Aerial Hoop Metamorphosis

I'm creating a counteractive process where I redevelop my inner dialogue to reflect wisdom I have gained in my spiritual journey.

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As my body is changing during this shift in my life cycle, I am kindly moving myself in space in ways that no one expects, including me.  This is the outward manifestation of my inner revolution.  I slowly build strength from my core at a pace that suits me.  No one else decides.  I surround myself with support. Aerial training, including both hoop and silks, is a crucial part of this support system that I build for myself.

My husband, Danny (thank you!) took this video footage of me at my last aerial session. I grabbed a screenshot of it and began changing my inner script as I made a digital collage.  I used the healing art image that surfaced during the wallpaper process from May's full moon newsletter.  I feel into the radiant forms as I remember my body's strength and learn to appreciate it as my own.  I practice worshipping my body and feeling gratitude. 

I've read about chakras and heard them described as many-petaled lotus flowers.  I love the symbol of the lotus.  I chose the rose in place of a lotus because it is more reflective of my personal journey through Christianity towards Spirituality informed by many different religious and philosophical perspectives. I connect the rose imagery to the area of the second chakra on my body to symbolize the re-evaluation of what I was taught about my female anatomy throughout my childhood and young adulthood.   

Sensuality is a human right.  I challenge my upbringing when I apply the rose spiral to my body in this digital collage.  The powers that be may demonstrate that they own rights to my body through political policy.  But they do not own the story that I feed myself about my inherent human rights.  

When I create this new image and this newer narrative, I focus on certain moments in time--the ones where I realize how strong I am.  For the past few months and especially the last week or so, I have felt weak for a myriad of reasons--my overall health has suffered and I have not been in acceptance of my body's changes.  I take responsibility for learning the wrong script from what society projects about my aging female body.  I feed myself a new narrative. 

I learn through training in this empowering sport that I am strong.  I make art about it.  This is the practice.  This is the chakra healing journey.  I am grateful that I have the privilege of seeing a way forward that is about self love.  I forge my way as an educator with this more accurate narrative pulsing in my psyche.  

Wisdom in Feeling Devoured

I’ve been working on this shark painting for over a decade now. I crack it’s code at snail’s pace, and every time I think I understand what it’s teaching me, I fall off the painting wagon and spiral into another level of confusion. A halt in the painting process ensues. But I always come back. The image below is a Photoshop version of a future version of the original oil painting. I have intentions of going back into it as a part of my Samhaim ritual for 2021. As usual, my piqued interest in revisiting the painting has coincided with a request by my employer to set up three goals for myself for this academic year. And, as usual, I am diving deeper than I can express in my annual Goal Meeting. Here’s an attempt within a blog entry.

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"The ability to lie, to oneself and to others, is prominent in postconquest consciousness...People indoctrinated into the post conquest mindset are even more susceptible to deceit because they're conditioned to downplay sensory, emotional, behavioral, and intuitive input in order to focus on what someone is saying." —From The Tao of Equus by Linda Kohanov

I read this over and over again. Then, I looked up "post conquest consciousness" because I was not familiar with it as a phrase, but I am sooooo familiar with it and it's powerful effect on my stress levels and my lived experiences.

I found this wonderful article by Christian de Quincy called Consciousness and Conquest. Here are some words that really got my attention:

In its search for truth, reason operates via conquistadorial dialectic: One idea, or one person’s “truth,” is confronted and overcome by an opposite idea or someone else’s “truth.” The clash or struggle between them produces the new synthesis—perceived as a creative advance in knowledge.

By contrast, liminal or preconquest consciousness, in striving for what feels right for the collective, seeks to accommodate differences. When confronted by reason, it naturally wants to please the other, and so invariably yields. Reason strives to conquer, feeling strives to please, and the result: obliteration or suppression of liminal consciousness by reason.

Even more disturbing to me was the realization that none of this implies malicious intent on the part of reason. Simply encountering an epistemology of feeling, reason will automatically overshadow it—even if its intent is honorable.

As I looked back on my own career, I found plenty of confirming instances. In my work, I have had many occasions to engage people interested in consciousness from perspectives other than philosophy or science—mysticism, shamanism, aesthetics, for example. More often than not—even if I was trying to be considerate of their different ways of knowing—these people left the encounter feeling abused or squashed by having to match accounts of their experiences against the rigorous logic of rational analysis. When a search for truth pits dialectic reason against dialogic experience the feeling component of the other’s knowledge can rarely withstand the encounter. Feeling feels invalidated. Wisdom is blocked by “truth.”

I read that and every panic attack and traumatic experience I've ever had became understood in a new way. My whole way of being is rooted in the pre conquest consciousness and is therefore, subject to being prey both in my patterned behavior as well as in our societal conditioning (which ultimately wrote my operating manual and which I am tearing out pages and currently rewriting.)

The wisdom that I sense is available to me in every moment, is also the devoured. No wonder I have spent so much time feeling the jaws clamp down on me...and then being told that I'm the crazy one. My superpower is in being prey. My peaceful rose is inside the jaws of the shark. Being prey and not judging it or slipping into shadow victim patterns can be (if I surrender and let it) my source of wisdom. It is what this shark painting is leading me to uncover....

Leaning into the mouth of a shark and finding a sensual rose as my Soul’s sensation is akin to choosing the belonging to myself and the wisdom I contain as truth over the pre-scripted belief that I am rotten to the core or on the wrong track. I just have to be willing to sit with the Shadow Self and practice that over and over until my wholeness is accepted. By Me. It is the opposite of seeking external validation.

So my intention is to practice wholeness by sitting with what I am always trying to flee—the projections of others, my deep-rooted belief that I am unworthy, that I am eternally wrong, that I don’t belong. It’s following the wisdom that Toko-pa Turner sets forth in her book, Belonging: Remembering Ourselves Home. She says,

“There’s a big difference between staying positive and being generative. The first disregards hard truths, the second is the fruit of having composted them.” —Toko-pa Turner

This Shark Painting is my artifact—the one I produce during my composting. It’s the hardest truth.

Remembering Jack Beal and Sondra Freckelton

Edy with Jack Beal’s painting, Sondra and Table, No. 1 at The Johnson Collection in Spartanburg, SC.

Edy with Jack Beal’s painting, Sondra and Table, No. 1 at The Johnson Collection in Spartanburg, SC.

Recently, I had the opportunity to visit my hometown of Spartanburg, SC. I was strolling through one of the downtown buildings that houses part of the expansive Johnson Collection and, to my surprise, I was greeted by my beloved professors, Jack and Sondra. September 5, 2013 must have marked the day of Jack’s passing, because I received a FB notification of a tribute I wrote and would love to share here on this day as I celebrate both of them:

Starting in 1994, I took figure drawing from Jack and watercolor from Sondra at Hollins College (now Hollins University) where they were often visiting artists. They also co-led many workshops and gallery talks about color and composition throughout their residencies at Hollins.

I remember how they drove to campus in a slightly battered red van with a bumper sticker that read, “Practice Random Acts of Kindness and Senseless Beauty.” I was 19 years old at the time and had never seen that sticker before. I wasn’t yet familiar with the concept of having intrinsic morality or with the notion of being kind simply because it adds beauty to the world and enriches our experience. It was not long after I met them that Jack professed they were not members of any denomination—that he and Sondra were humanists. The more he talked, the more he made sense to me. As we got to know each other, I realized that their kindness was authentic and that he and Sondra practiced what they preached.

Jack strove to make the world around him more beautiful, both with his art and with his actions. His big personality swirled around and cradled his students. He lent us his confidence while leading us down pathways into paintings, navigated us through Old Master works while shedding light on the techniques they employed. He cared deeply about creating, recognizing, and replicating beauty. Jack was always completely transparent about the means and methods available to becoming a better artist and, inevitably, a better person.

Ironically, some of the best advice Jack gave me was to “lie, cheat, and steal!” He would explain later that an artist needs to “lie” by creating a believable illusion with his or her art, “cheat” by copying what the old masters did, and “steal” by using other artists’ successful ideas. I also learned the word, “gangbusters” from Jack. From what I can infer about the definition of “gangbusters,” it’s a great word to describe him and his teaching style.

Most importantly, Jack cared for people by sharing himself; his stories, his experiences, his beliefs, his opinions, and his enthusiasm for life. He fashioned his life like his paintings—rich with color and dynamic compositions. For me, it was life changing to have a teacher that was so open and available. He and Sondra invited me to their home and shared the beauty of their farm with me. He identified with my love of horses, cats, and dogs, sharing stories about his animals. He would often find photographs or paintings of horses and share them with me. I have a collection of pictures that Jack sent me of Scoo2er, his Airedale terrier, supposedly saying, “Hi” to my horse, Reggae (as Jack wrote in his card.) He mailed me letters, kept up with me via email and later, Facebook. Jack made me feel worthy. It’s that self-worth that led me to pursue a career in painting and teaching. Because of Jack’s encouragement and guidance, I have the confidence to help others and keep his spirit alive.

Sondra passed about 6 years later in 2019. On this fall day, I have been making process videos and all the while replaying her teachings in my mind as I work with color transparencies, layers, and still life compositions. I am so grateful for their presence in my life.

The Jewels Are Arriving

Yesterday, a package of plastic jewels arrived in the mail—it wasn’t a surprise, I ordered them after my daughter and I played with some at our lovely neighbor’s house in her pool. I may have to order at least 10 more packages because they bring us so much joy. And the phrase that comes to mind as I look at them in this jar is,

“I’m sorry, please forgive me, thank you, I love you”…repeat times infinity.

I am whispering these words again and again on completion of my last breathwork practice. They are the words from the Ho’oponopono practice, another life-changing practice that I’m stitching into the tapestry of the “Chakra Healing Journey.” The inward journey I am charting is a DIY self awareness course that I’m developing just for me—that’s the beauty of it—it is very human specific. I’m rarely posting about it because, well, FEAR. Funny thing is, it just so happens, the very thing that blocks my voice is also the path of navigation and the key to growth. This particular exploration of both the subconscious and overt fears that dictate my course of action is the main highway of my particular “Chakra Healing Journey.”

I often circulate through Ho’oponopono because I’m finding that all the fears stem from a deep thread of unworthiness that is woven through the cells of my being. In particular, there is a wound of betrayal that (maybe originates with the Bible’s version of the story of Eve?) I have been telling myself that I cannot seem to shake. Though, I’m starting to acknowledge that the all the different practices; from breathwork to fear hunting to Ho’oponopono, are beginning to quake my system enough to unravel that thread—to begin to repair the cells. Yes, that’s right, the Jewels are arriving—both literally and metaphorically, as usual.

The Jewels are Arriving—please forgive my dirty artist’s thumbnail. lol

The Jewels are Arriving—please forgive my dirty artist’s thumbnail. lol

Soul Connections: Divine Communion

Edy and Reggae

I learn from my teacher, who is my horsewoman soul applying gentle pressure on my inner equine. She gets my attention with her subtle pushes, which start gently and increase slightly until we are quite uncomfortable. The horse inside tries many approaches to get the horsewoman to cease her incessant tapping, but none of the choices made are slowing into presence or easing into breath. Instead, I pace this way and that, snort, stomp, and chomp--I resist simple solutions and gravitate toward the complexities of irritation. So, the pressure continues.


Occasionally, my inner horse remembers. She slows down and glides inside, takes a deep breath, and feels it light up her lungs. We've finally reached the moment when inner horse responds the way her horsewoman intends. The pressure is released as a means of communicating that the lesson has been learned. Gratitude abound for that moment--we are saved!


I give my horse a soft pet on the base of the neck—right above the shoulder--that loving spot of maternal connection where the mama horse nuzzles her foal. I hear encouragement within--a softly spoken “good girl.” I see the liquid blink of acknowledgement in the reflection of her side eye and we stand still, absorbing the warmth of sun permeating Earth.


I am learning from myself like a horse learns from her kind and patient trainer. When I experience gratitude for the moments of released pressure—let’s say I breathe in completely and can feel my lungs' expansion—I enjoy the sensations and I simultaneously experience the gratitude for the release and the release itself. I viscerally feel depression lifting and it becomes the visualization of a lens flare spreading like the sun. That flare is entering my body as nourishment--it is the warm center of a radiant mandala.

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That flare is entering my body as nourishment--it is the warm center of a radiant mandala.

Image: Palm Springs Transmutation, 2019


I bask in the beauty of grace and gratitude. I become like a river who flows into her becoming--connection and communion are one. I am patient with mySelf to reach the depths of me. We begin again.


Trusting mySelf

“ATTENTION: THIS UNIT IS SELF-TIMED AND WILL SHUT DOWN AUTOMATICALLY AT THE END OF ITS CYCLE. IT WILL RESET ITSELF.”
— West Valley YMCA Notice on the SuitMate Machine
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During my swim yesterday, I was very focused on the concept of radical self-responsibility. And how to lean into and feel that in my body and what that looks like. And the word, TRUST in all caps keeps coming to the surface. Especially when I read the PSA on the SuitMate machine that extracts water from my bathing suit after each swim! How wise of the SuitMate to remind me!

I am the automatic unit that is self-timed and will shut down automatically at the end of my cycle. I have the ability to reset myself! We all have this ability—That’s just who we all are as human beings with bodies, minds, and souls.

Currently, through meditation, I’m learning how to lean into and feel that in my body and what that looks like.  And the word, TRUST in all caps keeps coming to the surface.  The word TRUST is part of my school’s, core values.  The values are Trust, Respect, Responsibility, Honesty, Caring, and Diversity.  We repeat these words every day in our Creed and we name them as our core values, “….because our days are priceless.”

As a school community, we repeat these core values every morning at flag.  It’s kind of rushed and mumbled through--barely audible and usually not a memorable recitation.  The rushing is part of the energy I feel pretty consistently. In my own life, I feel an ever-present pressure to rush.  There is usually a race against time that I’m feeling. And a complete distrust in life’s organic processes.

 Meditation is such a relief from this pressure and the FOMO that seems to motivate our choices.  Because of this relief sensation, I’m feeling a call to bring more meditation practices to my community, my work community specifically, as a partnership to honoring the words in our core values. 

When I feel that energy of “rush, RUSH, RUSH, GET IT DONE, GET IT DONE, MOVE ON TO THE NEXT THING, FIT IT IN, FIT IT IN!” and the chaos of transition, when I feel that, it zaps a lot of energy out of me.  I suspect I’m not alone in this. And when I truly drop into breath and go inside, access the grounding cord that meditation has to offer, I can sink into the Trust of knowing that everything happens just as it should--it’s perfect just the way it happens.  When I meditate, I’m making a choice to trust that I have everything I need inside of me.  I am the automatic unit that is self-timed and will shut down automatically at the end of my cycle. I have the ability to reset myself! We all have this ability—That’s just who we all are as human beings with bodies, minds, and souls.

Our bodies have such wisdom.  Our Ego likes to tell us what we are conditioned to believe; that it’s our mental body that has all the wisdom, discrediting our other forms of intelligence.  However, it’s our physical, energetic, and emotional bodies that have the most powerful and potent wisdom if we listen.  If I am hi-jacked by the mental body that is always pressed for time, then I am ignoring the wisdom that is inherent in my soul, which is composed of all of me--my physical, energetic, and emotional parts included. Also, I want to be clear that the mental body is totally important.  Managing time is important because it is part of our collective 3D reality.  However, when we lack the trust in ourselves and tell ourselves that we don’t have time to slow down and breathe, we suffer from anxiety and our cortisol levels are spiked.

I want to share that, when I Trust, when I completely trust in my ability to go inside and drop into a breath, I am telling my whole body:  mental, physical, emotional, energetic--I’m telling my whole being that I trust ME.  I feel such a huge shift when I can lean into that hammock of trust.  This sign this morning reminded me of that. 

It also reminds me of a quote from one of my mentors, Elisha Clark Halpin:

Every Breath Connects, Every Breath Completes

Our integrated bodies are like every breath.

Un-sewing Projections

EDYTHE: THE SPOILS OF WAR

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My name is loaded with stories I can tell myself. Any one of them can latch onto guilt, blame, and shame. There’s another choice, though—it’s one that involves dropping judgements and dropping into breath. In the past, I’ve tried to numb or distract. Now, I’m stepping into it. This is work that I do regularly with a group of women, The Radiant Temple Sisterhood, led by Elisha Clark Halpin and Megan Moore.

My stories have a consistent thread.  They all revolve around learning how to hold a dichotomy--hold two polar opposites--it’s the story of “both/and.”  

I guess the common thread is,

1.)look for the shame, blame, and guilt,

2.)follow the thread there, and

3.)start tellin’.  

So, when I first did the “Name exercise” during my SEED New Leader’s Training in 2013, that’s when I really started to investigate the meaning of my name. I always knew that I was named after my Grandmother, and that she began with the spelling Edith, but later changed it to the spelling, Edythe, which is my spelling, and is the Old English spelling. When I looked up the meaning of the name, I realized that it literally translates to “The spoils of war” and this just blew my mind. It signifies all the blame, shame, and guilt that seems to be sewn to my soul.  

The work that I’m doing now with Wildly Radiant and The Institute for Intuitive Intelligence is getting a metaphorical seam ripper--actually, sometimes it’s more like gently unraveling some tangled fabric in places, because it requires tender and tedious unraveling in some layers, for the specific threads of shame, blame, and guilt, these threads--because these threads are often bound to a Mother Wound, which is Bethany Webster’s work…You can find all the links to these references in the “seeds” page of my website.

The spoils of war are--they are basically, pirate’s booty--my name means pirates booty! My name’s meaning is the treasure that was won by means of people killing each other and then the people that did the majority of the killing took off with the loot and I am the loot. Seriously, I don’t want to feel the gnarly stuff that accompanies the belief that my soul was won by means of bloodshed, rape, and pillage--that’s a heavy story that I’m carrying about myself.  

When I look back--the truth is that I’ve been called to shed a specific thread of self-judgement. When I can do this, I don’t shed or release that just for me--that’s an ancestral baggage--releasing all the stories that are passed to me subconsciously through my ancestral lines and otherwise, that no longer serve me--(if they ever did.)

So, when I absorb the energy of projections, I’m often self-perpetuating the myth that me, as a woman, I am inherently inconsiderate. As a white person, I’m inherently inconsiderate, because of deeds of ancestors and we continue--certainly we are part of a paradigm that exists because of this story, which is--supremacy--to dominate and take (which was the story that this country was founded on)--that is heavy--and luckily, it’s meant to be that I came into the world at this time and I have the privilege of speaking of this and making choices--these choices can’t be made for the better of all if I don’t make them within myself, so it’s here that I break that thread.  

I am not stitched to being the spoils of war. Am I a treasure? Yes. I am a treasure because I have choice and because I have unlimited capabilities and because we all, through alchemizing these old stories, and turning them to gold--can make a more aware and cognizant choice toward loving, toward gratitude, and we can shed the beliefs of lack and the fear that there is not enough. It’s that fear that there is not enough that leads to inequity and war and hoarding of treasure.

Part of the visuals of my website are stitching because I feel stitching, in particular, my name--in stitching this, I’m seam ripping the part that is sewing that shame of guilt or blame to my soul, and I’m releasing that--I’m untangling that from me, and I’m letting that go--it does not serve me--and it doesn’t motivate me--what motivates me is connection, and sewing my story together so that I can be the light for others to do the same. And to show my vulnerabilities and to expose my fears by looking at them and going into them. This is the work that we all must do to sew, or sow, the SEEDS.


A Story About Motherhood

BROKEN HEARTED BIT

I am lying in my OBGYN’s chair in a claustrophobic office, (this story is being set up by my Victim Archetype--just want to identify that,) and I am awake.  I’m enduring my first D&C procedure after my first pregnancy. That pregnancy ended at 11 weeks. I didn’t find out it had ended until probably about 13 weeks when I went for my first trimester ultrasound.  The nurse performing the ultrasound detected that there were two “poles,” so she thought that there were twins.

I feel the pull of my Victim as I tell this story, and I’m listening to what she is teaching me--she calls me to share the experience in a way that honors the lives that came through to me and also to honor feminine cycles.

The cycles were never incomplete--and they are never failed.  When the full term pregnancy and live birth doesn’t happen, they are not failures, just opportunities to offer grief as praise and face the fears that help me grow as I should.

The still-life paintings in the gallery here, originally titled “Broken Hearted Bit,” and “Little App,” were both painted while I told myself the story that I was broken and that my womb space was a lemon . While I was painting “Little App,” I fed myself a tragic story that there would always be an unborn child involved in a fruitless search for a mother. I painted the foal with an outstretched neck, a nursing pose, looking for milk from an absent mother. It was all very dramatic--it had the fear of, “I’ll never ever bear a child, I will never find my mother, I will never be a mother.” Carolyn Myss identifies the Victim archetype as useful and, in this moment of telling this story, I am making use of her. It is my sincere intention in exposing these fears and walking into them, that I hold a vibrational energy that lifts that of the collective.

Myss says:

In its shadow manifestation, the Victim tells you that you are always taken advantage of and it’s never your fault. We may like to play the Victim at times because of the positive feedback we get in the form of sympathy or pity. Our goal is always to learn how to recognize these inappropriate attitudes in ourselves or others, and to act accordingly. We are not meant to be victimized in life, but to learn how to handle challenges and outrun our fears.

I agree with most of this, except for outrunning the fear. It is here and now that I enter my heart to retell the story from a place of sincere gratitude for this experience.

The true story here is that the connection to Mother has been with me all along, and whether it comes with a human baby or not, that connection is within me always. I honor the heartache and the ability to grieve, for grief offers praise for all of life.

I want to talk now about the experience that came just after the discovery of the ended pregnancy. This part of the story highlights the beauty and resilience of the human soul to exercise choice, even in the midst of what the body endures as trauma.

During the D&C following this first pregnancy (the experience that my Victim began to tell here at the start of this post,) the D&C machine broke during the procedure. Victim wants you to know that there are some pain killers administered, but honestly, the discomfort level is not something that I would ever voluntarily walk into, unless I remember that I can walk into it without the false story that initially came with the presence of the Victim…yes, I have that choice now.

Victim wants you to hear--when the machine broke, the most terrible sounds--the suction--because it’s basically a vacuum sucking out the dead fetus, and the doctor is cutting the tissue away and vacuuming it out and the sound the machine made when it malfunctioned, and they had to pause the procedure and get a new machine--

STOP. I have choice here to remember and, most importantly, to share my truth. My truth, the one in my heart, it took over. While I was waiting for the nurse and technician to bring a new machine, I entered a visualization experience where I was walking down a steep embankment to a majestic river in Northern California—in Trinity Forest. Trinity Forest is where my friend, Kat, and her family lived at the time. It is an idyllic place that was the perfect setting to imagine while my physical body was under stress. I began to channel the energy of being with Kat, holding her hand, and walking down to the river where I could breathe and be tranquil--I was able to visualize this while the machine was malfunctioning and throughout the D&C procedure. Also, in the 3D reality of that time, my dear husband held my hand and was with me. His tenderness in holding me in this moment is how I choose to envision his presence in my life.

So, the Victim shows up to expose the fears that I was on my own to endure this and that I was broken or disconnected. I am offered a choice in her presence. I can choose the truth, and the truth is,  that I stepped into my power. I held myself in that moment by holding the connection to the Divine. I stepped into the love to walk through the fear. And I was not alone.

This process makes my compassion and my empathy grow--for each person, woman or man. For each person’s perceived traumas are the beautiful experiences of growth. This is the metaphor of the pine cone that releases its seeds only when the forest is burning. We are such Divine creatures of love and light. Namaste.


Soul Connections--Journey into My Heart's Amrita

The Loner

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Originally titled, The Loner, when I painted this, I was telling myself two contradictory stories. The first one is the story of my ancestral lineage. In other words, the stories that my mother and many generations of women have felt during the course of their lives. It’s the story of grief and suffering—the story of “you are on your own—If you leave your old ways behind, you are on your own.” The other story that has always been there is one of connection, reverence, devotion, and love. The painting contains both and can be related to as both because now, it serves me as a method to heal from the perception of separation.

To unplug from it, I can go into the light of the painting that surrounds the horse--that surrounds her vision. She is not alone--she knows that by connecting to herself, she has the timeline of connection between all living things, all creatures.Inside of her. She knows even a stark and barren landscape that has just been burnt to the ground--she is not alone. She can reach out her hand to herself and choose to shine this connection. She is kind, both to herself and to others, by showing this way of healed perceptions. By actively disconnecting to the story of “alone”--as she puts down this weapon against herself (the weapon is in the story of disconnection that she whispers into her consciousness)--she is not alone. 

I release the story of loneliness. I remember the connection of riding a horse. It’s easy to remember the connection, especially in the early morning when the weather is damp with cold and both the horse and the rider can see their breath coming up--the steam rising off the body as the hoof beats increase their pace Rising up and down with the rise and fall of the hooves and connecting through the core--my shakti connected to the animal. There’s a calm, the connection-the calm of connection.

I release the story of there’s not enough for me. I release the story that the external world doesn’t provide for me. I release the story that because I’m different, I will not be provided for. I reconnect with the story of I am loved and I am connected to an internal wellspring of love and security.   In the past, I was not consciously aware of what I was doing in the moment or the stories I had been telling myself.

As a creature habitually relying on ego to define myself, it was hard to admit that I was somewhat clueless.  As I continued the daily processes of the challenge, what I noticed about my creative work flow is that integrating the transparency of process became really important to me. When I show process, I am admitting and releasing the shame around not knowing in the moment of process, in the moment by moment. I am surrendering.

I’m switching gears into more of a whole person with mind and body and energy and emotion all influencing actions in the world rather than just living from a mental body or living from reaction.  

When I look back at my trail, I understand and when I look forward, I trust in the wisdom of the Divine and the Divine within me, which is partly my intuition. I notice the path.  And the path unfolding is one of moment by moment choice and pulling in little bits of information.

I’ve been writing down when I notice this, it’s just like french braiding hair.

And I’ve been given a lot of opportunity to experience this.

How does the Heart Series relate to the Horsescapes?

Following my heart and trusting in my innate kindness involves the same thread of courage as trusting and connecting with a horse.  I believe following my intuition and when my intuition lives in the kindness of my heart, when I connect to my heart on a daily basis through heart alchemy meditations or heart coherence meditations--the horse is part of that.  When I view The Loner on my bedroom wall, I remember that following my intuition, in the past, has felt lonely. In my early 20’s, when I was first navigating the waters of intuition following, the story I told myself was that I was all alone. I had been taught that I couldn’t trust that feeling. However, I knew that I could connect to it through horse imagery. It comes from my open heart when in animal care-taking and my reverence toward the horse as an animal that has been so closely tied to human existence and expansion--human grounding--therapy--all of these aspects of the horse enhance the human heart.  Those two bodies of work are very related and belong together--they are braided together.

My daily intention is to continue my exploration of releasing the old story through the painting, “The Loner,” possibly changing the title to “The Connected,” and visually connecting my heart space to the heart space of the horse and know that she is connecting to my future self in a state of gratitude.  So, it’s a heart coherence meditation in the past that is connecting to the past heart’s intuition and bringing it into my present heart and into my future heart. My loving thought is “I am connected.” My loving feeling is gratitude. My sankulpa is “I am light.”

I am the light effervescence of bouyancy, resilience, and of gratitude.


Mindful Making: Free Drawing

How Mindfulness can enhance your freedom to create your best work

Application

Use this tip to prepare for any drawing exercise.

Example

I use this technique when writing a word I plan to embroider. By making practice examples, I gain freedom to experiment joyfully and then choose one for my project.

Suggestions

Try this when writing a card for a friend or loved one. As you write their name on the front of a gift tag or envelope, focus on their loving essence and tap into heart coherence!

Steps

Set the stage

  1. Assemble plenty of paper, drawing tools, and a music source with headphones.

  2. Headphones on, cue up your favorite meditative music. Practice slow, mindful breathing.

Start to work

  1. Begin writing your name in a script that is led by your intuition. Do what feels right, slowly and with acceptance.

  2. If tension or the sound of your inner critic arises, take a deep, nourishing breath, relax the jaw, and write an affirmation such as, “I trust my intuition to guide me at all times.”

Mindfulness guides you

  1. You will know you’ve tapped into your intuition when your hand feels led or pulled along rather than forced by the mental body.

  2. You will know when to stop when you feel at ease in completion of the task.

  3. Acknowledge your courage for opening your heart to experimentation, and for being willing to make mistakes in order to learn.

Takeaways

To remember and notice while practicing this technique

Slow down. Breathe.

Notice the breath and come back to it.

Cultivate an awareness of how I am in the moment.

Rewards

A beautiful effect of activating Theta brainwaves: I notice my softness sweetly escorts the perfectionist tendencies out of the room

To Try

Develop positive mantras to rely on and build resilience in your creative lifestyle. This one is a winner:

I am more easily in a state of openness—I am more open to being tender with myself.

Speak up!

I would love to hear the mantras you’ve discovered and found useful. Please post in the comments.

Coming in this series:

Level Up Your Listening: Beautiful beats

I’ll introduce you to accessing powerful creative energy by using some ancient techniques for boosting your brain’s peace and insight.

Practice Makes Projects: Turn your Drawing into a Stitching Guide

I’ll guide you through making your favorite name drawing into a pattern and creating your vision for the project.

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Energetic Name Stitching Practice

-Step 1: Get headphones on and cue up some binaural beats.  I found mine on Insight Timer.  Binaural beats help me achieve a more mindful state while I’m working because they activate Theta brainwaves.  

-Step 2:  practice writing your name in a script that is led by your intuition. You can do what feels right, slowly and with acceptance.  If you feel any tension creep in or any inner critic voices, take a deep, nourishing breath, relax the jaw, and write an affirmation like, “I trust my intuition to guide me at all times.”  You will know you’ve tapped into your intuition when your hand feels led or pulled along rather than forced by the mental body.   

-Step 3:  choose one or two of your hand written names that and trace over them with a dotted line.  Imagine you are sewing your name as you write it, going over your lines with stitch-like shapes.  I use rounded rectangles that travel over the line and make it become a dotted line.   It helps to have some embroidery experience to imagine this, but it’s not imperative.  

Things to remind yourself and/or notice while practicing this technique:

-slow down, breathe—In my experience of embroidering letters, I know that the curves and swells of letters requires smaller stitches, so I vary the sizes of the stitch shapes as I travel along my letter shapes.  

-cultivate an awareness of how I am in the moment—notice the breath and come back to it—

-The most beautiful thing about when the Theta brainwaves are activated is that I notice my softness sweetly escorts the perfectionist tendencies out of the room.  

-I develop positive mantras to rely on and build resilience in my creative lifestyle.  This one is a winner:

I am more easily in a state of openness—I am more open to being tender with myself.  

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“I am more easily in a state of openness—I am more open to being tender with myself. ”