Shiloh Sophia

The Most Wonderful Day of the Year!

Posted on November 3, 2019by sue boardman

Last night my dreams were filled with moon calendars, metaphors for light and darkness, and swirls of things I’ve learned since this time last year.

Much is in transition, including weather and time. I woke this morning, reaching for my favorite bright purple sweatshirt and my ancient, dependable Ugg-like boots, wondering what the 9:35 on my phone meant this day.

Bill loves the fall time change! For him, it means an extra hour of sleep. (This is a concept that may have been a bit more relevant in the days when Sunday morning meant preaching at 8:30 & 11:00 for us!)

Then, there’s Dave, who spent much of his middle school journey discovering Stephen Hawking and trying to convince us that late, like the concept of time, was an imaginary means of control. (Which may be a bit like declining to believe in behind!)

The more I learn about mindfulness and theoretical physics, the more convinced I am that he had a point!

Much of my contemplation about this season of change has been around nature and the patterns of seasonal transformations.

Then there was something I read yesterday about the on-going, and apparently increasingly political, debate about doing away with Daylight Savings Time.

I suspect that there may be just a hint of mis-direction in such a debate at this particular moment in history!

Although, while I would tend to be for a back to nature perspective on this issue, Bill makes the good point that, if the debate is going to include costs, the least expensive thing would be to leave things as they are, avoiding reprogramming huge chunks of the world to adapt.

You, on the other hand, may be wondering why my head is filled with such notions at all, and there are many answers to that.

The most immediate one is my teacher, Shiloh Sophia, and the transition from last year’s 13 moon painting project to this year’s which is happening more or less now, with some variation created by the California wildfires.

You see, Shiloh asked a new question.

What, she asked us to wonder, were the creation stories we learned as children and what were the ones we claim now?

That’s quite the question! And it’s undoubtedly related to the name of our new journey which is Anthropas.

Nope. Not a typo!

Anthropos, as you may know, is the Greek word for man, or, depending on your perspective, humanity.

Anthropas, borrowing a bit from Latin, is a feminized version of the Greek. (If you google it, what you’ll find is Shiloh and this course!)

And, yes, I realize I’m cracking the door open to a huge debate. What I hear in my head, though, is the voice of a Professor of Religious Studies named Judith Plaskow who, in her book Standing Again At Sinai, advocated putting the women back into the old stories, saying, “This world of women’s experience is part of the Jewish world, part of the fuller Torah we need to recover.”

Just between us, I freaked out when I first read that book. Now I depend on it!

And so my head – and heart – are indeed swirling with the songs from Stephen Schwartz’ Children of Eden and words from God’s Trombones, by James Weldon Johnson, and Paul Tillich’s notion of the ground of all being. Oh, and storyteller that I am, “In the beginning was the Word and the word was with God and the Word was God,” from the gospel according to John. And all this swirling and remembering and choosing is happening, for me, beside a campfire where the oldest stories were passed on… Words and songs floating around in my head, trying to figure out how to become images!

It turns out that a conversation like this can, in fact, be dangerous!

You see, all that believing tends to lead to action!

If, like me, you believe in an intention for good, and the value of the created universe and each of us in it, please VOTE Tuesday! It matters on every level… especially to our kids and grandkids, and may help keep you from being purged from the rolls prior to the 2020 elections, if you happen to live in a state where that’s being actively planned, like Georgia!

For today, prints are ordered for the next market, the sun is shining, it’s blessedly cool out, and I have a hot date for lunch!

Oh, and if you happen to be near Atlanta, email me for info on my next Intentional Creativity workshop, Seasons of Light and Darkness, which is Sunday, Nov. 10! suesvoice@gmail.com

Art Journey Contemplations Garden Grandmothers

I am still learning…………..

Posted on May 19, 2019by sue boardman

The 4-footed teachers have been in full form!

Luther, of course, has been the most obvious. Watching him heal, physically, from his eye surgery has been a wonder in itself. I’ve actually been able to watch his energy field come back online after all the anesthesia and the post-op meds. This big guy has been blind for a while but he temporarily lost his navigational radar.

It was all hands on deck to keep him from bumping his face until he was healed enough for the sutures to come out. I spent two weeks with a 140 pound dog literally tied to my arm, to keep him safe.

Today, he can make it out to the yard and back, safely. He’s re-negotiating his paths through the house, learning to feel gently with his nose for doorways and to pay attention to different floor mats to know where he is.

We’ve started some new walking training and directional cues to help and, blessedly, they are.

Sarah and Phoebe, meanwhile, have been in varying stages of regression. Sarah is bossy and needy and in my face, afraid, I suspect, that Luther will get most of the attention forever. She is, in some ways, assisting my inner critic in whispering messages of blame and inadequacy in my ear.

Meanwhile, Phoebe seems to have decided that, since the pattern disintegrated utterly for a few days, she is free to comply with or ignore the suggestions known in dog obedience land as commands, according to her mood.

I get it. Everything I’ve learned about sleeping in the dark with no electronics, eating real food, and believing in my ability to cope has gone astray.

I’m way beyond grateful that my inner Observer is also whispering in my ear.

One of the things that she’s whispering may have come from my old friend, Steve Glenn. Pardon the redundancy if you’ve read this recently, but it’s really helpful and deserves a re-run.

There’s no such thing as failure. Only experience to be learned from.

This, I’ve been reminded, is something we can’t teach our kids unless we, like Luther, learn to use it as a compass with which to navigate our own worlds.

So, the numbing TV, which wasn’t working for any of us and only added to the stress, has been switched out (mainly) for coloring.

The amazing Shiloh Sophia recently posted a documented medical article claiming that 5 minutes of coloring would interrupt the body’s stress response.

I already had the pencils and markers so I stocked up on coloring books. Mainly Mandalas and Shiloh’s divine feminine images. I’ve colored enough to wallpaper a good sized room and it helps. It was an easy something I could change in the midst of a bunch of stuff I couldn’t.

And, I re-examined my food issues.

Once again, Michael Pollan to the rescue.

Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.

This is a system I can manage. (And remember!) It’s also a system I believe in.

Blessedly, lots of those plants are growing in my garden right now, since leaving home is still a bit complicated.

And tomorrow, I suspect, will bring its own challenges. I trust, though, that my 4-footed teachers and my inner Observer will still be there, shining light on the path.

Art Journey Contemplations Grandmothers

Context and Puzzle Pieces!

Posted on April 24, 2019by sue boardman

It’s been a week of big bruises and recliner chairs and a fair number of pain pills since my fall.

The good news is that I wasn’t hurt badly and am healing well.

The other good news is that I’ve had some extra time for pondering. This is especially helpful as there is a lot to ponder in my universe these days. Much of it has seemed like deja’ vu.

Back when I was doing full time pastoral counseling, retreats, staff development and other interesting things along those lines, I often felt like my job was to take a jigsaw puzzle with no edge pieces and no picture on the box and try to help folks fit them together in a way that felt true.

Turns out that those are handy skills for making my way through the lands of Intentional Creativity and the neighboring territory of Red Thread Circle Guides.

Time out for a footnote…

The Legend of the Red Thread is an ancient tale common to many indigenous cultures across the world. From Asia to ancient Greece (Think Ariadne’s thread and the labyrinth…) to native peoples from South America to Alaska and beyond, there are references to the red thread as that which holds us together in community and helps us support, and be supported by, those whom we were destined to know.

There are even biblical and sacred art references to the red thread.

There are lots of those stories running through my head these days.

Also lots of pondering about the Body of Work that so many of us are building in our lives, whether we’re aware of it or not which, according to Maestra Shiloh Sophia, has something to do with my CODEX paintings, though I haven’t quite gotten that far yet.

One of my favorite things about the Red Thread legend is that we each have our part to hold but we’re not responsible for everyone else’s part. I find that very comforting!

This week, The Legend of the Red Thread and the notion of a Body of Work smashed into each other in my head when I was chatting with my granddaughters on the phone.

My piece of the Red Thread is, to the best of my ability, to live as fierce compassion in the world. From my girls and our three Newfie rescue dogs and those I teach to the food I grow and the fact that I vote.

I imagine the Red Thread as this enormous spider’s web that connects us each to another, to another, to another. (I learned this at summer camp when I was about 12, with actual red thread. Back then, we were talking about the environment.)

And I can feel that call to fierce compassion woven all through my life and work ever since, though I didn’t really know it consciously until this week.

I still don’t have a complete picture of what the puzzle looks like but I know a lot more than I did. And I’m not, in this moment, entirely sure that there are supposed to be edge pieces!

I’d love to know what kind of wonderings these rather rambling thoughts are bringing up for you.

For now, though, a phone call with a woman trying to help heal the impact of child sexual abuse in our world. Which sounds a lot like fierce compassion to me.

Then, the canine fine dining experience and some more green hair for my current opinionated painting!

Art Journey Contemplations Grandmothers

Big Dogs Snoring and Tony Bourdain!

Posted on April 7, 2019by sue boardman

If I knew anything at all about digital music or how such a miracle comes to be, I think I could create the world’s greatest meditation recording.

It’s playing now, in the live version, as I write.

Yes, you guessed it! A trio of big dogs snoring gently in a unique chorus of peace.

(If you had a digital version, you might not still be freaked out from the big event of the evening in which the bass member of the trio urped his dinner all over the blessed rubber mat on the floor in the place formerly known as the breakfast room and the resulting yuck involved in solving that problem!)

Please keep reading… it will get better, soon!

After all was clean again, I repaired to the magical chair, always willing to adjust to whatever my knees and back desire in the moment, and, deciding on a brief vacation after a major meeting with my new friend Barry at digital arts printing, summoned Netflix where I encountered Parts Unknown and the late Anthony Bourdain, mid-episode, in the Republic of Georgia.

I was intrigued.

Let me admit, before I go on, that my grasp of contemporary world geography is nowhere near adequate and I missed all of the 1980’s as a single mom earning four college degrees. Then, I spent the 1990’s enmeshed in church politics so it’s safe to say that I am in need of a bit more learning on many of these matters.

Tony, as was so often true, was glad to oblige.

Beyond quite the soliloquy on homemade hootch and something to do with chicken baked in a pumpkin, much of the conversation had to do with Georgia’s precarious geographical position, essentially between Europe and the former Soviet Union. Here’s the sentence that hooked me.

We wake up every morning and find out where we live.

This I understood, for I heard the same stories when I was in Hungary, just before the former eastern bloc fell. I was, naively, I suppose, mind boggled by the notion of waking up to find out who had taken control of your country overnight.

Now, if you’ll pretend for a moment that it’s time for a commercial break, I will take you with me to the land of Shiloh Sophia and Intentional Creativity where we are painting about consciousness. We’re pretty much always painting about consciousness but it’s been particularly intense for me, having two CODEX paintings in process at once.

Basically, that means we’re painting about thinking about thinking. And, in the moment, we are allowing any of the things that may have been non-conscious historically, to become conscious if that is safe and helpful at this time.

We’re not really talking about consciousness in the sense of above or below but, if you want to paint it you have to have some way to represent the whole thing visually. The picture above, which you’ve seen other bits of before, is essentially an image of those things that are safe and helpful (though sometimes a bit unsettling) “rising” into awareness.

Now, let us return from our commercial break to Tony and the Republic of Georgia.

First, the big flash for me. (It’s ok if you’re ahead of me here. We all learn when we’re ready.)

You don’t have to live in the former Soviet bloc, or in a tiny country between Europe and Russia and parts of the Middle East to wonder who will be in charge when you wake up in the morning.

It’s just as true in the United States of America.

The thing that really blew my mind was the hopefulness of my new TV friends in the Republic of Georgia.

We’re hopeful, I heard most of them say. What else can we be if we want a better future?

And, somehow, because of the place where inviting new consciousness meets embodied memories of eating and drinking and dancing with old friends in Hungary, I suspect I will be more hopeful, as well.

And busy making prayer dots. Wearing, I might add, my Fiercely Compassionate Grandmother tee-shirt! My girls are growing up in this country!

For now, warming a bowl of really good soup and wondering where Tony is headed next.

PS… Just in case you’re curious, where Tony went next was Senegal, where a native leader said: This world is going to be a better place when more cultures are actually given a chance to be put at the table. And, after a few bites of lamb, Tony responded, Democracy, as it happens, requires regular maintenance, diligence, and a willingness to stand up. RIP, Tony.

Art Journey Contemplations Grandmothers

WIP Wednesday… this week!

Posted on April 3, 2019by sue boardman

In the land of Intentional Creativity, Wednesdays are Work-in-Progress days. A time to reflect on where we are and, often, to share a glimpse with the community.

In the land of Sue, Wednesdays are also blog days.

I have this apparently bizarre notion that I will leave space in my calendar so that getting a blog done doesn’t wind up feeling rushed or exhausting.

Sometimes it works!

Sometimes, though, Wednesdays come after rather intense Tuesdays.

Yesterday’s Tuesday was great in the sense of good friends and lots of painting. And hours of leaping the studio angels! I got pretty tired in a good way, but tired all the same.

This morning, when I noticed all three dogs laying in the hallway, I decided to wander through the studio to the kitchen in search of one of my favorite sunny yellow mugs with lemon and hot water.

(I hate to admit it, but I’m sleeping lots better since I’ve backed way off the tea again!)

The face in the painting pictured above was basically the last thing I saw last night and the first thing I saw this morning. Fortunately, the light was good for getting some photos just then.

I often see something new when I look at my work through the eye of my camera.

This time, I realized that I had been dreaming about her.

Some of you will recognize her as my Codex painting, moon 7-9. For the rest of you, she’s almost 7 moons finished in a 13 moon journey with a world-wide group of artists. The tricky part???

We have no idea what comes next or where the paint journey is going. (Though I suspect the inner journey won’t actually end!)

Here’s what I can tell you. The face you see represents the inner Observer we all have but aren’t necessarily well acquainted with. Her job is to give us a place outside our old stories and immediate experience from which to watch what’s unfolding. Rather, as I’ve always imagined, like an owl in a tree. To notice and wonder and, perhaps, to learn new and helpful things for understanding where we are and envisioning where we want to be.

From the unknown consciousness where myth and imagination live, through what we were taught to be, often in order to exist, in whatever enmeshed systems we encountered, to the personas we became, to the crafted, or curated, beings still developing from our experiences and intentional choices, our Observer helps us to see more clearly and choose according to our deepest, and ever-shifting, awareness.

I met my Observer 20 or so years ago in my hypnosis and neuro-linguistic programming journey.

Now, with the brilliant help of Shiloh Sophia, Jonathan McCloud, and the Intentional Creativity community, it feels as though she has moved from high in the tree to deep inside me. It’s amazing!

Last night, she surprised me yet again with her insistence on the bright yellow drips of paint that surround her.

What do they mean? I’m not totally sure yet but it feels like it has something to do with busting out of the box! (And something this Grammy needs to spend some time contemplating!)

For this moment, while my friends, imaginary and real, are hopping up and down to join the conversation, Sarah would like you to know that she was very, very cooperative for her chiropractic treatment today and that Luther made it back into the library to hang with Maren, our new dog Auntie. Phoebe, of course, showed up too, hoping for treats even though she didn’t have to twist and pop.

I, on the other hand, had the odd sense while we were working that a portion of my Observer’s wisdom lives in these three dogs. (This is not official teaching… just truth.)

For now, we all took a vote and decided that a nap was in order. Sarah’s taking hers in the bathtub!

Art Journey Contemplations Grandmothers

The Really Important Question

Posted on February 24, 2019by sue boardman

With profound apologies to my teacher, Shiloh Sophia, and sincere hopes that the Intentional Creativity Guild won’t revoke my membership, I must confess that I don’t eat cake.

I was very popular at children’s birthday parties. I like icing even less than cake. Especially the blue play dough blue roses! Everyone wanted to sit next to me.

When I was small, I chose apple pie for my birthday. After we moved to Florida, where seasonal fruits are vastly different than in, say, Minnesota, where I was born, I chose strawberry shortcake.

The kind with the Bisquick biscuits, as opposed to those little round cake things, floating in just a bit of half and half. Yum!

I’m telling you this, of course, because it’s birthday season in my family. Five of them between January 24th and March 4th.

Somehow, the food thing used to be less complicated!

The Legendary Husband, who deserted me for the frozen land of Iowa, fixed the fabulous dinner pictured above.

Locally pasture raised rib eye steak, perfectly teetering between rare and medium rare. Roasted organic asparagus, the first of the farmers market season. And tiny roasted organic potatoes, flash finished in the hot iron skillet while the steak rested on a platter.

I didn’t miss the cake!

Soon, a joint celebration, probably at Decatur’s Iberian Pig, because we’re still raving over our Valentine’s Day feast.

Some spare roasted asparagus will find its way into a frittata, along with herbs from our garden, which will reappear shortly for snacks with paint. The extra wee potatoes are, predictably, headed for a pot of soup.

All of which means that I can paint more and cook less during my single parent week.

The very big dogs are delighted that we’ve foraged for them, as well.

We do, however, think of more than food around here.

Health.

Healing the planet.

Space for a bit of comfort and celebration.

And, perhaps most importantly of all, gratitude.

Gratitude for enough. For clean. For sources we trust. For sharing. And for self-expression.

And, in the midst of giving thanks, we long, also, for justice. For an end to hunger and food insecurity, which is totally possible if we grow more and manufacture less.

It’s about time to plant the garden out front. And time for our own asparagus to begin to reach for the sun. The grape vines are already beginning to bud, which I really hope isn’t overly optimistic of them.

I’m not a huge fan of fundamentalism in any of its forms so I should also admit that I was glad to see the shortbread Girl Scout cookies that followed Bill home today. I’ll probably even eat one with a cup of tea tomorrow.

Life is complicated. Our needs and our choices are complicated. And, if you’ve been hanging out a while, you’ve heard me claim one of the more amazing things I’ve learned in my journey.

Language creates reality.

One of the things that means is that labels aren’t always all that helpful when they define us by what we aren’t rather than helping shape what we hope to be.

At the same time, it is part of being human to name things and our world is running over with names for who eats what.

We have lots of those in our family! I’ve had a bunch in my day.

Recently, I’ve chosen a new one.

Judging from the way the paint brushes are twitching and my inner critic is grumbling, I suspect there’s a workshop hatching somewhere deep inside. I’ll keep you posted.

Here’s where all the really important stuff starts for me…

What are you trying to accomplish?

I’d love to hear your answers! Just scroll down a bit and leave me a message.

Art Journey Contemplations Grandmothers

A Gift for Dave’s Birthday

Posted on January 24, 2019by sue boardman

Tomorrow, my son, Dave, is turning 39 years old. This is information I have a bit of trouble processing, but true nonetheless.

We had a rough beginning, he and I. A scary, dangerous birth and some longer range challenges, mostly for Dave. Blessedly, we’re good, now!

One thing I can say with all certainty is that he has been one of my biggest teachers — probably the biggest — in a very, very long line of wise and talented teachers. And I’m grateful!

So, in honor of Dave’s birthday, I’d like to share a special gift with you. An introduction, if you will, to a new teacher who is rocking my world almost as much as Dave did.

Her name is Shiloh Sophia and (if you keep reading) you’ll have a chance to meet her, too! Well, virtually.

Shiloh taught me that I could paint, despite a lifetime of being told I was “not the artistic kid”. She taught me to listen to myself and to work with my Muse and her alter ego, the Critic, who live inside all of us. She taught me about following my sacred work.

And, on Saturday, January 26th, you have a chance to hang out for about an hour and learn from her… for free… at an event called: Seduce the Muse & Tame Your Inner Critic: 3 Experiential Practices to Awaken Hidden Self-Expression

Have you ever wondered what the secret was to healing the voice of the inner critic?

And why what you have been doing may not be working?

Would you be interested in learning more about and experiencing the sought after flow state? It is closer than you think!

Did you know that you can begin to lower stress levels through this one method in 5-7 minutes?

If the inquiries above interest you, read further and I will share with you a special invitation from someone I know, love, work with, and admire to the moon and back:

Dear Journey-ing One,

Wouldn’t it be wonderful to transform your inner critic’s incessant nagging and shaming so that you can hear your own true voice coming through? (The critic’s messaging can impact every single relationship we have, and for most of us, it does.)

You know how it goes – you aren’t good enough… or aren’t worthy… or aren’t lovable. Those are the more obvious jabs. Yet there are much deeper hidden ones that are often so difficult to even identify, because they have become a part of the fabric of who you are. To change those, you need to change the default settings in the brain, body and the heart.

There is a critic cure, and it might not be what you think. Many of us are familiar with that cruel voice within…but how familiar are you with the inner voice of love, curiosity, imagination, and even celebration? Most of us are way less familiar with that one. Turns out there is something very specific we can do to turn that voice on! Shiloh Sophia, has the insight, and you can join her to learn about it: https://shiftnetwork.isrefer.com/go/smp/a18983/

If you’re longing to let go of being so hard on yourself and craving more self-expression and soul-satisfying adventures, then I’m excited to introduce you to my friend and colleague, Shiloh Sophia, a renowned visionary artist and founder of Intentional Creativity®. In her work, she focuses with thousands around the world on freeing self-expression.

On Saturday, January 26, Shiloh will guide you to take your first steps toward freeing your inner self and experiencing more self-expression. Join us here: https://shiftnetwork.isrefer.com/go/smp/a18983/ and take action to quiet the inner critic that keeps you caged. This free video event even has a saucy title – check it out: Seduce the Muse & Tame Your Inner Critic: 3 Experiential Practices to Awaken Hidden Self-Expression.

I know Shiloh Sophia as a teacher and mentor, a sister of spirit, and a tea drinking, chocolate loving force for good in the world. My own experience with Intentional Creativity and Color of Woman has brought me to a place where I feel like I finally have the key to the door I’ve been beating my head against for 30 years… the one marked helping people make the changes they so desire. Here we are on a bridge at Santa Trinita in Florence, Italy.

Usually with Shiloh Sophia and her Muse you will be invited to tea with the great mystery and will need your pen and paper! But don’t worry, this adventure has nothing to do with talent – during the hour we will switch to a view of Shiloh Sophia’s personal studio and she will share experiential processes with you.

Save your space here for this free video event: https://shiftnetwork.isrefer.com/go/smp/a18983/

Shiloh Sophia lives life as a great adventure, and communicates her philosophy of life through her paintings, poetry and teachings. Her proven methods for “creating with mindfulness” have reached tens of thousands of students, helping them gain the insights needed to unlock the hidden self, heal their stories and move energy that has long been stagnant.

During these insightful 60 minutes with Shiloh Sophia, which includes the mini-workshop and an interview, you’ll discover:

How the inner critic has been with you since childhood and why most of your attempts to break free don’t work
A powerful tool you can use to seduce your critic into being your ally
Where the Muse hides — and how to invite her out… it isn’t what you think
How to listen to the Muse and hear what she’s been wanting to tell you
Experiential practices to awaken your self-expression in a 20-minute mini-workshop
How unleashing your creativity can help you rewire your brain

Don’t miss this opportunity to discover how liberating your creative self can be the missing piece that propels you to take the next step in any area of your life.

It’s FREE to attend — simply register here: https://shiftnetwork.isrefer.com/go/smp/a18983/

Join us for Seduce the Muse & Tame Your Inner Critic: 3 Experiential Practices to Awaken Hidden Self-Expression, and welcome the adventurous Muse into your life to awaken your self-expression!

A downloadable recording will be provided later to all who register, whether or not you listen to the scheduled event.

Here’s a little quote from Shiloh Sophia and one of her paintings, which, if you are familiar with her, you may recognize.

One day you will go to look for something
you did not know was lost
There will be an urgency to the intangibility,
a restlessness will stir your sleep

When you are finally ready to listen
to what isn’t being spoken
you begin to hear it and feel the pulse
A call is heard from the deepest chambers

You will spend the rest of your days
Learning to discern this call
from all the others in your mind and life
This is the call from soul

At times you may wonder
why it took you so long
You may feel regret, disappointment
or even desperation

At other times you may feel in love
The romance you have been waiting for
is within reach,
irony dissolves into enchantment

The sacred relationship
where you are seen and heard,
yes, the one you imagined you deserved,
and doubted you could ever find, is here

You are invited to a dance of seeming paradox
A space and place between the worlds where
the critic and the muse are holding a party and
you are invited, they have called your name

Will you answer?

I’ll be there on Saturday and I hope you will, too. Just in case you can’t, there will be a free replay, as well as an opportunity to work with Shiloh in an upcoming course.

https://shiftnetwork.isrefer.com/go/smp/a18983/

Dave did a great job on his Super Power Self-Portrait. One of his super powers, which may not have made the painting, is making fabulous food. I think he’s getting the ad hoc at home cookbook for his birthday. Thomas Keller is awesome. And, when it comes, literally, to the future of our world, Shiloh is awesome, too.

Blessings from a grateful Mama, still learning!

Sue