Welcome to the art/life trail ride.  This week we’re taking a deep breather and enjoying the surrounding view. Savor the company of your favorite trees while reflecting upon the current design and the detail of the art/life that you’re living.

 

As we travel the wheel of the Natural Year there is a great divide. It’s not really there…yet we place a symbolic gap at the entrance to fall and again at the beginning of spring. We mark the place where shift happens. These are two of the four yearly points when ‘something wonderful emerges’ and lifts us above the urge to settle into the paralyzing ‘that’s just the way things are’ mode.

‘Moon Flower’, Drozda, Acrylic on wood, 18 x 24″ 2001 Private Collection

This is the month that naturally brings us to a point of introspection. Introspection can happen in many ways. This week let’s look at an introspective lost art: pondering.

Pondering may appear as doing nothing. We may look deep in thought and at the same time simply be gazing off into the distance. We might seem to be a million miles away while staring at a leaf drifting slowly to earth. When we practice the art of pondering we’re actually engaged in a form of deliberate release of tension and as a result the creative juices flow in a new way, unencumbered by what we think we should be doing, aligned with the joy of being okay with simply Being.

The two primary turning points of spring and fall equinox open us to creative streams of energy. When we anticipate and then employ these two energy streams they act as creative tools; they become like a brush to a canvas and the result is enlivening and tangible.

So what are you up to?

‘Blind’ detail, Drozda, mixed media on canvas, 72 x 54″, 2012

Are you pondering a change in creative direction? Are you pondering overwhelm? One lifts the other depresses. The keyword for the month of November is Introspection. There’s more to introspection than meets the eye.

Ponder is a near perfect word for this point on the trail ride

Play around with this dynamic trio: pondering, piddling and putzing.

Set a spell. Simply ponder, contemplate, deliberate and muse. The Muse is our potent companion to pondering. While we ponder our inner systems begin to calm and slow. We move to piddling and breathing becomes softer and at the same time deeper. Soft and deep is a lovely way to imagine putzing as we move through this week, this month and through the remainder of the fall segment of the Natural Calendar. Yes… life goes on at its fast pace swirling all around us yet we’re electing to step aside a bit and ponder, piddle and putz…5 minutes here and 20 minutes there can change our entire relationship with this point in the year.

The Natural Calendar is a wheel divided into four primary seasonal segments.

The Four Seasons, Drozda, oil pastel, 24 x 24″, 2012

It’s a friendly tool for navigating not only the seasons ‘out there’ but also the seasons ‘in here’.

The art/life can be filled with rocky terrain and sheer drops. Traversing the creative landscape requires a dedication of heart and soul.

Stamina of epic proportion!

Being your own super-hero!

The ability to slog through swamps of sadness!  

Confusion may reign!

Gifts and talents unrecognized / undervalued!

 Self-doubt!

Anxiousness!

Dreaded overwhelm!

Daunting episodes of ‘How is this going to work?’

‘In You Go’, Drozda, Acrylic/wood, 12 x 14″, 2001 Private Collection

No Quick Fix

Truth be told, when we ponder and piddle and putz we sometimes discover that we prefer to remain stuck in the tried and re-tried. Breakthroughs requires guts, grit, gumption and persistence. Maybe we need to face the ‘I don’t have time, money, energy’ demon…OR we may decide, as a result of the 3 P’s, that we would prefer to explore the uncharted terrain ahead. It’s a rocky road and there’s no real map yet the art/life calls us to go deeper now.

In this current 12 week fall quadrant (September 23 – December 21) the overarching concept is:

ENGAGE LIFE

Life is larger than you and larger than me and Life is a perfect size for WE

As introspective a time as this is there is a power in gathering together and collaborating; feeling ideas and creative instinct sizzle in the air nourishes us and feeds the soul.

As you take time this week to gently step away from your constant movement and activity note the subtle shift. Piddle a bit. Piddling is fun. It’s rearranging the studio drawers, organizing the paint brushes and sharpening the pencils. Piddling is following a random path and kicking up the leaves, sitting on a picnic table and making a spiral design out of acorns, walking in the garden and collecting flower seeds for next spring.

Piddling sets the mind loose to, well, piddle some more. It’s taking a little time and being unconcerned about outcomes. For a time we forget time and the getting something done or going anywhere specific…piddling is a meander into non attachment. It feels so good.

Putzing…usually spelled futzing…no matter how you spell it this is also a great descriptor for the shift in focus that softens the gaze and also the belly. “Soft, soft, soft like a baby soft” is the way my Tai Chi teacher would describe the ability to lean into the body, practicing postures that release tension.

Simply be soft. Putzing is a great word for pushing out the orenda and expanding the space for the element of air to enter. When we putz we create expansion, we’re playing around, diddling, it might look like we’re doing something yet on closer inspection (not that we would inspect while putzing) we see that there is method in our diddling madness…we’re making room for that ‘something wonderful is emerging’ aspect of turning within, becoming creatively recharged.

Pondering, piddling and putzing make way for big ideas and cavernous concepts. The larger more far reaching ideas find their way in because we’ve broken the cycle of constantly doing and left room for new impressions to enter.  New perceptions open the door and who comes in …the Muse.

Envision the Muse. She waits.

Here, on our group trail ride, we can support one another and point out the rough spots, we can rest/ponder, piddle and putz when it’s time and then gather round the camp fire sharing stories.

Ponder 

‘Heartwork’, Drozda, mixed media, 24 x 18″ 2012

 

I am a working Heartist with more than thirty years of practice in supporting the creative best in each of us to come forth and shine. Join the movement: make joy the vocation of your mind.

 

Connect with the uplift of ‘Luna See’ and Lifecycle; time management tools for aligning with natural creative rhythms. Discover and uncover the ecstatic thrill of ‘making life the master peace’.

Let’s travel together into realms of calm and renewed heart-centered emphasis.

Through our shared journey with our monthly newsletter  ‘Luna See’ and the creative consult service ‘Lifecycle’ you will discover and expand your ability to experience, express, create and contribute your deepest and wisest most authentic gifts to this unspeakably beautiful world.