Category: Art Journey

#Magic!Art JourneyContemplationsGuardiansRed Madonna

My Name is Sue & I am a Perfectionist!

Posted on by sue boardman

Well, not about everything… just about more things than I can manage these days! And, I’ve made a big decision… I’ve decided that the whole perfectionism thing doesn’t have to be all-or-nothing. Instead, I can choose!

Yep… when and where are my perfectionist tendencies actually helpful? And when might they (gasp!) be holding me back???

Here’s a mini- glimpse of the #wip painting, above. In case you missed this bit of news, Madam #Threshold announced recently that she is me! A self-portrait of sorts. We’re still working, she and I, and I keep noticing the “yeah, but” vibes!

Progress! Yeah, but… her eyebrows and lashes don’t match. (And, they don’t!) Here’s something else that’s true, though…

She’s going to have a whole lot of hair hanging in her face, soon. So I’m intentionally choosing to be okay with the mismatched eyebrows because they won’t show and nobody who gets it would care, anyway! This choice, by the way, gives my cranky right thumb, wrist, and shoulder lots more painting time for things that will show! More writing/typing time! Even more very soothing cacao cup holding time!

And, no… that’s not the way I first learned it!

In many ways, I grew up in Leave It to Beaver land! Suburbs. Stay at home mom. Dog buddies. Good teachers – except third grade! And the message I absorbed was that my being as close as possible to perfect helped Mom feel like she was doing it right.

There was also some very un-Leave It to Beaver stuff but we didn’t talk about that!

By the time my own son came along, Leave It to Beaver was pretty much out of the picture. Literally and figuratively! Those were really hard years and there were many days when I felt like we weren’t going to make it. But, we did!

I kept learning. Greek and Hebrew pretty much cured me of thinking academic perfection was possible, but the old shoulds and oughts remained.

One of the best things I’ve learned in the land of Intentional Creativity® is that layers are helpful! In fact, instead of just covering up mistakes, they make the eventual outcome feel deeper and richer! How totally cool is that???

For this moment, I am choosing to let my inner Perfectionist show up to vote, understanding that we can’t control outcomes, but we can make sure we get heard. (Well, mostly sure!) She also gets to absolutely forbid toxic crud in the garden. We are team pollinators, all the way! And, yes, I checked to be sure that got spelled right, which reminds me that my voice counts more around here than the auto-grammar police, even when I miss one now and then.

And, I’d love to hear what examples are bubbling in you as you read along! You can leave a comment, below. Or email me… suesvoice@gmail.com

We have had the magic all along! We just need to claim it and set it free!!! One way to do that is to check out our upcoming journey with #Red Madonna! I am so honored and thrilled to be among this amazing team of open-hearted, paint-spattered women asking huge questions!

New? Curious??? First, we have a free way to dip your toes in –  Come Home to the Waters: A Mini-Retreat to Connect With the Living Waters of Your Life. This adventure is offered by the Red Madonna team for each of us to touch into our sacred flow and experience a taste of our year-long Red Madonna 2026. It’s happening Friday July 3, 2026. Enroll in Come Home to the Waters Now!

Then, the deep dive! Just click the link to read all about Red Madonna Sisterhood: Womb of Living Waters… a 13 Moon Painting & Initiation Journey into the Primordial Waters of the Divine Feminine. REGISTRATION IS OPEN!!!  https://musea.org/red-madonna-womb-of-living-waters

ps… it is, indeed, entirely possible to do both!!! In fact, we’d be delighted!!!

pps… It’s me, Glinda. Sue wanted me to tell you that she got two new stories for our upcoming book done today. Stay tuned!!!

#Magic!Art JourneyFilters!GrandmothersMedicine Basket

I really, really wish the tech-elves would quit changing things!!!

Posted on by sue boardman

Yep… you probably have to squint quite a bit to make this out, so I’ll help. It’s under layers from my most recent #Apothecary painting, a couple moths ago. Truthfully, it isn’t done yet, as in it isn’t complete, but also it isn’t done teaching me.

Here are three of the VERY intentional words you probably can’t quite read in there, crossword puzzle style:

Courage. Hope. Determination.

And, yes, I’ve mentioned them before.

When I fired up my laptop tonight, this wasn’t exactly what I had in my mind but apparently the elves have been secretly “making things better” again, and it took me about 3 tries to get this post to start happening. (I want elves that follow directions!)

In any event, I am still learning… anyway! When the paintings whisper in my sleep, they are insistent!

So, my #Threshold painting work in progress has announced her name, insisted on background revisions, and whispered some of her favorite star glyphs for me to include. The really cool thing is that, as all that magic was happening, she also solved the structural challenge with my tweens & teens book in progress!!!

Frankly, she kinda blew my mind! (And she prefers to wait until she’s finished to make another appearance!)

Then, I did a new thing. Yesterday, I had a Zoom meeting with a dear friend who now lives in Egypt. It was so good to catch up! And, she did a mini-numerology reading for me! (Yet another thing we didn’t cover in nursing school or seminary!!!)

Here’s the thing that really grabbed me:

My core challenge – at least at this point in time – is a tendency to feel responsible for EVERYTHING and hand-cuffed by perfectionism…

Wow, does that hit home! And, I suspect I’m going to want to explore more.

For this moment, though, it’s cacao ceremony time. And getting ready for observing the solstice time. (Really!) You see, I spent lots of time watching Georgia run-off election returns last night and I’ve decided to be open to all the help I can get!

My #Threshold painting is totally onboard!!!

ps… my Wisdom Cards are ready to meet you! Just put 2 decks in your basket and get 20% off, automatically. They go really well with cacao and perhaps a smidge of ceremony!!! (Also, sign up for the Winged Ey Wisdom mailing list and get an extra 10% off your order!)

#Magic!Art JourneyGrandmothersMedicine Basket

Of calendars and singing walls…

Posted on by sue boardman

It’s one of those forward and backward kind of days in my world. You know… memories and dreams bumping into each other!

Friday, my older grand-teen graduated from High School!!! Her world is about to change in a huge way. My hope and prayer is that the “who” she’s always been will learn and grow, and discover more of her chosen path!

Then, the memories. It was just about exactly this time, in 1987, when – having just finished my BA – my son and I set out for Columbia Theological Seminary in an ancient VW bug. He was 7 years old. Some young adult church buddies caravanned along with us, to help with the move before continuing on to Montreat in North Carolina. It was quite the adventure. Especially the flat tire!

And, there were way more adventures to come!

That first summer was known as Baby Greek School, and wow, was I lost! In fact, I was approaching hopeless when the miracle happened. Our word for the day was Blepo which is Greek for “I see!” Suddenly I had something I could relate to as I was very familiar with eye surgery words, some of which actually begin with Blepo! And there was a bit less chaos in my world!

Our friend, above, is a bit of one of the paintings that whispers in my dreams. That’s the Asherah side of a 60″ wide canvas, from the adventure known as #Codex. The Divine Feminine side, if you will, complete with her winged eye for wisdom.

And a bunch of triangles on her forehead. The Greek letter Delta, which is a symbol for change!!!

Last night, she was singing…

“The times, they are a-chan-ange-ing!

They are, indeed. And, yes… it’s scary! (Well, at least a lot of it is for me!)

When I was making our Graduate’s card, a bit from an old movie came to me. Perhaps you’ve seen The Help. Old, southern, USA. Plantation country, in a way. Comfortable white families. Lots of help from black folks. And, lots of vastly overlooked wisdom, too!

Imagine a young maid/nanny whispering to the small girl she’s more or less raising:

Remember! You is smart. You is kind. You is important.

That is part of my prayer for our new graduate. And for ALL our Littles!!!

Our job is to VOTE like that matters!!! (Early run-off voting has begun in Georgia!) I’m choosing the ones who aren’t focused on keeping the White House happy. Who know that we are ALL important!!!

For this moment… a peek at the card I made for the amazing person who helped me see a whole new world and a whole new me…

ps… have some smart, kind, important magic of your own to set free in the world? I can help! 45 min. My gift. You bring your dreams. I’ll bring a lot of years of practice and a medicine basket brimming with cool tools! You can also bring a cuppa and a bit of Red Thread, if it’s handy. We’ll name your next right thing and then talk about what it might be like to work together. Just click here and the calendar elves will hook us up. Hurry, though! The calendar is filling up!

pps… more questions, before you click??? Here’s the basic bio stuff…

#Magic!Art JourneyContemplationsMedicine Basket

Wandering in Dreamland…

Posted on by sue boardman

Well! Last night was quite the trip!!! (Actually, early this morning.) You know the kind of dream where new things bump into each other in your head and make friends and the first thing you do when you wake up is scribble it down…

First, though, a bit of context!

Today is a big birthday day in our family. The fabulous human who’s married to my son. My girls’ marvelous Mom! Somehow, that calendar data must have nudged my dream along a bit, into a whole new land.

The place where mostly imaginary and totally true meet!

And, unlike much of the news, I mean well!

C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien were there, too. And, I think maybe I’ve been invited to be an honorary junior Inkling!

I am, of course, saying YES!!!

All of this wonder happened after some writing I did yesterday. The kind of writing where the task is cracking open doors of understanding to really, really, really big things for readers who haven’t yet reached the land where abstract thought is dependably possible in a neuro-developmental kind of way.

(And, yes… my inner surgical nurse and life-long student of mysteries, like neuro-linguistic programming and such, showed up, too!)

Anyway, the book is feeling much more focused and confident this morning! It has to do with paintings doing the work of avatars for this world, now!

A bit of button-pushing was helpful! Avatar, it seems, meant – in its ancient usage – “crossing down” from the spiritual world into the material world… a “divine incarnation or embodiment of a concept.” And, you know? That’s exactly how I feel about my paintings!

For now, though, the next right thing is a seriously nutty-crunchy woo sort of meeting where I get to wander in the land of cacao. I wonder if hanging out there has anything to do with all the cool stuff showing up in my dreams…

Glinda asked to be invited, too!

ps… longing for a bit of company on your magical road? I’m here, and ready with a medicine basket full of tools and lots of 1:1 coaching experience! Curious??? Let’s talk! 45 min. My gift to you. We’ll name your next right thing, get you on the road, and talk about more next right things, like journeying together for a while. Just click here and the calendar elves will set us up with a time! I’ve got the cacao brewing!

pps… hurry! I only have space for 2 new brave souls with big dreams!

#Magic!Art JourneyContemplationsGardenGrandmothers

Hope… it’s a Mom-thing!

Posted on by sue boardman

May 10 is a big day at our house. It’s our wedding anniversary every year. (36 years so far, if you’re curious!) It’s also the anniversary of the day I graduated from Columbia Theological Seminary, the first time! And, sometimes, as it was in 1990, it’s also Mothers Day.

At the moment, I’m missing generations of Moms and Grammies. I’m missing my grands and their dear Mom & Dad. And, there’s part of me that’s missing the feeling of Hope.

Here’s the thing, though… Hope is not just a Hallmark-y feeling. Hope is a choice!

A choice I’m choosing! Even in the face of the all the chaos and news. And, I’m planting symbols of hope, like sunflowers. (We’re a smidge late, due to a couple of cold snaps but, again, I’m hoping.)

I’m hoping, with my painting friend, for Peace.

I’m hoping that, like the star glyph in the painting, we will rise from the chaos. And, if you squint a bit, you might notice that the phoenix is rising from love!

There are two more hopeful things going on in my world, today. Prayer dots, which are no surprise, I suspect, and also help me a lot.

And, soup! A body-mind-spirit thing for me. With huge help from my anniversary buddy. (In case you missed the recent easy version of the recipe, just click here!) Shopping with local, sustainable farmers spreads the hope even more!

For this moment, Mama Bear and I are sending you hugs and Hope!

#Magic!Art JourneyContemplationsGrandmothersMedicine BasketOffering

Choices!

Posted on by sue boardman

So, I kind of broke my own rule. Too much news!!! Too much, as in way more than my nervous system finds helpful. And too much of that on Facebook, which is a whole other ball of wax!

As much as I wish I could, I can’t change all the sad, tragic, infuriating, ludicrous stuff at once. And even really, really dark chocolate only helps so much. (Well, maybe less than it seems!)

Blessedly, I got tired enough to sleep!

Then, it happened. A visit from Glinda – my #Alchemist painting – in my dreams. And she was in a mood to spread some magic! You see, we’re making progress on our book, she and I, enough that she’s even made an appearance, below!

I’ve been working on beginning steps like the table of contents and cover art. She, on the other hand, is in full-on adventure mode. In this case, the adventure called choice!

Choice, as in turning off the news and picking up a paintbrush. Joan Baez is, of course, part of the team!

Also choice, as in what we’re trying to accomplish. You know – big picture!

And choice, as in being gentle with my exceedingly cranky right wrist.

And choosing – again – to walk the talk from Pope Leo XIV, during this Lenten season:

… let us strive to measure our words and cultivate kindness and respect in our families, among our friends, at work, on social media, in political debates, in the media, and in Christian communities. In this way, words of hatred will give way to words of hope and peace.

Side bar: I just got off the phone with the GrandTeen who’s turning sixteen. Exactly the reminder I needed for why all our choices, in this moment, matter so much! They’re all counting on us, and my biggest choice is to stay all-in, doing whatever I can to follow in the footsteps of Our Lady of Fierce Compassion in these days.

ps… If you’re feeling the call to bringing your kind of magic into the world, let’s talk! You, me, and Glinda – even in the midst of the chaos! Just click here and the calendar elves will hook you up with 45 minutes. Our gift. It’s the next right thing!

pps… I’ve you haven’t yet, now would be a really good time to get the annoying pop-up thingy to add you to this email list! (More choices are on the way in my world!)

#Magic!Art JourneyContemplationsGrandmothers

Of cold and quilts and hope!

Posted on by sue boardman

Let’s be real! It’s been a hard weekend. The news is crazy. Well, most of it. There’s a lot to be mad about. A lot to be scared of. And a smidge of hope in recent election news… at least in my mind.

Frankly, I was kind of surprised when my story & quilt Gramma showed up in a dream. Elsie passed in January of 1989… an adamant, life-long Republican. I often wonder what she’d have to say in these days.

In my dream, though, she showed up with quilt pieces! The Grandmothers’ Flower Garden kind she taught me to love. Scrappy, assorted bits of what was available, hand-pieced by painfully arthritic fingers. Her way of helping people who were cold or lonely.

Those bits and pieces help me, still! And, that, I think, was the message of my dream!

The world is filled with things none of us can fix by ourselves. And, yet… there are things we can do!

Words are one of those things, for me. And, wow, is there a flood of that going on! I’m really excited. And, a wee bit scared. Well, maybe more than a wee bit. Let’s just say there’s more real deal coming through.

There’s also more unknown floating around than I’m personally comfortable with. I’m pretty sure there’s always a lot unknown floating around and I’m just more aware of it than usual, right now.

That, my friend, brings us to CHOICES!

  • A bowl of homemade soup for dinner. Local, sustainably raised bone broth. Organic wild rice. Veg, herbs, lots of garlic.
  • Helping to plan next right things.
  • A new John Lewis sign for the front yard.
  • Prayer dots. Lots!!!
  • A quilt to curl up with.
  • And, a reminder from Walter Brueggemann… Just tell the stories!

Also, encourage the Littles!

A dear friend was at the house today and she asked if her nearly 10 year old boys and their friend could see some paintings. (It’s really hard NOT to see paintings around here!) One of the boys found a favorite… one that kind of reminds me of one of Elsie’s quilts:

“Wait!” he said… “You don’t have to stay in the lines???”

When I assured him that we really don’t, we both cried.

ps… curious about the magic of not staying in the lines… of folded paper, markers, and next right things??? You could be just the person I have space for in my new 1:1 offering! Just click here and the calendar elves will hook us up with 45 min. on me so we can ponder the road to what you’re dreaming. (Fair warning… the next week or two are extra hectic. Patience & flexibility appreciated!)