat.  Joy is a nap curled up against two furry pug dogs.

Now, what brings you joy?

Wylde Women’s Wisdom:

So much of what we buy and do is booby prizes because we’re not living lives we want, we even forget how lively life can be so we’ve got to keep getting more stuff to fill the unfillable hole.  A service we can do for each other is to watch for signs of life and say, “You look like you love doing that.  maybe you should do that some more.  maybe I can help you.”  Ann Herbert

A Gathering o Paintings from My Past

Every now and then I like to go back and see what I’ve written.  Now seemed like the perfect time since I’m going to be away from my office a bit and so am preposting blogs so that I don’t forget since my schedule will not be running on its normally abnormal rhythm.  Planned chaos.  Preposting is the “planned” part.  Everything else is open for adventure and extraordinary occurances (hear that Universe?!)

Here are some posts from this time last year, along with some other posts that seemed pertinent for your browsing pleasure.  Enjoy!

How Many Blackbirds….

How Many Words Does It Take To Change the World

Greed or Capitalism – i.e.- Making A Living

Do You Really Need a Gallery  Joanne Mattera

Play with Words

Best of Intentions

Talisman

Underground Temples – 8th wonder of the world    Daily UK

Do you every look back over your journals or blogs or notes to discover where you’ve been?  Does it ever help you see better how you got where you are and where you might be going?

Patty Digh writes in Life is a Verb: “Quantum physics tells us that the presence watching an experiment changes the experiment; the act of observing affects what is observed…How are we changing the people around us by how we respond to them, or don’t?”

How do we change ourselves by the way we respond to ourself – all the parts of ourself – or don’t?  How do we change our stories by what we remember and what we forget?  Never mind the kids (for now – they’re grown anyways); it’s close to midnight, do you know where you are?

Wylde Women’s Wisdom

Your memory is going to be completely erased in five minutes.  You have only that amount of time to write down everything you want or need to remember.  Start writing.  At the end of five minutes, stop.  …Since your memory will be erased, you can create the life you really want!  Write for five more minutes and create a compelling image of that life, making it very specific:  What kind of room do you wake up in?  With whom do you eat breakfast?….What would it take to start creating that life?  Patty Digh

Fault Lines, 21"x18"x4" Clay, crystals, semi-precious stones $625

This afternoon I received an email from my AmpUP: Create Your Art Business Out Loud client.  She is having a hard time with  overwhelm and (even though she knows better at some level) not being able to believe that she can make a career of being an artist.

Let me say this woman’s art is wonderful – it is a healing, inspirational offering from her soul.  We out here need it.

I encouraged her to take a breath, step back from looking at THE WHOLE BIG PICTURE, take small chunks of time – 1/2 hour every other day for starters.  I suggested that she should mother herself – applaud her  baby steps, her falls, her willingness to get back up again.

Within an hour, I found myself with my head in my hands with my own version of “I’m never going to be able to do this.” 

So I emailed her a P.S. and told her where I had just found myself so that she would know she isn’t alone.

We all have fault lines.  Sometimes we hide them well. But they’re still there and sometimes they hurt.  Breaking open does that.  We are growing bigger than we were before.  Breaking out of the old husk,

Fault Lines - detail

 shedding our skin makes us vulnerable while we’re in the midst of it, and a bit raw.

Which is all by way of saying:  it’s okay.  This is called living.  No one gets by without feeling it.  Some of us are better at hiding it than others.  Some of us look pretty good while we’re going through it  because of all this glorious stuff that’s breaking out and because you catch a snapshot of the minutes between labor pains.

Just because you can’t see the fault lines doesn’t mean they aren’t there.  

So the next time you look at someone and think,  “Oh!  she’s so together; I’ll never get there,” remember that her fault lines may be healed or just covered up.  Maybe labor has just started and feels like it’s not going to be hard at all.    It’s that knowing that we’re all scared sometimes, and we all look indominatable sometimes, and a lot of times we’re wandering lost somewhere on the line between the two

Fault Lines - back view

extremes, that allows us to keep breaking open and to keep growing.   So to my client (and to myself):  You Go, Girl!

Wylde Women Wisdom:

Our culture denies the nature of reality.  It holds out a promise that you can live in an ideal world where things come easily, a world in which unpleasant experiences can be avoided, where there is never a lack of immediate gratification.  Worse, it suggests that if you do not live in this world, something is wrong with you……In your own life, you find yourself unable to take a risk.  You don’t know how to make a decision.  Your financial future is uncertain.  your face has a new wrinkle.  There is no time to parent properly.  You simply cannot get life under control.  There is nothing wrong with this.  This is how it feels to be alive.  Phil Stutz

Technorati Tags: fault lines, growing, perfection, real life

Bayou Shower, Shirley Cameron (my collection)

No – I’m not saying you smell. 

I’m asking when did you last take a bath – you know:  hot water, steamy bathroom, bubbles, good book or just lay back and relax, large towel, aromatic oil afterwards.

Can you remember the last time?

I just realized I can’t.

(Well, except the champagne jacuzzi in the Poconos, but that doesn’t count because you’re supposed to do things like that in the Poconos.  I’m talking about in your day-to-day, real-life world).

Nowadays, the morning shower has become nearly a universal ritual, with most american showering seven or more times a week.  (The Art of the Bath).

So no problems for Americans and odor. 

But what about Americans and leisure.  Especially American women.  We have all this wonderful technology that allows us not to beat rugs but to vacuum, not to scrub clothes in the creek/wring them out/dry them in the grass but to throw them in one machine to wash and then another to dry.  We have dishwashers for dishes and cars that take the place of walking.  What happened to all that extra time those machines were making for us?

I suggest that we need to step back a moment and look at the stories we are telling ourselves around “no time” “hurry hurry” “must add to my todo list.”  We get so busy doing we have no time for being – and I know that this is not the first time you have heard “we are human be-ings, not human do-ings.”  Clever but did it stop you long enough for that bath?

Do you fill up your day with busy so that you don’t have to think about all you are givin up because you don’t have time to live the authentic life you came here for?  Do you work hard to buy more things to make up for what your soul is craving?  Have you bought in to the story that you can’t make enough money doing what you love?  Do you make enough money doing what you don’t love?  Tama Kieves says, “If you make that much money doing what you don’t love, imagine what might happen if you do something you do love!”

My challenge to you is to put a bath on your calendar as soon as you stop reading this post.  Better yet, stop reading right now and put “BATH!” on your calendar sometime in the next week.  Don’t delay – you’ll forget or make excuses.

Plan it out as you would plan a tryst with your lover.  Think of the five senses: something that smells good for the bath or for oiling up afterwards; something that feels wonderful against your skin – hot water, line-dried towel (which will also fill in for smells as in fresh and outdoorsy); something that tastes good – a refreshing drink; something soothing to look at – a pretty candle or seven; soft music in the background.

Make this a late Valentine to the most important person in your life – you!

Recipes for the Bath*

1. Use a mesh ball infuser or place ingrediants in a mesh bag and hang under the fowing water.
2. A handful of pine needles, 3 broken cinnamon sticks, 10 or so whole cloves, 3 thick slices of fresh ginger.
3. 2 springs of pineapple mint, 2 sprigs of sage, peel of one orange, peel of one lime, handful of lemon verbena leaves

Recipes for You*

1. 1/2 small honeydew, 1/2 cucumber peeled and sliced, small handful of mint leaves, juice from one lime, 1 lime sliced for garnish.  Scoop honeydew from rind and place it in a blender.  Puree until smooth.  Place cucumber, mint and lime juice in blender and puree mixture for 10 – 15 seconds mor.  Serve in tall frozen glass with lime slice (2 – 4 glasses)
2. 2 ripe mangos, peeled and seeded, 1 passion fruit, 3/4 cup water, 1 jicama peeled.  Roughly cop the mango.  Cut the passion fruit in half and scoop out the soft pulp inside.  Place the fruit and water in a blender and puree until frothy.  Pour over frozen jicama cubes – cut the jicama into 1-inch squares and freeze for at least 20 minutes  (2 glasses)(when the juice is gone, the jicama makes a fragrant and hydrating snack).

*  from the art of the bath by Sara Slavin and Karl Petzke

Jennifer Louden suggests we all practice a bit of Creative selfishness, behavior that allows us to care for ourselves without feeling guilty.  “Creative selfishness sends a clear message to everyone in your life:  I love you or value you or respect you), but I am a separate person with needs of my own.  By practicing creative selfishness, not only will you gain the time to care for yourself, you  will…amass an overflow of love that will allow you to care for others from your abundance.”

When you’ve met the challenge, be sure to come back and let us know how it went!

** A note on the  “Bayou Shower.”  I bought this lovely little piece in Bay St Louis Mississippi, mainly because of the story on the back of it (have I mentioned how I love stories?): “Inspired by incident of partying and drinking for days in Morksville Bayou.  Girls were left behind by bf’s for 4 days – needs boat to get out – Bayou water rancid.  Took advante of rain…

Wylde Women’s Wisdom:

With a turn of the wrist, you open the tap, and it gushes forth, coming up through the pipes, humming with elemental vitality; it’s a soun you’d know anywhere, rushing into the tub – merely itself, purely itself…The steam rises, now fragrant and soothing; this clarity into which you have added a handful of salts and lavender and sage now reflects the sky through the open windows and the aquamarine of the 19302 tiles.  ‘The seat of the soul,’ said Novalis, ‘is where the inner world and the outer world meet.  Where they overlap, it is in every point of the overlap.’  You press a cool glass of it against your temple – water.

Here’s the thing:  there is much writing out there that is supposed to be helpful in figuring out where one is and why one is here.  And very much of it leaves me with the question:  WHAT does that MEAN?

Jung’s concept of shadow is like that (what you dislike in another is just a projection of what you dislike in yourself).  Couldn’t quite get there.

Then along came Byron Katie and I got closer to understanding it through her Work – the 4 questions and the turnaround.

Then along came Brooke Castillo and her Self Coaching 101 book and it got clearer still.

Airy Fairy

Here is what I understand so far:  We see what we want to see (i.e., we create our world), because we wear blinders that act as filters.  These blinders block our conscious intake of anything that would cause cognitive dissonance (discomfort) so that we can keep our belief system in tact.

Turns out “create your world” isn’t quite as airy-fairy as some would like to believe.  Some like to believe that things happen to them and they have no power.  Because to believe otherwise would mean they have to take some action or change some cherished story which has brought them comfort up until now.

The Dark Wood

Rebirth is messy.  Why should it be any different than a first birth? 

Don’t you know squeezing down that birth canal has to be a bit disconcerting after sloshing comfortably in warm amniotic fluid with this metronomic heartbeat lulling us at all hours.  Coming, as it were, from darkness into the light.  Could make one wish to crawl back in for a spell. 

But moving from light, where we “see” everything, to the dark is even more scarey. 

We think we have it all figured out – the path lies clearly in front of us.  We are breezing along, going with the flow, the way is clear.  Maybe we are humming or whistling.  The sky is blue.  Then, BAM!, something pushes us off this famailiar way  Suddenly we are in pain from brambles and snow-blind from too much brightness. 

Rescue yourself – this is no time to wait for some imaginary bigger-than-life knight in shining armor.  You are your own hero.  Act like it!  Here’s how.

Science: Theory of Process

What we perceive as reality can be changed by shifting our vantage point:

The above is a diagram of light waves and polarized filters.  Horizontal light waves can pass through a horizontal filter (H), but cannot pass through a vertical filter (V) and vice versa unless you add a filter (D) between H and V. (Must be placed between).  (Gary Zukov, The Dancing WuLi Masters)(emphasis mine)

The basic unit of the universe is an event or a process.  These events link in certain ways (allowed transitions) to form webs.  The webs in turn join to form larger webs.  Farther up the ladder of organization are coherent superpositions of different webs(things which are neight “this web” nor “that web” but distinct entities in themselves.  [Finkelstein's theory of process].  The basic elements of Finkelstein’s theory do not exist in space and time.  They are prior to space and time. (Zukov)

Theo Skolnik says:  “We know from our understanding of how paradigms operate in such places as science and business [and, I might add, personal stories and ways of being] that the paradigm is a set of filters.  The scientist already ‘knows’ from his/her received theory what there is to be seen. The paradigm enables their perception and hinders peception of what is outside the paradigm.” (emphasis mine)

Need to “see” again?  Take a small step to the side, take off the blinders, change your filter, look at the strands of your story, seek your traveling companions.

Wylde Women’s Wisdom

“Can you see in the dark?”  Wolf eyes are yellow slits not/ black pools; curious I did not detect that earlier./  Her fur has dried, her paw is on my leg, her breath is/ garlic and seaweed/ in my face/ and the world has turned to liquid but I can breathe.//

“Open your eyes,” she says.’ Having come from campfire light/to ocean dark/ opening and closing eyes means nothing//there is no difference between open and closed.//

“Leave them open.”  I do not know if  it is order/or plea.//

Slowly from the midst of darkness forms take shape./Unfamiliar.  Frightening except for the paw steady and sure.//

This is what I see:  there are others here./Just like me./ Blind or half-bllind walking/or crawling, running or, sometimes, standing,/ each with a guide of fin or fur or plant or stone/ being led through dusk not black/ but shades of ebony and sable, coal and pitch, soot and smudge,/eel slick and obsidian shine/ – with phosphorescent rainbows evident if viewed/from just the right angle/ a small step to the side/ making a large difference/ in exactly what comes into view.//

I wonder whether I have been moving with my eyes open/ or closed.  Tammy Vitale, chapter XIV, Night Vision

sone and orange beadwork focal piece

Possessed: controlled or strongley influenced, especially by a supposed evila supernatural force or a strong emotion; having something as a quality, characteristic, or belief; having or owning something.

So, are you possessed?  And if you are, is that a good thing or a bad thing?

Because you create your life by the things you choose to allow in.

I got to thinking about being possessed the other day, playing Wii in the Poconos, in front of people I’d never seen.  Not a usual thing for me.  I’m usually in the back watching everyone else, but this is my year of Extraordinary, and I’m trying new things, so I tried this:   bowling on Wii.  In public.  And I didn’t do badly, either (it helps that I have a Wii at home, but we bought it for Grandson and I’ve played it about 4 times in the year or so we’ve had it).

Then I played pool with husband.  That is one of our fun things in the Poconos – neither of us play well.  I usually play abysmally.  But this time I kicked ass.  No other word for it.  I led in games won until the very last day.  We wound up tied, but as I rule I’m so far behind we don’t even count.

I was ON.  I was IN THE FLOW.  I was totally possessed and, maybe for the first time in my life self-possessed.  And it felt like this:  I was so in my body and out of my head that I didn’t care if I wasn’t perfect in front of other people.  I was focused on what I was doing and enjoying it immensely.  And I swear to you that I could actually see lines on the pool table

3 beadwork focals

 (possessed, some might venture).  Why, I even made some terrific off the rail shots!

The only things I did differently than usual were:  showed up and tried something new; and, when things didn’t go exactly right, instead of thinking “oh, you never do this well,” I thought: “wow, look at you, trying new things and getting better and better.”

I am no longer “possessed” by the voice in my head that doesn’t treat me nicely.  She (the Hamster) is off in a field somewhere exploring.  Now, I am possessed by my authentic self, and when I speak to myself, I speak kindly, even with encouragement.  This feels GREAT!  I don’t know why I didn’t step into it before!

Ever had anyone ask you:  What possessed you to do that?  What does possess you? (Tell us your story, here).

2 beadwork focals

Wylde Women’s Wisdom:

  Most of us like the feeling of being in control.  We think that if we keep our hand on the lever, things will go just the way we want them to; we’ll be satisfied.  The problem with always having to be in control is that you have to stay at the control Panel.  You can’t leave to get out on the dance floor.  Victoria Castle, The Trance of Scarcity

Drawing down the Moon , 18"t x 12.5"w x 4"d, $300.00

Like most of the creatures of creation, we humans go through a periodic molt, except that our molt is an invisible one and because of the lonely invisibility of the transformation, it necessitates a particular form of courage, a courage we are never sure we have in our possession.

Shedding the carapace we have been building so assiduously on the surface, we must by definition give up exactly what we thought was necessary to protect us from further harm.

Words will not convey that vulnerability to others; action is often inappropriate, neither can any evidence be proffered that we will grow beyond the line of our old shell.

We find ourselves in the desert without food, water, or shelter.  The frontier occurs in that desert, alone, the events fiery, clothed in a radical language and in a simplicity that frightens us.

In a sense, at crucial and difficult thresholds in our life, the part of us that is most at home is the part of us that for most of the time has no home at all, the part of us that lives outside the normal rules.  If we have no familiarity with this outlaw portion of ourselves in the normality of the everyday, then it can be very difficult to bring it to the fore when in the raw times of difficult change it is most needed….

With a healthy outlaw approach, we are outside the laws of predictable cause and effect and inside the intensity of creative originality…We see with the eyes of those who do not quite belong.  We are dangerous again, and glad to be so. David Whyte, Crossing theUnknown Sea:  Work as  Pilgrimage of Identity

What are some of the rituals you practice when going through difficult times?

Wylde Women’s Wisdom: People are like stained-glass windows.  They sparkle and shine when the sun is out, but when the darkness sets in, their true beauty is revealed only if there is a light from within.  Elizabeth Kubler-Ross

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