Category: Art Journey

In the Intentional Creativity world where I hang out, it’s #WIP Wednesday, again. Actually, all the Wednesdays are Work-In-Progress days.

I used to feel somehow pressured by #WIP days. You know how it goes…

Is mine good enough, yet? Did I actually make any progress this week? What if it’s hard to post what I’ve been learning? What if it’s hard to claim, even inside, what I’ve been learning?

You might relate. (I mean, maybe…)

Today, I feel like a bunch of the things I’m learning are all smashing into each other and becoming whole new things I hadn’t expected.

Then again, expecting is often problematic!

So, I dragged out an old, dusty box from my brain. It’s the box I used to set outside my classroom door when I was first teaching Developing Capable People, which has been a while.

And I’d explain to the eager, terrified, hopeful parents and grandparents in the group that one of the most important things we know about learning new things is that it’s really, really hard when we’re all wrapped up in shame and blame.

So, anybody who might be having feelings of shame or blame was welcome to set those feelings outside the room during our time together. And, yes, I always assured them that they could have the shame and blame back when we were done, if, of course, they wanted those feelings back.

Very few of them ever did.

So, with shame and blame deep in the virtual box… here’s an old #WIP that’s teaching me still. (This is why we document our paint journeys!)

What I see when I look at it now is all kinds of things started, some attempt to organize them, and the most helpful thing of all… a red thread running through it. (We’ll come back to the thread in a minute.)

I do have all kinds of things started and I have made LOTS of attempts at organizing all of them.

Amongst all the paintings and writing, there are some tears in my world. Some hopes. Regular ones and really big ones. And then there’s the family tree project with which I am currently obsessed.

Frankly, I’ve been trying to figure out why I’m obsessed.

Then, last night, I dreamed the answer. Well, sort of.

What I knew when I got up was that I needed to go back through some of the under layers for old #WIP’s because there was a message for me there.

And there it is… right at the top of this post.

And, yes… it’s the red thread.

The invisible connection between us and all those destined to be important in our lives.

Or, more specifically, the invisible connection between all the generations of a whole bunch of Grammies and me and my girls.

It was there in that #WIP about three years ago. And it’s in me and all the painting and writing and coaching and teaching I’m doing now.

Some of the stories I’m learning are more fun than others. I imagine you can relate!

What’s best of all, though, is that I get to keep the stories that are helpful to me and, literally or figuratively, paint over the others.

Paint something new.

And now feels like a very good time for that!

ps… If you’re curious, my #WIP for today turned into my first Abundance Muse!

pss… In the midst of my #WIP Wednesday, the need for a new Soulful Vision Plan Workshop. If you have a dream, it might just be the place for you. Details to follow… or, you could email me: suesvoice@gmail.com (Yes, YOU!)

What do you do when your dreams start to come true?

It’s not that I’ve never been here before. I have. It’s just that I was a lot less conscious then. (And exhausted!) This time feels different, though. Mostly, I suspect, because I’ve been the one deciding what the questions are for the last few years. Here are a few I’ve been experimenting with:

• What matters, not in just my world, but in my relationship with the world?

• What can I actually spend energy on and what needs to be on somebody else’s list?

• How is food a symbol of what I believe? (Edit at will!)

Then there’s the one that (to continue the food theme) is “on the front burner” these days:

• How do I hold onto my chosen belief that everyone’s voice matters, even when I disagree, with every cell in my body, with so many of those everyones?

And, yes, I’ve been watching CNN again. And doing some work on Get Out The Vote efforts in places that need some help just now. And emailing my personal flock of politicians. And making prayer dots.

Lots and lots of dots.

I won’t ask you to believe that I don’t swear at the tv a good bit. Also at my email. And Facebook.

I also cry a good bit. Sometimes even the good kind where you feel touched deep inside where the tears live.

Those are the kind of experiences that just volunteer inside me.

Prayer dots are the ones I choose. Auditory. Kinesthetic. Visual. All at once, which is a good thing in terms of creating new realities.

And every now and then, mostly when my knee is really whining, I sit down and work on reading the extra-canonical Gospel of Thomas which is part of a group of books known as the Nag Hammadi library.

Frankly, I haven’t figured out where to file all this particular newness, just yet.

Here’s what I am sure of… anything that says this is worth wrestling with some more.

If you bring forth what is inside of you, what is inside of you will save you.

Thomas and his friends may have been short on paint deliveries from the Dick Blick guy. I, however, have a deal with him and many, many more dots to make.

ps… This abundance of dots are part of my new painting journey known as Ritual, which, as far as I can tell, is a whole lot about bringing forth what is inside. These are my favorite kind… finger dots!

pss… While we’re pondering big things, this is the day known as Bloody Sunday, when 600 souls began a march from Selma, AL to the state Capitol in Montgomery to mark the death of a man named Jimmie Lee Jackson who was shot and killed by a state trooper while protecting his mother during a civil rights demonstration. One of the Bloody Sunday marchers was the late Congressman John Lewis, who was beaten by police. May we continue the Good Trouble, each in our own way, until it isn’t needed anymore.

Do you know that place where your inner puzzle pieces are shifting about and the picture calls you closer and closer?

The place where hope and anger and longing all bring tears and you’re wearing out your Kleenex boxes way more quickly than usual?

The place where swearing and praying and painting all become the same language?

The place where the only thing that would hurt worse than all the stretching you’re doing would be not stretching at all?

For the past couple of days, I have awakened to that place.

There doesn’t seem to be a “Welcome to __________” sign. I’m not entirely sure where I am.

Possibly the eye doctor’s office, playing the endless game of, “clearer one or two?” (I’ve had lots of practice with that one!)

If you’ve been reading along for a while, you won’t be entirely surprised to hear that there seems to be a lot of politics going on in this place which feels both deeply personal and way out of the box, all at once.

At one point, needing a pondering break, I hobbled out to the kitchen for a cup of hot chocolate before Colbert started.

(The closer-to-good-for-you type of hot chocolate!)

When I came back, she found me. My very first art therapy drawing from about 20 years ago.

Ironic that I needed to be found. There she is in the photo, just like real life, to the right of my magic chair and above the stacks of stuff I can’t think without. She’s been there for at least a couple of years. Waiting, I suspect.

Her name is Follow Your Heart. My first Legend journey, long before I had any notion of what that meant.

My second Legend journey, from about 3 years ago, is pictured below. Her name is Follow Your Heart, too, though I didn’t connect them then.

The obvious question, of course, is what’s in my/her heart and where is it leading?

I’m afraid the answers aren’t totally clear just yet.

Here’s what I do know. Scrawled in the heart, in invisible ink, is the word, Voice. And another word that intersects with Voice, crossword puzzle-style, that’s not quite clear yet.

I’ll keep you posted!

ps… Here’s Follow Your Heart, the second in a 24×18″ wrapped canvas print, ready to inspire you.

pps… She’s also available in a hand-signed and numbered museum quality 24×18″ print.