Month: June 2022

Or, the tale of a painting that’s painting me…

Early last November I began a journey through the land of Intentional Creativity® known as Vivid… Tapestry.

In our first gathering, Maestra Shiloh Sophia McCloud invited us to allow the experience to come through us and to see what would become revealed.

If that creates feelings which could be labeled both just a touch scary and exciting within you, you’re in the right place for the rest of the story.

We were invited to relate to our canvas as a portal through which new knowing could emerge and as a screen, like the one where you’re reading this story, where you have continuous access to that which wants to be revealed.

Woo-woo???

Perhaps. But also, as Shiloh warned us, not for pretend-sies!

Translation… it has a lot to do with physics and vision and perception. And, trust me when I tell you, it’s still working!

Or, to put it another way, with what we are weaving together.

Here’s how I know…

My particular journey stalled out as November led to December and December led to visiting the kids and, well, some other complex adventures.

Then, this past Friday, that which ironically passes for the United States Supreme Court these days, overturned Roe v Wade.

Then, in the wee small hours between Monday night and Tuesday morning, Grandmother Moon started whispering in my ear, as I knew she would.

It took me a while to start putting the pieces together…

Sequins… Buttons… Weaving… Paint brushes…

I went hunting. It took a bit, as we are in the midst of a major studio re-imagining.

And there she was. Just as you met her, above. My Vivid… Tapestry canvas, insisting that her time had come!

We worked, she and I, literally through Tuesday’s un-scheduled hearing on the 1/6 Insurrection.

I suspect we were both an odd mix of appalled and encouraged. And she was, clearly, steering our journey.

Here’s where we are in this moment:

I have no idea where we go next, she and I.

I will share her updated message …

Not for Done-sies, either!

I’m pretty sure she’s serious!

For now, though, a few words from an urgent family meeting of another sort, called by a teacher and author named Kathleen McGowan:

Hope fuels perseverance!

And, just in case that touches something in you, I have questions…

Are you in?

What will you do?

How can I help?

Click HERE if you, too, are on the path!

ps… should you happen to have a copy of Shiloh’s Tea with the Midnight Muse handy, check out Tree of Life Blessing on page 109. Here’s my favorite bit: May you take one step, however small, toward that which you have always longed for. Now is the right time.

pps… the weaving goes on! Or, as Kathleen would say, The Great Weavers of the tapestry are supporting us! So be it, for me and for you, and for all of us!

Abracadabra… for I will create something from the word.

First, we have to choose which words!

Friday’s announcement that the Supreme Court had overturned Roe v Wade sent me running for words!

My first stop was a string of words which would require a whole lot of space and an infinite supply of @*%#’s to include here. Use your imagination!

My second stop, surprisingly, was a place called Printful where I’ve recently learned to make things for my shop, FierceArtWithHeart. I was an artist on a mission.

Specifically, a tank top mission.

Having gotten that accomplished, I was able to move on to other words.

My memory led me next to my dog-eared copy of The Dovekeepers by Alice Hoffman. A tale of the first century C.E. Roman siege on the mountain of Masada, the fortress of the Jews.

You, if you have not read it, are wondering why. If you have read it, you already know.

A people with no rights and no resources. With scant food and water. And what passed for healthcare provided by women called witches.

Including abortion care.

A herb called rue which brought about cramping. Vile. Flesh burning. Effective.

The people of Yahweh. One thousand nine hundred and fifty two years ago.

Fiction, technically. Perspective, assuredly.

And, still, my mind was searching.

The Dovekeepers was a New York Times bestseller, so I went to their page. Virtually.

The marvel of reviews online yielded this:

…Yet in between, instead of a gripping work of fiction that lives up to this praise, is a long novel full of middling descriptions, hackneyed characters and histrionic plot twists… Sarah Fay

Never mind for the moment that histrionic is not a word in my chosen lexicon, and the irony of the Times readers being apparently more openminded than the reviewer, I call vested interest! And power! On somebody’s part…

Beyond that, I can’t help but claim that, for me, The Dovekeepers was important for many reasons… not the least of which is my own deep, visceral grasp of the reality that abortion has always been with us and SCOTUS can’t change that.

From there, I was led deep inside to the place where truth lives. In this case, truth from The West Wing.

(And, yes, if you’ve been hanging around for more than about 10 minutes, you know where this is going. Feel free to sing along!)

Season 7. Jimmy Smits & Alan Alda – aka Matt Santos & Arnold Vinick – in a hotly contested presidential race.

Santos, a Democratic House Rep from Texas and a Roman Catholic, was being chastised by his church and excluded from Communion for his position on abortion. In response to a pointed question, he replied:

Abortion is a tragedy. It should be safe. It should be legal. It should be a whole lot rarer than it is.

To which I can only say, So be it!

What the United States Supreme Court did this week was not remotely about that.

It was about power over instead of power for.

It was about an ancient belief that women are for making more authoritarian, power-hungry men who want to tell the whole world what the rules are.

It was about intentionally mis-reading and mis-representing the message of Jesus.

And it’s still happening.

For me, I’m saying NO!

I’m saying that the way is truth and truth is love and equality and justice.

And I’m willing to risk redundancy again, for the sake of claiming the place where this very issue led me to put my faith where my mouth was, about 30 years ago.

A young woman in the church I served was wresting with an abortion decision. Her family asked me to speak with her. I did.

She chose to end her pregnancy.

An elder asked why I didn’t talk her out of that decision.

This is what I, the very new preacher, replied… face flushed, teeth chattering, and knees knocking:

If I’m going to stand in the pulpit on Sunday and proclaim, in the Assurance of Pardon, that nothing can separate us from the love of God which is ours in Christ Jesus I have to be able to say the same thing sitting in a living room with a young woman asking that question.

And, yes, there was some irony in that particular quote, but I know more now than I did then. And it works for me, still.

In this moment, my wrists hurt – a lot – from typing. And the big dogs are doing the hungry dance. So, let’s go with this…

I’ve read some more books lately.

I’m choosing the way of Love, as best I understand it. Of bodily sovereignty. Of choice. Of intentionally living Love instead of making power-grasping rules.

Let me know if you want some book titles! And may the Divine Creator pick us up and dust us off and set us on the path again. This may help…

I have 2 granddaughters growing up in this world.

ps… yes, the painting’s been around a lot lately. And yes, it’s my understanding of the Creative Divine.

pps… oh! The tank top… FierceArtWithHeart. Get yours and I’ll make a $5.00 contribution to Planned Parenthood, which will be doubled through June 30.

ppps… some of my ancestors are having hissy fits about my creating these words in this moment. Others are doing a lineage happy dance. Abracadabra! And, #BloomBoldly !

Nope! Not a bottle.

A plant!

Once upon a time… yesterday, to be exact, I set out on a journey. I took along two paintings. The one you see above, and this one:

I took paper and markers and and books.

I took a head full of plans. You see, I was leading a workshop in Intentional Creativity®

This seemed like a familiar journey. I was ready!

An odd thing happened along the the way…

I arrived – about 3 miles from my house – in a new world!

Okay, it wasn’t the first time I’d been there. It was just the first time I’d been one of the team!

This world was inhabited by dear people who speak languages I’m only beginning to grasp.

The language of anthroposophic medicine and the language of Waldorf education.

Each of them takes in to account, in their own contexts, whole human beings!

There’s more, if you look it up, not all complimentary, but that can be said of basically everything that doesn’t fit the boxes in our brains!

We sang.

We moved. Well, each in our own ways.

We did some right/left brain processing using the beginnings of a painting process known as Insight.

But, just before that, we looked at plants.

Now, allowing for the fact that this was a whole new adventure for me, filled with ways of noticing and wondering I had not encountered before, I’ll give you the bits that I brought home.

First, this method of observing plants comes from the work of Goethe – yep! that one! – who was, in addition to being a poet and philosopher, quite the student of botany, anatomy, and color.

This involved, as you might imagine, a trip outside!

It involved lots of looking. A bit of touching for those able to get close enough to the plants. And, after lots of looking, it involved some describing and drawing.

And yes, that’s Visual – Auditory/Digital – and Kinesthetic processing!

The thing that struck me most about this adventure into previously unknown world views was the message which came to me.

But first, a bit of imagining, if you would.

A tiny, gravel-y patch of dirt between two urban concrete parking lots. Quite a colony of plants you might consider to be weeds if you were raised in the land of suburban lawns.

(Here we’re going to depart from Goethe’s process just a bit and allow for some nouns in our description because you haven’t seen the specific plants from our adventure and deserve a bit of extra help!)

Large rosettes of moist, rounded, leathery green leaves, close to the ground. Thin, spiky, stem-ish bits reaching for the sky. Seed heads at the top of most. Loosely dandelion-like, but considerably smaller.

Oh… and the message I heard!

Delicate, vulnerable hope blown by the wind of the Spirit.

If you’ve known me for a bit, you’ve already realized that there are virtual context brackets around that message!

Mass shootings. January 6th attempted coup hearings. The war in Ukraine. Huge, intentional threats to civil rights… in the USA.

Delicate, vulnerable hope blown by the wind of the Spirit.

And people like you and me, rooted not in a lush, orderly garden, but right in the midst of this world, with the opportunity to be hope.

I’m in! Are you???

ps… need a bit of help finding or navigating your path? Your Epic SuperPower Path Survey

pps… the plant? Plantains. “Weeds” to many of us, which grow in my garden close to the dandelions (aka vegetables!) Being their part of a delicate eco-system which supports all life. I’m just sayin’!