As you can see here, I can now make 2 different kinds of oragami peace cranes.  The one on the right took concentrated effort and rolling through 6 different YouTube demos until I found one that I could actually follow (it has to do with which way the open edges face.  This one was the only one I found that actually showed that).  I am not usually called to stick with complicated things, things that don’t come easily, things that need to be thought through, tried out, tweaked and then made again.  I’m a “sit down do it all at once and onward” type of gal.

And yet.

This year I have finally gotten around to my very first in-front-of-the-camera vlog. There will be more.  Perhaps with me just talking without any visual aides to help me along.  That first one went REALLY well! (many many thanks to all those who left encouraging comments – it helps!  more than you know!).

I started writing a twice monthly newsletter (which comes along with my coloring book pages).  For a year I couldn’t figure out how to situate that within my blogs and other on-line writing, then all of a sudden, there it was and it pretty much writes itself (much more art oriented than this blog, which is about inspiration as well as art).

And two years of thinking about how has culminated in a Garden Goddess who sits right outside my work and kitchen windows where I can see her every day.  She’s an on-going project, but the first layer of community has happened:  gal pals arriving with their offerings to hang off her, a few of my own offerings, some new plants (which had to wait because it snowed in March in Southern Maryland – but we got together anyways!).  Each woman also made at least one tile that I will glaze and finish to decorate the wall behind her that helps lift planters up into the air.  Short video here.  Pictures/album on Facebook here.

Last year I started the daily Wylde Women’s Wisdom quotes free to anyone who wanted them.  I had to learn autoresponders, how to find and use a Virtual Assistant (for what I couldn’t figure out), and hosting.  And now I get two or three emails daily from folks who receive them.  Some work on my end – on-going rewards with no more effort than that original set up (Okay.  Not quite true – I’m still working on getting all 365 up, but I’m a bit ahead….Then I have to decide what comes after one year of quotes.  Probaby weekly as opposed to daily.  And the book which I haven’t yet started, but it’s now on my calendar.  In writing.  Means it will soon materialize).

Art Journaling – my own private delight.  I’ve loved art journals forever and never done anything about it.  Until the last two months.  I did one page, then another.  And another.  I did videos of my pages.  I found a community.  Here’s a great little start for you if you’ve been thinking about it:  30 Days of PLaY.  Treat yourself.    Everyone’s an artist – broaden your definition, spread your wings, choose to name yourself instead of waiting for someone else to call you what it is you already know you are.  Here’s a great post by friend Michele Theberge, The Hybrid Artist.  There aren’t any rules.  Make it up as you go along.

All of these things called to me for a (sometimes long) time before I finally faced them and allowed myself to be a conduit for their becoming.  The block mostly was fear:  what if it isn’t perfect, what if I can’t get to where I want to be – get the actuality to match what’s in my head; what if I don’t have time.  Each had a bad case of the “what ifs” prior to being realized.

This is what I have learned about overcoming the what ifs:

1.  Allow yourself the possibility of failing.  Re-story failure from a falling down to a stepping-up toward where you’re headed. Yes.  You can.

2.  Play.  Play all around what you think you want, ignore what you think you want, make something that doesn’t have to be sold, be beautiful, be useful.  Open to your inner child – the one who could play for hours because she didn’t have to think about paying bills, what was in the fridge, running to the grocery store, or a job that wrung her out.   All she had to do was present herself and play with what was in front of her.  We can still do that.  It’s a choice.  If you need a child to help you remember how, I’m sure there’s one who needs someone to play with.  Find her. Yes.  You can.

3.  What calls to us is what we love.  In our deep heart we know exactly what that is.  We don’t allow ourselves because we are not worthy of loving what we do.  We must put our nose to the grindstone, meet the expectations of everyone around us.  We make ourselves last on any priority list because that’s how our culture indoctrinates us.  You do not have to listen.  You can carve out space.  And don’t worry – what you love is patient and keeps waiting, and keeps putting little reminders in your pathway, throws books into your hands, throws people (and sometimes angels)  into your path.  After a while it gets really hard to ignore.  What we love loves us even more.  Open to that love.  Its power of possibilities is absolutely amazing.  Yes.  You can.

4.  Be afraid.  Admit you’re afraid.  Draw or dance or sing your fear.  Then do whatever it is anyways.  Yes.  You can.

5.  Find a community.  There is NOTHING like good friends to bring out the best in you.  If you can’t find one, make one.  It takes just one other person.  And you may be surprised at who finds you!  Yes.  You can.

6.  Don’t give up.   Yes.  You Can.

7.  Rest when you’re tired.

8.  Know that you are not alone.  Everything here was something I was afraid of.  Everything.    Yes. You can.

9.  Begin.  YES.  YOU CAN!

10.  Bonus for you Aries out there (yes, I am an Aries):  Persist.  We’re great at beginning.  We need to persist.  Sometimes step by step (which makes me crazy, but it’s how I got all this done).  Hugs to you.  Because for us Persist is hard.  Do it anyways!  Because:  Yes.  You Can.

Yes.  Oh Yes.  And Yes again.  You can you can you can!

Wylde Womens Wisdom

I don’t know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneed down in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn’t everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?

Mary Oliver