rescue remedy cream rocks!!! i was going to get something out of the cupboard yesterday, the cats started meowing for more food right after i opened the cabinet. can you guess what happened? yeah. i stood up after bending down to give the plump winter cats a little more to eat, and hit my forehead hard. i went straight to find the arnica, which i couldn't, and instead i found rescue remedy cream. i don't remember why i have this, but i'm glad i do. it helped INSTANTLY! the throbbing pain vanished. and the bruise is tiny and not visible. if you had felt how hard i hit, you' be as amazed as me! get some! everyone needs this. i took some rescue remedy essence internally also, just cuz i thought why not, if the cream is helping so much. i can see myself creating my own flower essence line some day! after
our trip to crested butte this summer, where i freaked over all the flowers in august, and picked some to make myself a flower essence i was really feeling drawn to, i have wondered about this idea. local flowers have to be more effective in healing? no, maybe not, but they have to be
as powerful, for sure! i have a set from hawaii a friend gave me, that i am now feeling drawn to pulling out and playing around with. and this is why i love to write. i never know where i will go when i sit down to put words on the computer screen. one thing certainly leads to another, like in a phone call! now i get what you were saying, antoinette. i've heard novelists say that they were often surprised at where their story went, and i have not really understood it personally. but now, i feel like i do, in a very basic kind of way. i want to try writing a novel, and see where that would end up. NOT. that sounds scary. no, it actually doesn't sound scary, but i know it would get intense at times. but all my favorite novels are very intense. how do the writers separate themselves from their project? how do they walk away from it to go be with their family and not bring the whole drama with them? that must be tricky. i would like to know a great novelist intimately. feel their process a bit. that sounds so interesting. i do feel like i've heard they can be frustrating to live with, as a partner. any artist is going to be somewhat frustrating to live with, though, i feel. and i can vouch for that. i live with a mad artist. and i kind-of am one too. and you know what makes the artist craziest, in my experience? it's when they aren't creating. there's this business of living and making money and keeping your world organized that can really dip into your creative time, if you're not doing your creative work all day long. oh, it's tricky to fit it all in. but i know it's possible. and i know discipline is key. right? no? for me, i mean the discipline required to just get yourself started. wherever i am, whatever phase of a project i am in, getting started on it each day is seriously a strangely difficult task. i do feel like it has something to do with my tendency toward depression, and anyone who hasn't gotten to traverse this landscape may not have a clue to what i'm talking about. there's something that happens within, it's almost like a strong magnetic force, that i would maybe call a self~sabotaging pull, that i have to overcome, and rise above before i can begin to do my art. almost every time. i have often felt like i have to find the phoenix within before i can start. st st st st st.... art. see. before you get to art, theirs a bit of a... st. a stutter. a stumble. a stop. and then, if i am graceful enough to find the phoenix girl, ART. geez. it's such a trip, my trip. it's hard work. that's my point. i can't just joyfully sit down to sew or paint or write even. there's always that thresh~hold that must be crossed. it feels crazy to me. but i know no other way. i would like to know the easier way. maybe some day. here's a mild example..... this wall below has forever felt to me like a blank canvas. the kids' art table has been up against it, and over the years, splatters of paint have found their way to the wall. and i love them. i've felt like turning the wall into one big painting many many times. and i trust in timing too, and trust that when the phoenix doesn't come in to release an idea into existence, it's obviously not time. well, the past few days of us all being home, a little sick, and the time came. i pushed the table away, felt us rising from the ashes together, mmmm, it's so much easier when your'e doing it together!! we began the masterpiece, that i hope will never be finished, with watercolors. they are subtle, and eased us into the transformation of this wall. i am feeling like stronger colors will be needed soon. it's not super satisfying to paint with water colors on plaster. but it was satisfying for sure, nonetheless. no one was complaining!! we made it work. i am hoping this wall will become a gathering place for us to come to, to get into that creative space together, whenever the urge strikes. and it will be an unfolding of art and inner worlds, over time. and it will probably become more and more detailed, like paintings usually do after a while. and because it's a collaboration, i won't judge it like i do my solo work. i won't burn it, or cut it up, or paint over it, like i've done so many times to my own stuff. this isn't just stuff though. maybe the reason i did that before was because it was stuff i was getting out, and then of course, i didn't want to stare at a big pile of crap forever. it needed to move on and out. not into a frame. this wall is more about the space i am finding with my babes as we sit on the floor to create a mural. a living mural! fun. magic. focus. free. invited. loved. appreciated. worked with. these are words that are coming to mind as i recall the energy we've tapped into the few times we've painted on the wall so far. now i am researching paints for kids...that would work well on our magical wall of united love! ha!!! i am really dreaming big here. someone's gotta. and i'm not the only one...hehe.
we work it out. we work it out. we work it out. with patience usually. i have been noticing lately how much work i have to do in cultivating my own patience. i have been realizing that i am seriously growing up right along beside my kids. i don't know how they ended up with a mama who had so much growing up to do, but i am so grateful to get to do it with them. and so grateful for their resiliency, and their forgiveness for the times when i falter, and behave like a child and not a mama. thank god for their abilities to do those things.
next time i'm going to dip the kitten's paws in paint!!
and then this boy read comics out loud, to himself, while we went on painting. he's our storyteller, first and foremost. he has made that pretty clear so far.
a little more inside me about the phoenix... when it's a solo venture, what does it look like to rise up? i want to dig in here for myself, and see if i can maybe make it easier on myself by exploring the paths i usually take to find my creativity. it starts with blackness. i know that. it just feels black. and i am realizing right now(!!!) that the way through the black is with some kind of hope. i am hoping to find art. i hope my way into picking up my brush or my fabric, or my computer, or my onion, the guitar, seeds, a conversation, a dancing moment (well sometimes the music will just grab hold of you all on its own), my babes, or my sweet self, and i hope my way into that first step. and then the next one. and sometimes ten breaths into it, i have found the rhythm i was hoping for, but sometimes, it's more like an hour in (like when the sewing machine is being a bitch and doesn't like my choice of metallic thread). hoping. that's seriously maybe all that's involved here. hmmmmmmmmm. and how appropriate, that olive spotted the peace pipe yesterday, that was hung up on the book shelf. it must have been calling out, and she heard it. hoping, praying....sending it out. breathing my way to art.
one more thing, and then the battery needs charging. my sister and i went to costco recently with our girls. i forgot that you have to have a business check to use our business account for the bakery. we had piled our cart full of food and laundry soap, and these boxes of gel pens that zhi and claire were so excited about. so i only had cash that costco would accept, and i only had enough to get half of what we had put in the cart. i kept those pens. no way were they going back. art supplies are first priority. art is food, my friend said to me in a text yesterday. IT IS. IT IS. IT IS. i forget this and i get depressed. now i know from this little exploration, that i begin with hope. i just begin there, and breathe, and take a step. and another. and then i'm on my way.
