Month: April 2022

Have you ever happened on a new perspective while wandering along a familiar path?

It happened for me on Sunday.

Having parked my car, I was headed up the sidewalk to what my kid would have referred to – once upon a time – as the fix hay, known to most of us as the hair salon.

It was a Spring-y sort of day and there were people sitting at picnic tables in front of restaurants along the way.

I immediately noticed a little girl, about 18 months old, in a brightly colored dress, with about a zillion tiny braids in her hair that reminded me of a reverse print of a dandelion in seed.

Then I noticed the woman with her who might have been either Mom or Grammy. I smiled and nodded and then I waved at the baby.

What happened next amazed me, in that nothing happened next.

They both stared at me for a long moment.

Then, the wee one began to look quizzically at her own hand while her grown friend stared at her.

As quite the baby-waving expert, I was perplexed. This did not feel like what usually happens when I wave at babies.

Just then, the woman asked if she might speak with me a moment.

When I assured her her that I was listening, she said, with tears on her cheeks, that she didn’t think anyone had ever waved at the baby before!

And then, as she wiped her eyes, she explained that the baby had been born during Covid and was not well. She was only just beginning to be out and about with her. Then she asked me why I had waved at her.

As I explained gently that it was my own personal plan for peace on Earth, the little one waved back, tentatively, with the palm of her hand toward herself, as babies do, early in their waving careers.

I waved again and, by then, we were all waving.

My new friend asked me about my waving plan.

My theory is that it makes us less other, which just about has to be good for the world.

The next question was, Can anybody join?

When I told her that, of course, if she wanted to be in, she already was, the wee one, having figured out how to wave toward me, burst into giggles.

By the time I headed on down the sidewalk to my appointment, there were tears on my cheeks, too.

And a stunning awareness of how much waving there is to be done in the peculiar context of this moment! Just like my Legendary friend in the painting!

ps… the if you want to be, you already are waving bit totally applies to you, too!

pps… just in case your path for good in the world has parts more complicated than waving, and you could use some help along the way, let’s talk! 30 minutes, on me!

ppps… Daphne has more tank tops! And lots of other cool stuff!

I am still learning!

…widely attributed to the incredible artist of the Italian Renaissance known as Michelangelo.

I don’t have enough glowing adjectives to describe his work as a painter, sculptor, poet.

Mostly, though, I think he was a teller of stories. Stories that mattered a great deal.

And an inspiration for me and for our time.

He lived in a world at war over who got to tell whom what to believe, which feels more and more familiar to me as this century rolls on.

And, no, it’s not new. It just feels – with all of our technology – bigger and closer and harder to ignore than it has to me, before.

Part of that is, of course, my girls.

I remember, when I was the same age Kenzie is now, learning a much more personal, enlivened perspective on the American Revolutionary War from a brave teacher who ventured from retirement-ville Florida, clear to Broadway, and came home with a play called 1776.

Was the play “true”?

Not in the accepted academic sense. No.

Did it leave me with a sense of the real people and the bigger issues involved in that pivotal part of my history? Yes.

It changed history, for me, from a list of dates and names one memorized and regurgitated for an exam if one wanted good grades – and I did – to a new human perspective on actual events, largely recorded by the rich and powerful men who won.

Along with some really fun music!

And, I, like Michaelangelo, am still learning.

One of the biggest things I’m learning is a sense of how much it mattered to those who came before me to choose what they believed. And a great many of them chose dangerously unpopular alternatives to the official stories of their times.

I used to think that we were beyond the time when somebody assumed they got to tell everybody else what to believe.

This does not, however, seem to be the case.

And, frankly, I have moments when I want to just give up. To hide in my house and make dots and only talk to people who think like I do.

But, I can’t. Because I have 2 granddaughters growing up in this world.

It’s pretty scary to realize that I have no idea what choices they’ll face in the next few years.

Here’s what I do know…

I want, with all my heart, for them to know that they get to choose.

What to read. What sports to play. Who to love. What to hold sacred. Who to vote for. (And one of them will be doing just that, sooner than I can wrap my head around!) How to care for their bodies.

And I will love them, still.

So, I will keep learning.

And voting. And writing. And painting. And choosing. And guiding.

If you relate, I hope you’ll hang around. There’s newness afoot! For this moment… two things.

I have room in my world for just a few more individual clients. Grand-Elder types who have more mattering they long to do and are ready for a supportive guide along the way.

If you’re noticing a hmmmmmmmm somewhere deep and real inside, let’s talk! The calendar elves will hook you up with 30 minutes, on me!

If, on the other hand, you’re ready to dip your toe in the pool of modeling lots of learning and choosing, Daphne and I have a suggestion for an addition to your Wonder-Grammy wardrobe! Really!!!

ps… there’s no rule against doing both!!!

pps… the newness afoot? That means sooner is better for putting the calendar elves to work!

Today, I attended a Musea art show.

All of this is going to take a fair bit of explaining. And a trip down memory lane. So, pour yourself a cuppa and bring your filters, if you’re feeling brave. Or even a bit curious.

First… the show. The Mother Tree Collective Exhibition. A partnership between my Intentional Creativity® community and Treesisters, Intl. to plant actual trees in the actual world.

You’ve no doubt seen this painting before. Officially, she’s my first Tree of Life painting. The second-ever painting on my journey. Inspired by a Banyan tree, with her blessing bowl and multitude of prayer dots.

Unofficially, her name is Eve, which traditionally means (full of) life or living.

The painting didn’t actually get selected for the show but Eve came with me to view the hope and wonder of it all.

She’s already accomplished a lot, Eve has, since she came to form, early in 2018. A vivid reminder of my first encounter with the Divine Feminine, though I didn’t know the words yet as a pre-teen summer camper in a Florida state forest.

And, while I didn’t know it when I began the painting, Eve was already helping me get ready for my Fiercely Compassionate Artist painting who was to come soon after.

That was when I first noticed, consciously, that my world was changing. I had no framework for a painting who insisted on a quilt rather than the veil she was “supposed to be” wearing. And one of the pieces in that quilt says, In the image of the Divine, I create.

Which was a pretty big filter shift for me, along the path known as Color of Woman®!

And that reminds me that you may not be quite sure what I mean by the notion of filter.

Here’s the short version, borrowed from a guy named Bill Harris, about 20 years ago.

There’s a huge amount of information coming at us, from the universe, at any given moment. Two to three billion bits, as Bill explained it. (I can’t do the math!)

We, on our best days, can handle about 2 – 3 hundred bits a moment. Which is, at least metaphorically, the reason we all feel the way we do, these days. (Context matters!)

So, we have filters… most of them non-conscious, which decide, as it were, what gets in and what stays out. And the decisions are based on what matches the Map of Reality we have.

Yep. It’s kind of complicated at first glance. Let’s skip along to the good news.

We, with some coaching and practice, can edit our filters and our Map of Reality!

And that editing is exactly what was going on for me, paintbrush in hand, back in 2018 when I claimed the huge notion that lives, inconspicuously, in that colorful quilt. In the image of the Divine, I create.

Many, many, many more bits of information have bombarded my filters since then. And I am editing, still.

Today, I would say, instead, In partnership with the Divine, I create.

And so can we all, if we create with fiercely compassionate intention!

Which leads us to this fabulous act of fierce compassion…

This tartan fabric is being specially created in Scotland, now, to benefit the people of Ukraine!

And, there’s a fiercely compassionate chef named Jose Andres who, along with an amazing team, is feeding the people of Ukraine. Even though one of his kitchens was bombed this week.

And there’s a guy on a mountain in Vermont who writes things I wish I’d thought of. His name is Frederick Buechner. Here’s one for this moment…

The place God calls you to is the place where your deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet.

Where is that, for you?

ps… learn more about the gorgeous tartan HERE!

pps… learn more about Jose Andres’ work in Ukraine HERE!

ppps… Eve & I hope you’ll check back for more info on video of the Musea Show. And click HERE for details about helping Treesisters plant trees! It’s a really big deal!!!

pppps… want to talk about what all this might mean on your path? Click HERE and the calendar elves will hook you up with 30 minutes… my gift to you!

I have to admit, I’m kind of missing the Easter basket bit.

Not Peeps – not even a little – and definitely not jelly beans. Dyeing eggs is fun, though, and I’m a fan of really, really good chocolate bunnies.

The kids are far away, however, and the between-ness of Saturday will go on a bit longer, at least in our personal world, as we are wandering in an uncertain land just now.

It’s not unique to us, for sure. Just our turn.

And, it seems to bring up big questions.

For me, one of those questions has to do with the boxes in our brains. It’s a question which has hung with me ever since the winter of 1989, when I visited Hungary with a group of Seminary students and one of our professors.

We had cold feet and odd food and lots of new experiences.

I came home from that trip with all the tidy boxes in my brain jumbled up, over-run with questions. Questions having a great deal to do with vested interest.

And, yes, my inner boxes are in more than a bit of disarray these days, for I am learning more stories.

I’m thankful, all over again, for that trip to Hungary. That trip where I learned that the boxes are just boxes and we get to make choices as we learn more.

Note, dear reader… this is about where I was in this story when I went to bed on Saturday night. Feeling close to “done”. Then, the Muse took over, as she is known to do! So, a bit of a narrative zig for a story I chose a while back and am still choosing every day…

That story began, for me, with a dream, during my Intentional Creativity® Teacher journey known as Color of Woman, in 2018.

Deep in the midst of my Talisman/Artist journey, I dreamed of winged horses. The next morning, curious, I looked up the symbolism and learned of an old legend which holds that…

Once upon a time, quite some time ago, two writers were talking together about the books they were working on.

One of them asked the other about his reference to “winged horses.”

The rather surprising response went something like this: Jesus didn’t come to make people look nice and behave themselves.

Jesus came to make whole new creatures where once there were broken people.

This, many people believe, was a reference to the image in the biblical book, Revelation, of winged horses, like the mythical Pegasus.

Not well-trained regular horses, but whole new creatures.

So, a contemporary glyph for the constellation, Pegasus, by Dennis Moskowitz, which manifested itself in my painting, Winged Horses, when my Prism and Apothecary journeys smashed into each other with a big bang on canvas.

Oh, the legendary writers???

C.S. Lewis speaking with J.R.R. Tolkien. Really!

And, I can see why the Muse insisted on this story in this moment!

The days leading up to the first Easter, I think, must have felt a lot like inner boxes coming apart for a great many people.

And yet, those who followed Yeshua, stayed. Well, some of them. Many of those who did choose to stay, according to stories that you and I might not have learned along the way, were the women.

What, our world is screaming, will we choose, now?

For me, the answers begin and end with Love, with Fierce Compassion, whatever our particular traditions.

If we start there, we can figure the rest out. Together.

ps… just in case your walls could use some inspiration, and perhaps even a winged horse, there are lots of choices at FierceArtWithHeart!

pps… shop soon! Right now, there’s a 20% discount in the Original Paintings and Archival Prints collections. Just enter the code LOVE when you check out!

We make a great many things, we humans.

Dinner. Money. Mistakes. Art. Laws. Love. Roads. Assumptions. Music.

Well, you get the drift…

We also make meaning out of our experience.

Almost all of us.

I’ve been thinking about that a lot.

Yesterday, April 12, 2022, there was, apparently, a whole lot of meaning-making going on that was largely outside my experience.

Meaning about what was going on in the skies.

As I am only beginning to grasp it, the event happened at 10:42 am EDT on Tuesday. Here’s what I learned, paraphrasing from an expert named Meg Benedicte…

Jupiter, the planet of expansion, truth and knowledge, met Neptune, the planet of dreams, visions, illusions, and enlightenment at 23 degrees Pisces…

This last occurred in 1856 and won’t happen again until 2188.

This event was a powerful day to pay attention to intuition, dreams, and visions, as well as expanding capacity to access our Soul purpose and plan.

I “happened” to read about this once-in-a-lifetime event about 10 minutes before it occurred. And, just between us, I felt pretty clueless.

We did not cover such things in nursing school or seminary!

After pondering a bit, I realized that people had been making meaning out of the skies, just like this, since the beginning of time.

Or, at least, wondering.

And, if we’re going to wonder, wondering about our soul purpose seems like it might be a really good thing.

It’s kind of like what I think of as my Big Why?

Which is pretty close to asking ourselves about the meaning we’ll make out of our lives and experience.

Here’s the part that fascinates me.

It’s really, really hard to ask questions like that in the abstract, because we are creatures of context.

Here’s an example. Imagine that, 10 years ago – even 5 years ago – you’d asked Volodymyr Zelenskyy about his sense of his soul purpose.

I’ll bet the answer would have been different – at least in magnitude – than it would be today.

The world changes. We learn new things. We see new needs for our gifts and passions.

Most of us who are breathing today could not have imagined our world as it is in this moment just a few years ago. BUT, if we try, together, to imagine the next right things for our souls and our neighbors, maybe – just maybe – we’ll get closer.

With a bit of help from the planets and stars…

Which, maybe – just maybe – are the prayer dots of the Creative Divine!

In any event, I know I’m all in for expansion, truth and knowledge… dreams, visions, and enlightenment.

ps… just in case you’re in for things like expansion, dreams, visions and so forth – and could use some help along the way – I have space in my red tent for just a couple of new individual clients. Curious??? Click the link and the calendar elves will find us a time to chat! (My gift to you!) ’tis, apparently, the season!

The elves & I are ready!

pps… the art is my Forest of Grandmothers #wip – hope in a red tent!

It’s been stormy, outside and in, today.

Just enough energy to feel oddly optimistic and scary!

The big beasties were a bit anxious about the vibe, though they voted to act out of love, rather than fear, and beg for their beloved bowls to be filled, despite the essential trip out in the wind and rain and thunder, first.

I relate!

Though, in my case, most of the oddly optimistic and scary energy is internal.

That, however, is a story for another day… after the language comes.

For now, a comforting reminder of what I’ve come to realize is my Big Why?

The Grandmothers Manifesta

We are the Grandmothers.

We are in charge of Hope.

We are not done!

We are becoming dangerous old women.

We hold those we love under our danger like a Tree of Life with bountiful branches.

We have spent our lives learning many things.

Some of those things were helpful. Some of them were not.

We will keep living the empowering things.

We will say goodbye to the things that were hurtful so they are not passed on.

We matter more in this moment than ever before.

We are significant. We are capable.

We have influence in the lives of those we love and in the world.

We are fierce compassion.

Using all our hope and wisdom, we will share these things with all the generations who come after us.

We are dreamers of dreams, tellers of stories, and makers of images.

We see our littles as souls bright with wonder.

We are the Grandmothers and we welcome all those who wish to be here.

Today, we choose to matter in the world.

It may be hard, but we are in charge of Hope!

– Sue Boardman, 2021

Today, in my world, being in charge of hope means taking a leap. (More to follow!)

For now, if you haven’t had a chance to take my Intentional Grandmothers Archetype Quiz, just click the pretty title and be magically transported to a land of perspective, knowing, inspiration, and community!

This whole HOPE thing is going to take a lot of us and we need to stick together!

ps… the photo! My girls have got a head start on the hope thing!