The Temple Door, Drozda, Mixed Media on board, 1998, Private Collection
we see through
each other’s eyes
experience together
I see what you saw
a gecko a sailboat a sunset
a moth a flower a tree
a child in his mother’s arms
projected
perceived
Jasper Lotus Hawkins
Welcome to the first week of our October art/life trail ride. The turn on the path is evident. As we look around we notice that we are entering ‘another world’. The landscape is shifting and changing even as we make our way along the narrowed opening leading us through the West Gate and into the naturally quieting time of the year. All around transition is underway. We are moving down and in…think canyon.
We are entering a passage and with that the opportunity to pull inward and breathe deeply the aroma of lichen and moss, falling leaves crunching under foot as our faithful steed nods and snorts …signaling change up ahead. There is a raining down of sun soaked leaves and the canopy spreads wide to reveal a floating world. Sit up and look around. Notice the transformation.
In the first week of each moon/month walk I like to share a teaching method from some of my favorite workshops and studios. This past weekend a group of us gathered for a Fall Equinox Celebration Retreat.
Fall Retreat Find, Lynne Moffit, 2015
We came together to welcome in the shift in energy that fall naturally brings. We were fortunate to experience a number of techniques that helped us tap into balance.
While on your art/life trail ride it’s wise to keep tools at the ready that support a return to balance ‘just as you need them’. In that spirit I include several of the powerfully simple techniques brought to us by Linda Reddington, Energy Healer.
ENERGY MEDICINE TIPS
DAILY ENERGY ROUTINE
4 Thumps: Tap firmly 7-10 times…Cheeks, Collar bone spot, Tarzan-chest, Sides of body: 2″ below underarm.
Zip Up: from pubic bone to your lower lip (Protect your energy field)
Connecting Heaven and Earth: Flat palms, one up one down while you stretch the “up” arm toward heaven as you hold a breath, hands to prayer position as you switch sides, do 2, then bend at waist and stay there for 2 breaths, do figure 8’s as you return to prayer position.
Celtic Weave: palms facing in front of you about 6 inches apart, then brush hands to release energy, palms on either side of your head, then bring elbows in and start figure 8’s as you stir up your energies from head to toe. Roll energy up your body and scoop it into your heart.
Heaven Rushing In: Prayer position and then open your arms wide, palms up as you give gratitude and accept all the wisdom and love the universe offers. Scoop it into your heart or any spot that needs an energy boost of love.
Explore more on the beautiful balancing that can come with Tapping:
In Love with Possibility
Don’t you Love that many of us have been quietly preparing the way for the Experience of the inward turn? It makes so much sense and it comes so effortlessly. There is support for the way that the path now spirals in and down.
Here are additional resources to support us in finding our still point:
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The Thirteen Original Clan Mothers by Jamie Sams
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The World Enough and Time by Christian McEwen
FINDING YOUR NORTH STAR
This week on the trail ride we look up to locate the North Star. When traveling into a new territory we are smart to have a way to track our journey. For our inward turn on the art/life trail we’ll visualize the North Star being inside. It’s the part of us that holds the vision, passion and drive to be on the trail in the first place.
The Center must be known and held.
Stitched Circle, Carol Chewning, Solar dyed fabric, 2013
There’s no point in following any path, no matter how closely it resonates to your true calling, unless and until you actively engage with the deepest widest relationship with your sweet ‘never-to-be-repeated-self’.
October each year prepares you for what is coming to meet you in the year ahead.
Be conscious of the areas of your art/life where you are interested in pushing your roots deeper. We’ll be applying focus over the coming six moon/months and come spring equinox you’ll be ready to take wing, like an eagle, and soar above the battlefields.
The deep feminine nature…that we will track as the trail ride carries us into the moon/months ahead…has a fierce desire to soothe and nurture. The deep feminine instinctively taps you into the best of what ‘tough love’ represents…the ability to carry on and stay the course.
Ask yourself:
How does being fierce influence my own self-care?
Am I able to say yes when I mean to say yes and no when I mean to say no?
Am I willing to break apart the addictive distractions that keep me away from my healthiest roots?
Tension comes to meet me to support my commitment to staying on my path. Muscles tense to keep me in the saddle…like that…so natural.
What is your take-away for this week on the art/life trail ride? Leave a comment here or on Facebook, make journal notes throughout this month so you can come back and refresh the path come spring… and be open to the winding of the path down, down, down into the canyon ahead…we’re finding roots…our true nature.
Just wanted to share a way I found to “slow down” especially when things are really hectic and my mind is full of so much this n that. My kitchen sink sits beneath an East window. I usually rush through the dishes just trying to get them done and out of the way. But I discovered this could be a perfect slowing down time. How I accomplish this is by popping in my Tara Mantra CD into this little gizmo I almost purged… taking a moment to gaze through the window, observing and giving thanks as I run the water and proceed in a really mindful way to listen and chant and observe and clean up what’s in the kitchen sink (and in my monkey mind)
Starting my recovery from shoulder surgery is the perfect time to go inward and remember that is spring i will be in a different place. i particularly want to take advantage of this week to consider where i need to focus energy and think about what blooms are to come. thank you as always for your thoughtful. beautiful words.
~Happy healing Meg~ Surgery is a real call for time-out. I look forward to hearing about the discoveries that you make on your ‘slow the flow’ portion of your trail ride as your body comes back into alignment.
A terrific creative encounter for all of us is to imagine that we are standing at the West Gate…looking across the Center of the circle (Carol’s fabric piece in this week’s post can be used for this visual). Hold the image of what idea seeds you will be planting, come the spring.
Next sense into what would want to block you, stop you, hold you in place. At the West Gate we meet the reflection of our shadow, the trickster. We can then face those parts that attempt to keep us small and begin to ‘clear space’ for spring planting. The garden analogy is perfect…we clear the beds before we plant the seeds…fall and the West Gate and its pathway give us the inward turn of 90 days to experience, introspect and notice the spaces where debris has accumulated. No rush. No pressure…we have the six moon months ahead to ride this trail in and down. happy trails…and ease to your healing.
LOVED this blog today, Donna!…..especially the way you fully engaged our senses in seeing, smelling the arrival of Autumn and a brand new season! I could almost smell the damp, rich earth and the leaves…it made me want to jump up from my desk and bolt outside to just get close to nature! Just a couple more comments: I love your painting of the Temple Door!…..something beckoning, magical about it. And I want to ask just how that figure 8 you mentioned is done? Thank you for another precious sharing and a great gift!
Ah Thanks Marianne…I really enjoyed the sensations that came along in the unfolding of this post too…I appreciate you picking up on the nature of the trail 😉
…and I’m so enjoying the whole ‘art/life trail ride’ frame that is accompanying each post. I never would have actually thought of that container…it simply arrived in the original ‘getting back in the saddle’ of blogging. I’m so happy that we’re riding the art/life trail together.
Carol Chewning’s “Stitched Circle” 2013 is stunning. Such pure color and intent. thanks
I too was struck by the beauty and sacred mystery of Carol’s, “Stitched Circle” 2013 and would love to sit with it in person.
Part of my purging (from last post) includes evicting all that is leaden. In my art/life this includes ways of working that are keeping me stuck and allowing for the new to come in or re-turn. Carol’s work reminds me that one of my reasons for making space was to get my sewing machine back out again. Not to revisit the same way I previously created with fabrics. But instead to get back to my feminine roots and a way of working that brought such innate joyfulness.
Iona, your text that resonated the most for me…”The center must be known and held.” “There’s no point in following any path, no matter how closely it resonates to your true calling, unless and until you actively engage with the deepest widest relationship with your sweet ‘never-to-be-repeated-self’. Today, I stood at my daughters kitchen door, looking out, contemplating this October journey to my center through the west gate. I revisited the word, “RESENT” that I drew during our Fall Equinox Celebration Retreat. I must admit, when I first drew this tome I dismissed it thinking, well surely that’s not me (haha, yea right.)
RESENT settled in and nagged and nudged and I knew this was no coincidence. I slowed down today and listened to what RESENT was telling me about my-sweet-self. Amazing what happens when we seek guidance, staying open to the messages we from the least expected of places. I haven’t totally processed all this RESENT message holds, but I am “active”ly engaged in the process particularly in light of recent Native American experiences.
One of which continued to pull me down and I did not want to take this into the west gate. It happened, I could not take it back. It ended well but was still a thorn in my heart. I need a release and found it through self forgiveness. This was not easy as I had no experience with self forgiveness. This September I practiced with intention the Hawaiian chant, Ho’Oponopono as a way to make things right with any number of sentient relations…another purging of that which was holding me back before I turned into the west gate. Again…I experienced healing. so why not my relationship with myself? It’s a simple prayer/chant/mantra that I sang along with the CD over and over until the intention was blessed… I’m Sorry, I love you, Please forgive me, I thank you.
Thank you Iona, and forgive me if I say too much.
PS. thank you also for sharing, “Fall Retreat Find,” Lynne Moffit, 2015
Hi Cindy
Odd isn’t it the way that one word can create such an opening into a place that we may or may not be eager to explore. As I read your comment and the refrain of the word ‘resent’ all that popped off of the screen for me is the idea of RE-SENT.
Here’s a quick creative exercise that came up for me as I read your share that could have long effect:
I can take charge of what is or was or even what will be and if it falls short of what I feel is my due rather than resent the situation, relation, challenge, etc. I can take the time to revision the situation and then do an energetic re-send.
I might say… ‘I have now corrected my role and I have re-sent my energy out in a different way/a healing way.’
You seem to be saying this very thing in your post…”through self forgiveness”.
Isn’t it so very helpful to support one another in remembering the wonder of lightening up with ourselves and one another…not carrying forward what we might pause, revision and then declare:
‘I have now changed the pattern and re-sent a joyful message rather than what I had carried before.’
Word play/language/how we speak to ourselves is such a creative space to visit!
I agree Ellis…I’m so glad that Carol’s solar dyed fabric ‘Natural Wheel’ piece popped into my mind as I was writing this week’s post…the vibrancy of the color knocks my socks off 😉