Category: Art Journey

Or, many things are true and they don’t always go together very well!

The above-mentioned meteorological phenomenon is happening outside my window just now, as I write these words.

The washer is trying its best to drown out the sound of the raindrops but, blessedly, it’s not quite working.

A similar phenomenon is happening inside me, as well.

Or, many things are true and they don’t always go together very well!

While sheets get clean, and some local spicy pear sausage thaws in the kitchen – high above the reach of the really big dogs – for the frittata planned for our dinner, I am pondering Carl Jung. It’s not my fault!

Rather, the cause of my ponderings is an Intentional Creativity® friend and teacher named Kayleen Asbo. Late last night, at least on the East Coast, she sent me an email about virtual pilgrimages she’s helping to lead this summer. I first met Kayleen almost exactly three years ago when I did my first IC painting with Kayleen and Shiloh Sophia McCloud.

Before I forget, here’s the quote:

Will humanity survive? Jung was asked after the deployment of the atom bomb. His answer was, Yes — if enough people do their inner work.

I suppose one of the reasons I find these words so striking just now is that I seem to be deep in the world of inner work.

Some of this probably won’t make much sense to you just yet because it isn’t all fully formed in my mind. I’m feeling a lot like the vintage bathtub in our garden with tiny sprigs of basil and a couple of tomato plants about three inches tall!

All that aside, I found, just a few minutes after reading the quote from “Uncle Carl,” what I can only describe as the thing under the thing. And finding the thing under the thing means that I have some considerable editing to do on my most recent Soulful Vision Plan.

In fact, one whole page has to go.

It’s not that it’s not true anymore. It’s just that there is something else beneath it – or perhaps before it – in my journey toward visions of the future which needs to be there instead.

I have no idea, just yet, what kind of image it will become but I know that it will because that’s how I get all of me into the process.

For this moment, I’m trying to decide exactly how to make the change. This isn’t digital cut & paste stuff. This is really nice watercolor paper and a whole lot of learning.

I’m also celebrating the three women, in three different states, who’ve allowed me to guide their own Soulful Vision Plan adventures. We met for part two yesterday. Next week, part three. In the meantime, perhaps we’ll all be hanging with Uncle Carl and the inner work thing.

If, by chance, you’ve realized that your future may need a different vision than the one you’ve been used to so far, email me at suesvoice@gmail.com There will be a new group starting soon and I’d love to chat with you about that.

Oh, the lovely lady above is my Black Madonna painting, Our Lady of Fierce Compassion. Even though the original has found her forever home, there are museum quality reproductions on watercolor paper and wrapped canvas available for adoption! Feel free to click on her name and wander on a pilgrimage of your own!

ps… During our meeting today there was a conversation about the tradition of the Black Madonna and our global context in this moment. She might be about to get a new name! Womb of Universal Wisdom was my favorite suggestion.

Trigger alert: I’m about to talk about three things I learned that nice girls never talked about. (Well, maybe four, but we’ll get to that one after a bit.)

Yep, those three things are Money, Sex, and Power. And it turns out that some of the folks I’ve known would say that those rules were at least as true for wanna-be preachers as they were for nice girls.

It all started, at least in reference to this blog post, about noon today. There was an invitation in one of the Facebook places I hang out to join a webinar, hosted by my friend and teacher Julie Steelman. The title was listed as Unlock The 3 Secrets to Creating a Financial Breakthrough for Mission-Driven Fempreneurs.

I’m guessing you were counting. The big three, right there.

First, I did the time math. I had a little less than an hour to get the dogs out and back in, eat lunch, and finish checking in on my peeps in www land. There were other webinar time options, but only the first one worked for me. And Julie is awesome! So, despite the voices deep inside me, I clicked yes and signed up.

While I started my rounds from door/deck to kitchen to door/deck, etc., this blog post began rumbling in my head. Along with the little right angle brackets I learned as symbols for context. It’s amazing what kind of inspiration can happen while you’re rinsing slime out of the water bowl and doing the large volume of clean water thing, skinning an avocado, and selecting the appropriate 88% cacao chocolate bar from the pantry.

News is often a big chunk of context. More now than ever, I suspect, for most of us. And, in this moment, with the news comes racism. It’s not that it wasn’t there before. It’s that more of us are talking about it. In fact, racism was probably the fourth thing we nice girls learned not to talk about, though it was such a big thing that, at least in the world where I grew up, nobody even said not to talk about race. It just wasn’t done.

But time passes and now I have new friends. And we’re talking about all of those unmentionables. I’d add domestic violence to the list. And gender issues of many sorts. Please add your thoughts as well.

And then, just as the webinar was starting to roll, I got an email from Congressman John Lewis (D GA-05). Rep. Lewis was on a bit of a rant about hatred and oppression and violence and, well, politics. And he was asking for help in working together to end those things.

That’s when the tears and chills began. Two signs in my world, when they happen together, of truth.

… skipping ahead a bit to after the webinar and emails…

Today, I am standing in the power of my truth. I won’t be dis-empowered anymore. I will speak as I feel led about money and sex and power and inequalities of race and gender, no matter who is listening. And especially when my girls are listening!

More, even, than speaking, I vow to listen. To my family and neighbors. To those I learn with and from. And those who learn from me. And I will claim, anew, the sacred stories of my calling. Stories of healing and equality. Of empowerment and service. Of welcoming those who have known marginalization. Of feeding those who do not have enough and setting the captives free.

They’re not photo-op stories. Just the kind that are in the book.

ps… Some of those stories are about to be re-framed and illustrated just a bit for our littles and for the rest of us. You see, I am called to Super Power Self Portraits. Stay tuned!

Not quite four years ago, I wrote a poem. Or, rather, a poem wrote itself inside me. It happens, now and then.

Those words have been rattling around inside me for days, begging to be set free, once again. If you read on, you’ll see that they were born in another day which, sadly, isn’t as different from today as I once dreamed it might be. I’m not done, though. Dreaming. Praying. Writing. Painting. Growing signs of hope amidst the vegetables. Voting.

And hoping for the day when no one will feel the need for gun shots on the road, just behind my house, ironically known as Memorial Drive.

Grandmothers Lament

All over the world, children are crying.
Bleeding children in Syria.
Hurricane victims in Haiti.
Poisoned children in Michigan and the Dakotas and too many places to count.
All over the world, children are crying.
Children robbed of their families by racism and violence.
Children robbed of their futures by disease.
Children robbed of their health by toxins everywhere.
All over the world, children are crying.
How do we shut out their cries?
How do we not act?
Are we heartless?
All over the world, children are crying.
We who do care are helpless in many ways.
Rendered voiceless by the power of vested self interest.
The power of greed.
All over the world, children are crying.
Hungry children.
Homeless children.
Abused, molested, victimized children.
All over the world, children are crying.
It is not our own greed that renders us helpless.
At least not mostly.
And yet we shout, silently, in the face of those who love power.
All over the world, children are crying.
While the mighty grow rich waging war.
While the mighty grow rich selling power.
While the mighty grow rich killing the Earth.
All over the world, children are crying.
Let us take our fingers out of our ears.
Let us open our eyes in the light of day.
Let us shout until we cannot be ignored.
All over the world, children are crying.
Let us dare to hear.
Let us dare to hope.
Let us dare to act.

Amen. Amen. Selah.

Boardman, 2016, from Breathing Words

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