Intentional Creativity

Word(s) for 2019

Posted on January 2, 2019by sue boardman

Last year was the first time I had encountered the notion of a word for the year.

It felt different from a resolution which has always seemed to me like something one either kept or broke. (Mostly broke.)

A word feels friendlier to me. Less rigid. Something to which one can return over and over again.

Inspired, no doubt, by my journey with Color of Woman and Intentional Creativity teacher training, the word that found me for 2018 was intentional.

It was really helpful in the way that having a compass in a car is helpful for directionally challenged people like me. The whole notion of being intentional just kept pointing me in the direction I wanted to go.

Now that the fireworks have died down and the Prosecco has disappeared, it is clearly time for a new word.

I was beginning to think, much to my dismay, that my word for 2019 was going to be waiting. Not, of course, that it’s a bad word. It’s just kind of frustrating when what you’re waiting for is a plumber, whom we called on Friday and finally showed up today, which is a story for another day.

Inspired by the conversation going on among my paint sisters about choosing their words for 2019, I’ve been listening, contemplating my options.

I’ve finally come to a conclusion. It’s going to take two words!

The first is learning as in the quote from the fabulous sculptor, Michelangelo. (I’ve walked in the courtyard where he carved the David!!!)

I am still learning.

It’s been a favorite of mine for years.

Someone suggested to me that it might be an odd choice for someone who had just graduated from a teacher training program.

It makes perfect sense to me. I spent last year learning lots of things, among them some of the things I don’t know yet. So, the obvious next step is more learning.

The second is enough. Not only in the sense of needing two words to have enough but in the sense that I am enough.

More importantly, you are enough.

Wise enough. Creative enough. Worthy enough. Healed enough.

Which isn’t to say that there isn’t more wisdom and creativity and healing we might like. Just that we are enough, already. And worthy of pursuing our dreams.

Some intentional tech-y learning I’ve signed up for and my intentional walking shoes from last year will no doubt be helpful for my particular journey.

I also need enough time and space for my pieces of the red thread… for my callings in the world. And for me.

So do you.

Ponder a word if it seems helpful. Or two. Until you find your own, I’m happy to share mine. Especially enough.

And I’d love it if you’d leave a comment below, or email me, with the words that find you. Together, we are enough to make this year a better one in our world.

So be it.

(The art for today is a glimpse of my work in progress… an intuitive interpretation of a friend’s grandmother’s farm.)

Art Journey Contemplations Grandmothers

What’s Up With New Year’s?

Posted on December 30, 2018by sue boardman

Hi! It’s me, Phoebe.

Mom’s been pretty busy playing with the thing she calls a calendar lately. It seems to have something to do with the New Year which I think is pretty soon, though I’m not sure what’s up with that.

I’m pretty good at clocks but not so much calendars. There’s just a lot to keep track of!

I do know that I’ve been here for a little more than two years, now. A lot of things have changed!

First, it was just Sarah and me. She’s way bigger than I am and she used to chase me but doesn’t so much anymore, which is fine with me.

Just when I was starting to figure out how things worked around here, and believe that Mom and Dad would feed me every day, Luther came to live with us, too.

He was really scared when he got here. I think people were mean to him, too. He was so scared that he didn’t even like greeting people.

Greeting is one of our best jobs. Mom just let him get used to being petted and talked to in his own way and he’s gotten really good at it now.

Even though I’m the oldest, which I think is another of those calendar things, I’m also the littlest because Luther kept growing after he got here. Mom says she hopes he’s done!

Sarah and I help take care of Luther because he can’t see. I think he does a great job playing in the yard and going on walks. Getting in the car is hard for him but I’m pretty good at it so I go first to help him know it’s safe.

The last time Sarah and I went for our spa day, I got a makeover. I love my new haircut. I don’t itch nearly so much, which means I don’t need as much medicine, and Mom doesn’t bug me so much about the thing called grooming.

Mom has a new toy called an Instant Pot. I love it! Somehow, it means we get bone broth with our supper lots more often. I don’t really understand, but I think Mom was really glad to have it when I got hurt this fall. She said the bone broth would help me feel better fast and I feel great now.

I did have one of those things Mom calls learning experiences, though. Apparently, some dogs just aren’t nice, no matter how nice you are or how much you want to be friends with everybody.

Mom says some people are like that, too, but our job is to just keep trying to be kind to everybody and protect the people who need protecting. Newfoundlands are good at that. Mom says people could learn a lot from us.

I think we’re really lucky to have so many people to love us. It doesn’t make all the hard stuff that happened before we got here go away but it helps us remember that there’s a lot of good stuff in the world, too.

One of the new good things is what Mom calls painting. We started doing that not too long after Luther got here. We’ve done it more and more and Mom did a thing called graduating which seems really cool.

Sometimes Mom paints with just us. She plays music and sings along and tries really hard to make room for all of us on the floor. It’s fun!

Other times, our friends come to paint, too. Sometimes there’s crying and usually there’s laughing and there’s always a lot of talk about learning and something called healing which I think is like when my belly got better.

Dad is home more, too. He still works a whole lot but doesn’t go to the place called office as much.

I’m not sure what will happen this year. (I don’t think Mom is either, even when she writes in the calendar book!) I do know that Mom and Dad will love us and I hope our girls will come visit. They know lots about love!

We’ll all be hoping that your New Year will be full of the kind of love Mom calls Fierce Compassion. I’m pretty sure it makes the world better. We learn lots of things from her. Maybe she learned that from us!

Much love and a bit of toe licking, Phoebe

Art Journey Contemplations Grandmothers

’tis the season for subversive….

Posted on December 23, 2018by sue boardman

For years now, I have loved this quote from Anne Lamott:

I decided that the single most subversive, revolutionary thing I could do was to show up for my life and not be ashamed.

I hear you. Tomorrow is Christmas Eve. You probably learned, as I did, that this is a time for tradition. For the way we’ve always done it. Not so much for subversion.

This year, more than ever, perhaps, I’m with Anne Lamott.

Which is not to say that I’m not deeply missing my kids and my girls and all those who are, and have been, dear to me. And butter cookies. The pressed kind.

I put up a spiral-y little metal tree on a table where Luther won’t run into it and am dry brining a local, pasture raised, heritage breed turkey. Bill loves turkey.

And I am living my life.

Intentional Creativity sessions with old friends and new, filled with actual hope and change.

Experimenting with a commissioned painting known as Mamaw’s Farm which is all about love and learning new things.

Food for neighbors who can’t be “home for the holidays.”

And prayer dots.

An interesting thing happened with the peace painting I’ve been working on. I watched the news.

And so, along with dots for Peace, dots for Wisdom have begun to appear.

And a few more words from an early Christmas gift, Anne Lamott’s new Almost Everything… notes on hope:

So why have some of us felt like jumping off tall buildings ever since we can remember, even those of us who do not struggle with clinical depression? Why have we repeatedly imagined turning the wheels of our cars into oncoming trucks? We just do. To me, this is very natural. It is hard here. There is the absolute hopelessness we face that everyone we love will die, even our newborn granddaughter, even as we trust and know that love will give rise to growth, miracles, and resurrection. Love and goodness and the world’s beauty and humanity are the reasons we have hope. Yet no matter how much we recycle, believe in our Priuses, and abide by our local laws, we see that our beauty is being destroyed, crushed by greed and cruel stupidity. And we also see love and tender hearts carry the day. Fear, against all odds, leads to community, to bravery and right action, and these give us hope. I wake up not knowing if our leader has bombed North Korea. And still, this past year has been just about the happiest of my life. So, yeah: it can all be a bit confusing.

Still, the light shines in the darkness and the darkness has not overcome it (John 1:5).

And the cover of Annie’s book is sprinkled with swirls of shiny prayer dots, whether she planned that or not.

Sometimes it takes more waiting than we’d hoped. And yet, if we act from the light of love, odds are, it will happen a little sooner.

Whatever your traditions or beliefs, may the light of this season surround you and those you love. And may you contemplate the notion that subversive might just be a good thing. Blessings,

Sue and Sarah, Phoebe, and Luther

Art Journey Contemplations

Interacting With Chaos

Posted on December 19, 2018by sue boardman

Things have been a bit more chaotic than average around here lately.

All the activity that went along with finishing my Intentional Creativity Teacher certificate felt chaotic in the sorting and labeling and ordering, never mind the tech stuff that was way beyond my abilities. Kind of like book deadlines but with so many more moving parts!

CODEX painting process challenges. Not to mention the logistical challenge of really, really big canvases.

A wonderful trip to celebrate with our kids for Thanksgiving.

Considerable time hanging with Phoebe at the vet.

Lots more painting, which is fresh air in the midst of the chaos, and more than a bit of studio revision, which is a hassle but has left more space in the middle of the room so Luther is more comfortable. He’s not such a fan of having all the furniture on wheels!

Then there was all the learning involved in getting ready for my first artist market — which was awesome — and a bit of recovery time.

The last two days have been about trying to straighten things — including my back — back out. I keep hearing the thundering voice of Dr. Walter Brueggemann in my head, proclaiming that, “Our God is a God who makes order out of chaos”

Talk about tempting theology!

And yet, there’s also my growing realization that chaos is, as virtually everything is, a matter of perspective.

We might suppose that our personal recent chaos has been of the first world variety and that is, in some sense, true. And yet devastating wildfires and hurricanes happen in the first world and leave chaos in their wake. Shootings happen in first world cities and so does cancer and Alzheimer’s and politics reeking of power and vested self-interest.

All of which has left me wondering if healing chaos might be at least as much about having choices as it is about making order.

And not only having choices, but claiming those choices.

One of those choices is broadening our perspective. Looking beyond the ends of our own noses, even when it’s hard, and allowing ourselves to see that there is order, and sometimes great beauty, in that which looks and feels totally random.

Granted, it may take a while. And considerable practice. I’ve been working on it.

Today, I made a new friend. Both of us, in some senses, more than a bit random in the community we share.

We began with tea. And images. And stories. We did a bit of dreaming out loud.

And then we made some prayer dots. And told a few more stories. And made some more dots.

You’ve already figured out that they were prayer dots for peace.

Peace in the midst of chaos.

It will probably take a while longer. And some of her dots were probably different than some of mine.

But we’re closer than we were. Closer to peace.

Which feels like a really good day’s work.

And my back is looser than it was.

Art Journey Contemplations Grandmothers

Enough!

Posted on November 29, 2018by sue boardman

To paraphrase, once again, my Color of Woman teacher and Cosmic Cowgirl sister, Shiloh Sophia McCloud, we don’t have to have all our ducks in a row. Or all our stuff in a pile. Or even be all healed, to make a difference. We just have to be enough.

In the case of new Color of Woman teachers and Red Thread sisters, healed enough to call the circle.

I’m counting on that pretty heavily just now. It’s almost 10:00 pm and “time to start” this blog post.

We’ve had a bit of a veterinary emergency unfolding here and I’m “behind” on a whole bunch of things. (Like the very early stages of my CODEX picture.)

Or I would be behind if we believed in that!

Instead, I’ve spent last night and today reliving my six weeks in Intensive Care, back in the dark ages of nursing school.

Phoebe, as the old camp story goes, is fine. Well, I’m increasingly sure she’s going to be.

Bill will get off the plane tomorrow night and bring home awesome chicken wings from our friends at The Corner Pub, who may feel behind on a few other things but will, predictably, have dinner ready.

The dog laundry is done. The people laundry will get there.

I even admitted to a friend today that the thing I needed most in the moment was a pound of raw chicken hearts, known around here as God’s little pill pockets, and let her go get them for me.

The painting circle has been called for tomorrow. I imagine there will be even more dots than usual.

For tonight, though, I am calling the healed enough circle. And I’m counting on you to call some more folks, too. As many as we can find.

Healed enough to get through the day. To reach out to somebody who desperately needs chicken hearts. To give away a paintbrush. Or vote. Or plant collard greens. (Which is another of those things I’d be behind on if I believed in that.)

For now, though, the ailing pup needs a walk and “somebody” needs to shove dishes in the dishwasher. I am healed enough for that.

Though, if the batteries hold out in the flashlight, that would be good!

Will you join us?

It’s how the world gets better!

Art Journey Contemplations Grandmothers

Old Friends Whispering…

Posted on October 17, 2018by sue boardman

Many of you know, and some of you have been right there with me, that for about the last year, I have been deeply engaged in a program for certifying Intentional Creativity teachers, known as Color of Woman, or COW for short.

It has been, in the understatement of the century, quite the journey!

You’ve read my stories and seen at least bits and pieces of the images that have flowed from my soul to my brush to the world.

There is “one more” project left to complete.

“One more” is in quotes because there are still a few individual projects lurking within the enormous project known as the Initiate Book.

The Initiate Book is basically a digital journal, in words and images, of the vision quest that has framed this last year.

It has a great deal of structure in terms of what is required and a great deal of freedom in terms of how to meet the requirements. And, by the way, it’s due November 1.

Oh, and lots of mine changed — or grew, perhaps — while I was in Italy!

Which is, I suspect, why the freedom of this project has been freaking me out. Seriously!

(And that is rather an odd statement coming from me.)

There are paintings and journals and blog posts and photos and zillions of index cards everywhere I look and my job, in this moment, is to finish, organize and label ALL of them so that the dear friend who actually pushes the buttons to make it beautiful and get it uploaded doesn’t feel trapped in the mythical land of scrap quilts, as I do in this moment.

I had stacks of things on every horizontal surface in our house, which might have worked except that we played Furniture Yahtzee again last weekend and everything got moved, and re-stacked.

Imagine my delight.

And recall that I’m not, historically, a very fast learner when it comes to tech-y things like files and folders and the hypothetical miracles of Dropbox, which I still haven’t figured out but apparently need to. Now.

I’ve been bouncing about from this to that and back to this, color coding check marks on my magic sample table of contents, which seemed like a good idea but hasn’t turned out to be very clear.

My flow-y, creative right brain was getting frantic, so I took a leap of faith and asked for help!

After a lesson in sorting and organizing, along with tea and really good dark chocolate (Thank you, Leisa!) I had an idea.

I could do this in order. Top to bottom. Right off the list of requirements. (Which is not at all how it happened in real life or how it feels inside!)

Laugh, if you need to. I am feeling hugely grateful to my blessed linear left brain for flinging itself into the artsy and well written tangle of my universe with an actual plan.

I suspect more tea and chocolate will be required. And plenty to share with my Muse, as well, who nudged me out of bed at about 5:30 this morning with one of her trademark “next right thing” notions.

For now, it’s time to get back to work.

As my old friends C.S. Lewis and Julian of Norwich are whispering in my ear…

All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well.

Art Journey Contemplations Grandmothers

Being Fed

Posted on October 7, 2018by sue boardman

About two weeks ago, a miracle came into my life, suddenly, as miracles often do.

I was offered an opportunity to join a group of Intentional Creativity sisters, none of whom I’d ever met in person, on a retreat to Florence, Italy. (Or, Firenza, if you prefer, which means City of Flowers.)

There was much hustling and bustling at our house, and a considerable amount of counting on fingers and toes, to make this whole adventure possible.

An adventure known as a “retreat” designed for encountering the wisdom of the Holy Mother.

We are painting, of course. Or we will be on Saturday, having seen some of the stunning spiritual, artistic, and cultural sites of Florence on Friday, and walked through the amazing city enough for my knees to not-so-gently remind me that I might be pushing my luck just a bit.

There was a great deal of soul-feeding going on.

There has also been a bit of body-feeding going on, which, when done really well, is soul-feeding as well.

First, let me admit that virtually my entire grasp of the French and Italian languages comes from watching Food Network. (Which is totally inadequate in airports!) Fortunately, we are blessed with the super-historian and magnificent Chef Jonathan McCloud among us!

We have, it seems, arrived in one of the local food capitols of the world. Balsamic vinegar, olives, wines, stunning black tomatoes, fabulous bitter greens. Local cheeses and olive oil practically flowing from the fountains.

And, perhaps most amazingly of all for one who has been largely grain free for a couple of years, pasta.

Well, duh! I mean, we’re in Italy.

This, however, is no big box store, back-home pasta. According to Jonathan, it is made silky and delicate, from locally grown wheat which is naturally low in gluten (gluten not being a major structural necessity for pasta as it is, say, bread) and grown as it has been through the centuries without genetic modifying and chemical this and that to keep it from spoiling.

You don’t have to keep it from spoiling when you make it and serve it the same day!

Last night, handmade tagliatelle, simply dressed with local fennel and onions, a smidge of crushed pistachio nuts and divine olive oil, beside an abundance of green salad blessed with local balsamic vinegar, all with the slightest tang of real, local, raw milk cheese.

And as we ate, we told stories. Stories of our first recollections of The Holy Mother. Stories which, in their wild diversity, brought us closer into community, as good stories and good food have always done.

Despite some technical challenges, I’ll have more stories and more images, I’m sure.

For this moment let me say that I completely get that most of you, for a great many postmodern, first world reasons, will not be whipping up some homemade pasta for dinner tonight.

I do believe, though, that it matters deeply for us to know both our food traditions and our stories and our images. To touch the spiritual base of all our peoples when we can.

Not legalistically. Not to prove, as Shiloh Sophia would remind us, that we are believers (or grandmothers!) enough.

But to be fed, deeply and cosmically, of who we are so that we might more intentionally choose what makes us whole and share it with the ones we love.

With blessings, and just a spot of stove envy, from Italia!