Category: Phoebe and Luther

I have a rather bizarre story for you, today. One many of my medical and therapeutic – type buddies might actually declare, “not the way we’ve always done it”!

Frankly, I do too.

A year ago I finished my Motherboard certification which translates into Certified Intentional Creativity® Coach.

This was a journey which involved a whole bunch of a thing called MetaCognitive Drawing, as I learned it from Shiloh Sophia McCloud and a talented team of folks open to new things.

The operating definition is something pretty close to thinking about something while moving a pen and watching the pen move.

The process allows one to notice things which are “beyond” our day-to-day patterns of thinking.

There’s more, but first, a pause for a bit of history.

If you’ve been reading along for a while you will no doubt have noticed that I have rather more frequent than optimal challenges with joints and muscles and pain.

I won’t bore you with the details except to say be kind to your knees! I will say that I’ve spent a bunch of time, energy, and money trying to get things to hurt less.

Things have been different, lately. (Which is great if you’re into optimism… and not so good if nothing much is helping.)

Then, while working on some workshops about helping the teens and young adults we love, especially in this pandemic-impacted moment, I had a new thought!

I did such a good job of sheltering at home – read that isolating – that, in addition to not catching Covid, I lost a good bit of muscle strength. (Not that I had a whole lot to spare in the beginning…)

That new thought led – as new thoughts often do – to a few more new thoughts with a batch of questions tagging along.

I wrote out, like a story, what I was experiencing. I looked a bunch of things up online. (Really!) I called my doc and made an appointment.

He listened. And didn’t laugh… even when I explained that I had come to the conclusion that my muscles were afraid.

We checked some wild card things out and adjusted a few other things and made a plan, last Monday.

I called a dear friend and got a referral for a massage therapist.

Somewhere along the line, I mentioned to a Grammy buddy and Motherboard grad from this year, what I had realized about my muscles being scared. We did a short review of all the surgeries and falls, etc., etc. Then she offered to wander with me if I wanted to do a bit of MetaCognitive Drawing to see what else I might learn.

I did!

You kind of had to be there but here’s the punch line. After drawing a me out of a bunch of spirals, I was feeling way more hopeful. Then, I knew. I need to be as patient and hopeful and compassionate with my muscles as I was with Luther when he came to us so abused and terrified and then lost his vision. I needed to see me with my heart, just the way he sees the world.

Time out for tissues. For me.

And an update.

A med shift Mark and I hatched up is helping. My new massage buddy is coming to the house on Wednesday. (She’s an artist, too, and loves Newfies!) And, she’d heard of Intentional Creativity®

It turns out that, before Covid, she had plans to go help an old friend of hers with an IC retreat in Mexico.

My response was an immediate, “Emily Grieves”! And I was right. Emily is an amazingly talented IC sister.

Que the chorus of, It’s a small world, after all!

I can’t wait to see what happens when I explain to my new buddy that my muscles have been scared and my goal is to help them be less scared…

For this moment, back to workshop planning… you’re invited!

And let me know if you’d like to talk about drawing yourself a miracle…

ps… That’s Luther in the glimpse of my 2nd Legend painting, above.

pps… Many, many thanks to Gail Simon Darlington, Red Thread and Motherboard sister, extraordinaire!

Well, the good news is that Luther survived the warm-up fireworks last night without the need for CBD oil! For a guy with his history of abuse and trauma, that’s right up there in the land of miracles.

If you’re new around here, WELCOME! And Luther is the guy on the left, sporting the collar that reads blind dog. His sidekick, Phoebe, is – blessedly – the prize winner for chilled out Newfie.

Chilled out is exactly what we need around here, today.

Folk music marathon on YouTube. (Well, when I’m pushing the buttons!)

A huge meatloaf production project for dinner with lots of leftovers for the freezer. (Our version of fast food.)

Bunches of videos and worksheets in prep for a meeting to start bringing my Grandmother Quiz to life. Stay tuned!

Probably some more consultation with a new – and extremely talented – artist, face to face with her first commission and a really big canvas.

A couple of loads of laundry.

All of which is to say that we’re not likely to win the award for observing 4th of July traditions. And there’s part of me that is missing the fried chicken and potato salad that were dependable parts of this day when I was a kid.

Fortunately our friend, Josh, who owns The Corner Pub, is planning to observe National Fried Chicken Day which is, apparently, a thing that happens on July 6th. We’re planning to help!

For today, though, a question. It’s not an easy question. It is one that helps me focus, especially in times like this. You already know what it is.

I have a new answer this year.

Healing.

Yep, healing.

Wherever and however we can.

And right now, in a world of many things I can’t much change, my plan is (Wait for it!) ART.

Well, not exactly art, but INTENTIONAL CREATIVITY®. The process of using our whole beings to envision that which we need or were born to express or to teach.

And, very soon now, you’ll have a chance to join in for one, or two, or all three of the experiences my IC Sister, Hobby Parent, and I are busy creating. In fact, you can click HERE to find everything you need to know for a free webinar designed to deal with HOW that healing happens!

For this moment, our prayers for you are peace, freedom, dignity, and whatever else you need to do what you believe. Blessings, Sue, Phoebe, and Luther

ps… If you know any cool folks who relate to the Grandmother Archetypes, Hobby and I would be thrilled if you’d share this with them. They’re invited, too!

What was your first job?

Mine, other than babysitting, was working for the vet, which I adored, but it was only a summer gig. Then, being a camp counselor. (Also seriously seasonal.)

The summer before my senior year in high school, I became a part-time cashier at the local Publix store. This was back in the dark ages when cash registers still had mechanical buttons and math was required to make change. (Really!)

I used to entertain myself by seeing how fast I could ring up 8 packs of sodas and the bottle deposit.

The absolute worst part was inventory. And, yes, I mean with pencils and clipboards.

Bars of soap and jars of baby food were the worst possible assignments.

Soap made me sneeze the whole time and trying to re-stack all the little glass jars inevitably led to a mess on the floor. Somehow it always seemed to be strained peas or chicken mush. Aaaaaackkk!

You are, I imagine, wondering what triggered this stroll down memory lane.

Well, I’m shop-keeping again!

This time, art, which is way better than soap or baby food!

It’s going to take me a while to get used to the new system, though.

I tried. Bill tried. We made some progress. Veronica helped!

There are, however, a few things still to work out!

There’s a hint of a coming special collection of art by Gloria Venuh, MATS, who was my Intentional Creativity Intern this past year and is about 97 kinds of seriously talented! (Not to mention about to start her PhD in theology and art!) There are, indeed, more to come.

They should be there later this week!

And, I’ll be adding more and more items soon. Including more coffee mugs! (Very cool!)

There’s is a pretty, purple poster edition of the Grandmothers’ Manifesta, just in case you know someone who needs a gift or some moral support.

But, having resolved my meltdown over wanting it the way I want it, and convinced my inner critic to take a brief vacation, we’re open. I’m so hoping you’ll visit!

Also, if you missed Wednesday’s blog with the invitation to get a free, printable pdf of the Manifesta, just click here!

Here’s the thing… I really believe that this is part of my way of making things better for my girls and for all our littles! And that reminds me of a quote, sometimes attributed to Michaelangelo:

Art will save the world.

I hope so. At the very least, I think it makes us more fully human and that’s not a bad day’s work!

Thus, a new class, coming soon.

For this moment, feet up and prayer scarves. This one is dark blues and greens.

Whether you’re new here, or have been part of the family for a while, thank you! It takes a village to spread the word. And the images!

ps… Rule one of blog posts like this is to give people only one link to click. It’s a challenge but I’ve been working on it. However, today is an exception and, since you’re a bright and capable being, I’m going to trust that you’ll figure out what works for you and not give up.

pps… If you know where the studio elves are hiding, Phoebe and Luther would be grateful if you’d send them, please. It’s a bit hard for them to help paint, just now!

I come from a crowd of folks who believed they were of the we’ve always done it this way sort.

Even as a child, I thought that was a bit odd for people who were on a first name basis with the moving guys. I understand it better now, though. You see, I’ve met the Inner Critic.

She’s the one whispering in your ear that things are safe if we lived through them once and, therefore, we should always do them the same way. I’ll bet you’ve met one of her many, many sisters!

It’s not really a bad theory. It just doesn’t do so well if it’s the only theory!

This weekend has been a good example.

Juneteenth!

It will come as no surprise to most of you that this is a new-ish holiday in my particular part of the universe.

All my generations upon generations of Grandmothers would not know what “we’ve always eaten” for this day. Or which box of decorations to drag out of the basement. Or what to send for cards.

I’m not real sure either, but I’m ready to learn!

So, in between laps around the inside of our house to stretch out my deeply annoying SI Joint, I’ve spent some time wondering.

And, I’ve had some help! You guessed it… paintings! (And, yes, two of those in the photo have made recent appearances but could you really tell them no? Ever, really, but especially now? And they invited a couple of friends!)

If we start to the left, we have, What the World Needs Now, complete with her heart full of love, despite the scar.

Just behind her is a Virgin of Guadalupe, muttering about revisions, especially to the background. She’s headed for a friend’s house when she’s finished.

Up above, my familiar Tree of Life painting with the ancient grandmother and her abundant bowl of water beneath the communal branches and roots and trunks of a banyan tree.

I’m counting on my shoulder deciding to behave soon so I can do some finishing work on the painting of Congressman John Lewis, to the right.

Since I wasn’t quite ready to paint, I decided that I could live without my usual parade of Iron Chef America re-runs. You see, I just figured out where Finding Your Roots moved after the cable fairy’s latest game of messing with my mind. And who was waiting for me there?

John Lewis! I’d seen the episode with him and Senator Cory Booker before but context is, indeed, much of everything so I heard new things tonight.

My favorite part was watching Congressman Lewis learn that his Great Great Great Grandfather, Tobias Carter, registered to vote in 1867, two years after he was freed from slavery and just after the 13th Amendment prohibited depriving anyone of the right to vote based on their race.

Tears ran down Lewis’s cheeks as he marveled to know that 98 years before he was injured and arrested in the march from Selma to Montgomery, his ancestor had registered to vote.

Tears ran down my cheeks, too, as Lewis said:

The vote is the most powerful non-violent tool in a democratic society.

Pens and laptops and paintbrushes do pretty important jobs, too.

So, despite the Critic’s efforts to send her Muse alter-ego on a long vacation, there are some new things coming up around here.

An image that took me about 35 years and 10 minutes to create.

And Camp! Think soothing the Critic…

I promise, no bug spray will be necessary! Stay tuned…

ps… Happy Fathers Day to Bill and Dave and all the very brave dads and grandpas reading this!

pps… the big, fuzzy kid communing with the art is Luther who, in many ways, has lived his own Juneteenth kind of story.

ppps… What the World Needs Now is available for adoption. Since Luther’s not much for email, you can check with me!

This is a phrase heard fairly often in the dinner hour Jeopardy games at our house.

Ask me about a computer issue or whether the Braves won their latest game, and you’re likely to get the same answer.

Today, it popped up in a different context. I was hanging with my new friend, the physical therapist. That, alone, suggests that things aren’t going quite as well as might be optimal.

Just between us, I think this pain episode is part of my personal re-engagement with the world outside our house in the story of the pandemic still being written.

You see, I’ve spent the last year choosing to, basically, stay home. A decision that was right for me even though it also meant way less movement and less engagement with the kind folks who keep me – metaphorically – up and running.

So, today, when my concerned buddy asked me what I knew about why my neck hurts my honest answer was, “I don’t know. But I can tell you what I feel.”

This devolved into a fascinating chat about Neurolinguistic Programming and how we store and access information. (Also the fact that I’m not good with right and left.)

Eventually, we devised a plan for moving forward, all the while learning to speak each others’ languages.

Here’s why I’m telling you this story…

I think anybody who’s been paying attention is in the midst of a cosmic game of Tilt! as we go on making choices about the pandemic context we’ve been living in. And many, many of those choices will be made through lenses of belief.

Once upon a time, my hypnosis/NLP guru was waxing poetic about things we could change, based on changing our beliefs.

So far so good.

THEN we got to the part about, “There’s nothing you can’t do if you just believe you can.”

When I was in high school, girls weren’t allowed to go out for track. (My very athletic granddaughters don’t believe this story!) I desperately wanted to learn to pole vault.

(Feel free to laugh!)

So, 40-ish years later, when I was sitting in that hypnosis training, I was pretty sure that no amount of believing was going to get my bad knees, injured back, sore neck, etc. over the bar on the pole vault gizmo.

Let’s just say that physics were not in my favor.

Here’s what I’ve learned in the meantime… While it is undoubtedly wiser for me to pass on pole vaulting, I have learned a bunch of things in the last decade or so that I never believed I could.

Things, like painting, that required me to suspend my disbelief and actually pick up a brush. And I’m enormously glad I did!

So, I made a deal with the P.T.

With the exception of the giant bouncy ball (A story for a different day!) my response to, “Can you……………..?” is going to be, “I’m not sure. Let’s find out.”

And, just in case this touches something a bit teary inside you, you’re welcome to join me!

For now, I’m off to choose pizza for dinner tonight. Carry out. First time in more than a year.

Then it’s off to cheer on my teacher, Shiloh Sophia McCloud, at the opening of her new museum show. This one both virtual and actual! And a bit of learning from the ancestors after that. Probably while painting the background for my first poster… The Grandmothers’ Manifesta!

For now, blessings to you and yours!

ps… Luther and Phoebe say, “hi!” and they want you to know that a little guy named Wasabi just won the Westminster Kennel Club show, even though it was “supposed to be” at Valentine’s Day.

pss… There’s some big stuff coming around here. (I believe!!!) And I’d be honored if you wanted to share this post with a friend who might want to be here, too. So would my buddy, the owl, who’s come bearing prayer dots!

First, the embarrassing part. Today has not gone at all as I planned. Zoom glitches, meetings moving, the aforementioned cranky SI joint. And, since we’re being real… I forgot it was Wednesday!

Lovely lady above to the rescue! You see, she was my first SuperPower SelfPortrait, back before I even had a name for what I was doing. A teaching painting for a workshop at Columbia Theological Seminary, she’s one of Shiloh Sophia McCloud’s famous face demos. Complete, because she’s also mine, with lots of drips and dots.

I love drips and dots.

The dots, of course, I love for the prayers that they make visual and kinesthetic.

Drips, on the other hand, having minds of their own, keep the artist from over-managing the work and allow it to become what it wants to be.

The super power part came to be the first time I did this with my girls, and we added a bit to the journey.

All this floated to the top of my pretty big pond of stuff that needs doing on Monday when I was chatting with an artist/Grammy buddy. Or, in this case, an artist/Bubbe buddy.

She was pondering a project to do with a couple of her girls and I told her about SuperPower SelfPortraits, or SP2 for short.

As you’ve no doubt guessed, one of the super powers my purple friend brings is bailing me out when there’s no blog post! This is a good thing!

It’s also a reminder that, before too long, there will be videos of the whole SP2 process available so you can have fun with your littles. Fun fun and self-confidence fun!

For tonight, though, my new Shopify store is ALMOST ready for the grand opening! Watch here for details. And, in the meantime, think about giving your super powers space to play!

ps… If you haven’t subscribed to this blog yet, now would be great! Just fill in the annoying pop-up thingie and you’re in. Subscribers will get a special discount for the grand opening event!

pps… Phoebe and Luther want you to know that they did, indeed, get fed, even with me wandering in the creative space known as newness!