Category: Filters

Art JourneyContemplationsFiltersGrandmothersGuardians

Believing for others…

Posted on by sue boardman

She’s been one of my heart favorites since she appeared early in the Covid crisis when the Mexican border became a hotbed of family separation.

I stayed home and sobbed through the news and painted.

She, who was a Red Madonna adventure, has about 40 coats of paint. Once, in her Elvira phase, she was, indeed, bright purple. Let’s just say it didn’t quite fit! Then, one day, my mask and I were wandering around my favorite collectible shop – it’s exercise! – and I spotted a garden statue. And I knew.

So, home to aged clay colors which, I’ll admit, felt better than the purple. Lots of practice shading and glazing. And then, I dreamed them.

She was sheltering all those weeping children from the news under her protection. And they appeared as prayer dots!

And then, I heard the voice. Walter Brueggemann…

Our job is believing for others on days when they can’t quite believe for themselves.

And, yes… I made more dots. Then, about two years ago, I looked at her one day and realized who she is! Mary Magdalene!!!

Yesterday, as you may know, was the Feast Day of Mary Magdalene. A time, for those of us who feel her leading us still, to celebrate. To light candles and pray. And, for me, to re-commit myself to believing for others when they can’t quite believe for themselves. That means more dots, for sure.

It also means a contribution to a local food bank on a day when a kind soul offered to quadruple all donations!

Today is going to be a bit more hectic than usual. An important Zoom call – about the Magdalene – with my Red Madonna friends. #Filters to lead. (It’s one-line being day!!! Trust me. It helps our brains be more creative!)

So, I fixed myself a cuppa and sat down to begin this while paint dried on the lion. (For real!)

She, our painting, hangs where she can watch over me as I write. I turned and looked up at her, as I’ve done millions of times and I saw something new!

Do you see it? The baby, inside her halo, watching over her… and me… and you, if you’d care to be included.

The obvious first question was… How could I not have seen it before???

The next question was… Why now?

And, as you may have guessed, I heard the answer in Walter’s voice... more help believing on those days we can’t quite believe for ourselves!

I’ll take it! And, gladly, share it!!!

For now, though… as I head back to Aslan and Matilda, my very challenging works-in-progress, here’s a tiny peek:

ps… the Legendary Husband, btw, said he’d never seen the baby before, either.

pps… a dear friend just gave me a panda drum. (Me, the one who’s still getting over a life-time of being told I was the most non-musical one in the family, ever!) Looking for summer camp music. You know, Joan Baez, James Taylor… Any hints???

Art JourneyContemplationsFiltersWisdom Cards

Keeping my teachers busy!

Posted on by sue boardman

It’s been quite the week! Paint. Card-making. Swearing at tech gremlins. Pain. Teaching. Worrying… even though I try not to believe in that!

Also, a fabulous, much needed visit with my oldest – well, longest – friend. You know how, sometimes, when you hang out with someone who knows you really well, and you do the deep talk thing, you both wind up learning things about yourselves?

Well, I think we both did. I did, for sure! And a few of those things reminded me of you!

Archetypes were on the list! How they work. Why they matter. The total wonder that they can be turned into #Filter Wisdom Cards and that, sometimes, they even need a tiny bit of editing. Or updating. The kind we Ericksonian hypnosis types refer to as one step re-frame with a big gold bow!

I made four of those on Friday! And, yes… you’re going to have to wait just a bit to get a peek. Soon!

For this moment, the card that came up in my #Filters group this week… I run them through my hands, in Zoom land, and a brave volunteer calls out Stop! when they feel inspired. Then we all go exploring. Meet Luther…

Here’s part of what his card, in the Symbols & Language category, says…

His question for YOU is this: What might you need to view differently along your path? Opportunities instead of obstacles? New ways of bringing hope? The magic medicine of wading in salt water? …Oh! He was, indeed, named for Dr. King. He was total good trouble… and still is!

All of this noticing and wondering and learning was, of course, going on in a particular context. The external kind, like – you know – the news. And the weather. And…

The internal kind, like how your blood sugar is doing, or what you dreamed, or the questions rolling around in your consciousness.

And, the communal kind. This one has been big for me. The Memorial Service for Dr. Walter Brueggemann happened on Saturday afternoon. You know – online. Kind of surprisingly, especially to me, I decided not to attend. You see, many of the things I learned hanging out with Walter have been filling my awareness lately. From paintings to dreams to Wisdom Cards, his rumbly voice has been present. A huge gift!

So I did a bit of last-minute re-writing on the cards and, then, I painted. There’s nothing much to see yet. Just deep intentions and underlayers and a couple of eyes that nobody seems to see, yet, but me. I know where it’s headed, though. A warrior archetype card. (The last one that needs painting!) Inspired by my human experience of the Poet archetype.

Rest in Good Trouble, Walter. And, wave at my new winged-eye archetype buddy/keeper of wisdom… May we all go forward and, “just tell the story!”

Hallelujah. Amen.

ps… the coppery part of the painting is, indeed, my new scrunched plastic bag technique!

pps… love to have you do the annoying pop-up thingy and get on the list!

Art JourneyContemplationsFiltersGrandmothersMedicine Basket

My inner “good student” is claiming herself!

Posted on by sue boardman

Tuesday was a big day. In the national and world news, yes. And, in my smaller worlds.

Frankly, it feels like there are lots of those worlds! I’m guessing you get it.

Personal stuff. Many things feeling – shall we say – unsteady. A dear friend walking on. And the longing to hug her family, far away. A new physical therapist. (We’re both learning!) A larger dose of contextual chaos than either the Legendary Husband or I would call optimal.

Three big things in the land of art and teaching, all taking off at once. One of those is the Intentional Creativity® teacher training journey known as #ColorOfWoman. I’ve walked this road before, in 2018. You might say that I was totally unprepared when we began, back then, except for a large supply of curiosity. I’d painted exactly half a painting when I signed up, despite 50-odd years of believing I was not “the artistic kid.” And, I signed up, again, because now I know more. And the world is different. And I have new questions. Questions mostly about…

I love questions! And we started, this time, with a bunch. My personal favorite had to do with what we were hearing our Inner Critics say, as we picked up the brush.

Mine was feeling chatty! And she surprised me.

I was having some pain challenges and moving very slowly.

Shame on you, she said. It doesn’t hurt that much! You’re just scared. Get over it! You’re the one who decided to do this crazy thing!

And you know what? She was partially right. I was scared. Scared that my shoulder would try to dislocate again. (Trust me… no fun!) Not, I should mention, too scared to show up. Just reluctant to do the big, sweep-y, dance sort of moves happening in the livestream.

So, I sent my Inner Critic on a cruise! And I stayed in the room!!!

And, I have an intention for this first adventure known as #Muse. To listen deep and externalize what I’m learning. To get her inspiration outside where I can see and interact with it. Where I can make conscious choices about it!

Apparently, it’s working already! The Muse showed up in the wee hours with a bandaid for my anxiety about today’s #Filters class. Not the class, itself, mind you, but a particular doorway I was hunting for. I think C.S. Lewis may have been consulting, too. You see, the doorway I needed was a closet!

And, yes… I went back to sleep, thrilled!

Somehow, the place where all this wandering comes together seems to be in giving ourselves permission to need what we need. To want, even, what we want! Which, I suspect, has more than a bit to do with wisdom!

If that’s an unfamiliar place for you, maybe now would be a good time to give it a try. Little experiments…

ps… the owl is especially dedicated to the brave circle of travelers on the road known as #Filters!

pps… fix yourself a cuppa and come wander the halls of FierceArtWithHeart! Books, mugs, original art, wardrobe choices… just the encouragement your Inner Critic might need to join mine on that cruise! Daphne will be delighted to help you!

ppps… fabulous Red Madonna call tonight and we’ve decided to leave the doors open a bit longer. Just click here for all the details!

Art JourneyContemplationsFiltersGrandmothersGuardians

’tis the season for summer camp!

Posted on by sue boardman

I grew up at summer camp. I met people I wanted to be like at summer camp. Environmental camp, in the beginning. Led by my chosen shero, Jean, who introduced me to Red Thread and taught me about the notion of the web of life.

She braided my hair every morning when I had poison ivy all over most of me. She let me walk down the path with her when she blew Taps on her bugle at lights out, and hugged me the first time we encountered a bobcat and I was so thrilled, I cried.

I had a job back in those days, when we were all about saving paper and online music didn’t exist. I was in charge of remembering all the words to all the songs from one year to the next!

Late 1960’s – mid 70’s… Peter, Paul, & Mary. Joan Baez. Mellow Peace and Justice music, some of it from Woodstock. Fortunately, I was much better at remembering the words than I was at carrying a tune!

We made art. We picked trash out of the dustpans when it was our turn to sweep the dining hall, and put the dirt back outside.

Eventually, I was Senior Staff, much involved with stories and, one summer, with being the ‘possum’s foster mom! I’ll never forget the chilling sound of Florida panthers screaming in the early mornings at the edge of the water, or the year we swam with Manatees!

It’s interesting to note that the things we were learning – and teaching – are things our world so needs us to know, now. If I had to roll it all into one word, it would be inter-connection.

What I didn’t realize, back then, was that it was also me, being me.

Last night I dreamed I was at camp, again. Perched on a fallen log, swatting mosquitoes, and singing We Shall Overcome. (A detail I might have left out in my postcards home!)

The journey looks different these days. Partially because my body has gotten really attached to the magic chair, as opposed to fallen logs!

Red Madonna is beginning. A year long journey with Mother Nature. With relatedness and balance. With a global group of women looking for connectedness and the Divine Feminine. We’d love to have you join us! Paint, writing, community, growth, ceremony… kinda Camp for big kids! And cool music in our circle calls!!! Here are all the details…

#Filters has also just begun. The next steps on a journey to the place where we feel called, each in our own way. Complete with safe community, medicine painting for beginners, and even wisdom cards with animal guides! Everything is recorded so you won’t be behind, and I’ve requested some Joan Baez for this week! Chocolate & marshmallows are welcome!!! Just click here…

This, by the way, is the place where #RedMadonna and #Filters join hands! Where a new story about ancient, intentional mark making connects with claiming our journeys to the places we are called. Yep! One red thumb print. And a whole lot of opening hope! You’ve got this. Really!!!

ps… Daphne, who probably lived in the woods at Camp, back in the day, so hopes you’ll check out our book! Perfect for summer reading with your Littles!!!

Art JourneyContemplationsFiltersGrandmothersGuardians

I had a plan…

Posted on by sue boardman

I’d even begun. Saturday night. And then, Breaking News.

Cue flashback to preacher days. All prepared for Sunday. Five index cards waiting on the table by the bed, just in case a new thought happened along. Then, news… the big kind.

And this day, which was planned around soup and Solstice Celebrations, turned into nobody knows what’s next news.

For this moment, I’m going with the best thing I’ve got. A thing that actually happened on Friday night. I’d been doing a lot of planning for all the big things coming up. Especially the celebration.

Frankly, I had lots on my mind and I was feeing a bit anxious. My calendar is overflowing from now until the first week in August. Overflowing with awesome, welcome things which somehow tend to bring busy and unknown along! Hence, my anxiety. Frankly, not knowing is hard for me!

Then, I had a thought! A thought which led to action! I went out to the studio and came back with both hands full of my wisdom cards-in-progress. There are production challenges but, I reasoned, the wisdom and the #Filters are there and they work.

So, I pulled myself a card, passing them all through my hands, eyes closed, until one chose me.

Mine don’t have numbers like some of the more famous ones do. And yes, the photo above is of the one I chose.

If you had it in your hand and flipped it over, you’d see this:

I laughed when I read it. You see, some of those same folks who raised me right would not be overjoyed with the cards. (Or the notion of a Solstice Celebration!)

And then, I cried. Cried because it worked. Especially, this part…

…To encourage making conscious choices… about beliefs, on the road to the place where YOU are called! The world needs you!

And yes, I’d be delighted for you to claim this message, too!

So I re-claimed some of my Intentions. One of those is to keep being open to learning new things. Another is my commitment to the notion that I get to choose!!!

This last, by the way, is where the whole metamodern thing comes in, but that’s going to need to wait for another day.

And there will be soup.

For now, though, I’d love for you to witness one of my commitments about next right things:

I am present to choosing these journeys as safe places to continue to unfold… to become more ME, even in the context of this time!

If that sounds good to you… if you feel your inner wisdom whispering… then click here for all the info! There’s still time to join in the adventure known as #Filters! This might be just the right time!

ps… the art for the Creators card was part of an Intentional Creativity® journey called #Animystica. It found a home, and a very important job in my children’s book, A Creation Poem… Daphne & I would Love for you to check it out!

Art JourneyContemplationsFiltersGrandmothersMedicine Basket

Notes from the Many-Me’s!

Posted on by sue boardman

I’m guessing you’ve had days like this, too. Days when it feels like you need a whole committee of you’s to get all the things done. Especially the processing things!

If they passed out crowns for Queens of Many-Me’s, I’m pretty sure I’d get one today. As it is, though, I’m probably going to need to be content with crossing things off the list! In fact, I’m starting early!

By the time you read this, I will have had quite the day with medical folks and big, loud machines. Information is in order. I like having information. Getting it isn’t always so much fun! Fortunately, some of the things I learned in my nurse days are still helpful. Mainly, the absolute permission I gave myself to ask ALL my questions!

And, yes… that same permission applies in other parts of my world, as well!

The legend, if you will, for the #Filters map I’m making is virtually complete. Actually complete, in a hold in your hand sense, will take some help and a bit more time but, for this moment, I’ve done my part!

Just between us, this is really exciting!!!

So is the upcoming painting and writing adventure with Mother Nature that begins June 21. You know me and questions…

Is Mother Nature Calling You Home?

Just click to find out!!! Especially if community and ceremony and creating sound good!

Here’s the thing… the world feels pretty much bat crap crazy these days. Odds are extremely high that some healing is – and is going to be – needed. And I mean to be on that team. I’m guessing you do, too!

That brings us to a sneak peek moment!

This is artwork for one of my #Filters cards. One of the ones that will appear along the road to the places where we are called. The Hebrew words mean both hand and power of Creator. (At least they’re supposed to. I nearly flunked Hebrew!) And, yes… there’s still time to join an amazing group of us live! For all the info, Just click here… (This 6 week adventure will also be recorded if you need to watch on your own time!)

And, just in case you missed it… here’s me, again, inviting YOU to stretch your Medicine Basket and set out on this adventure of Good Trouble! The world needs you!!!

ps… the painting at the top is deep under-layers from an earlier Red Madonna journey… my heart crying out in hope!

Art JourneyContemplationsFiltersGrandmothersMedicine Basket

If I could only have two things…

Posted on by sue boardman

On Friday I was gathered in a virtual circle with some awesome, amazing women. It was a dip your toe in the pool kind of event. An experiential invitation to join a yearlong circle of wonder and becoming. I knew just what I was going to share.

And then the light came on! When it was my turn, there, in that moment, I reached for my Medicine Basket. (That’s a glimpse of the actual basket in the physical world, above. There’s also a whole lot of metaphor involved!)

And I looked straight into the camera (gulp!) and said one of the most true things I know:

If I could only have two tools in my basket, I’d choose Prayer Dots and #Filters!

Meet dots! Each one a sign of praying with a whole lot of our being!

I learned dots in 2017, on my first Intentional Creativity® adventure, known as the Black Madonna Pilgrimage. (You may have been there, too!) And, wow, did I need them! A dear friend in a Florida hospital with a brain aneurysm. Hurricanes and tornadoes. Those dots became a way I could be there, for and with her, until I could be there physically, and help a bit on her road to healing. She’s doing great. And I’m hooked on dots!

Then, #Filters. In some ways, they’re kind of everything else! Ways to sort and understand and relate to all the stuff the world flings in our direction… 2 to 3 BILLION bits of stuff in any one moment!!!

And NONE of us can handle that much, neurologically.

Here’s a personal example, with a bit of help from Dr. Seuss:

I do not like green peas… not even with ham. I do not like them, Sue I am. I do not like them here or there. I do not like them anywhere!

And, so – you guessed it! – I filter them out of my awareness. Of my consideration. Just not getting in. Not even to be polite… not since I was about five! (Sorry, Mom.)

Of course, the world is more complicated than green peas… thus the notion of #Filters, along with dots, in my Medicine Basket!

This matters. It matters enough for me to put my camera avoidance issues in the back of the closet and show up, believing that more and more of us adding this tool to our Medicine Baskets will be Good Trouble for the world… and for our Littles!

Yes! You’re invited, to either or both, even if you do like green peas!

Click here for all the info on the 6-week #Filters adventure!

Click here if you’re hearing Mother Nature whispering… we begin our year-long journey next week!

ps… Mother Nature is a huge fan of dots, too!!! Maybe, just maybe, she invented prayer dots!

pps… wish I’d known #Filters when my Dad still walked this world. I’m pretty sure he’d have been intrigued. For this moment, though… I’m still on it, Harry!

Join the newsletter

Subscribe to get our latest content by email.

    We won't send you spam. Unsubscribe at any time.