Living Your Spirit #29 ~ Love...Not Just for Romance

On this day that the consumer marketing world takes hold of and promotes with all the red and pink they can find, it is good to note that love is for everyone and everything. It is a good day for speaking your love, and showing your love. It is a good day to donate to your favorite charity so that some less fortunate soul feels your love. It is a good day to pay the love you receive forward. It is a good day to give.

Oh, I like romantic love as well as the next person. I am as goofy and sappy as all those commercials you see, but love takes on so many different forms, that we would be doing ourselves an injustice if we limited the expression only to our romantic interests.

I love a good movie that makes you cry at the end. And that doesn't have to be the man/woman love story kind of movie. Have you seen Hachi? The love between a dog and his master...true story. Make sure tissues are available.

Please share your love stories.  They deserve to be told. One of mine was between my sister and I.
You can find the story here.

Free Valentine Subway Art

This generous crafter is giving away this lovely piece of her word art here. Thank you Jessica. This is lovely.
Happy Valentine's Day!

Raw Organic Almond milk

I make this myself all the time. It is a lot easier than you would think, and cheaper than buying it already prepared in the stores.

1 cup organic RAW almonds, soaked overnight in filtered water.
Rinse almonds, put in high speed blender with 3 cups filtered water
and blend thoroughly. Add 1 packet of stevia or 1 tsp vanilla if desired.
Pour mixture in cloth bag and squeeze milk into clean container (glass is best).
Will keep several days refrigerated, Mine never lasts that long.
Use leftover pulp for making crackers, pie crusts or bread. Pulp will freeze well until ready to use.

 Enjoy!

Accidental Smile - Stage 3

Almost finished with the rough, should be able to finish it this evening. This afternoon was great! 63 degrees in the studio with an outside temp of 34. No wind makes a big difference.  I'm happy with it so far and can't wait to begin the fine tuning.

Roughing in with Color Patches

I have almost half of the painting roughed in.  I am not getting as much studio time as I'd like because I still only have a small portable heater in there and the temps here have been frigid. Last night it went down to 5 degrees. It was 43 degrees in the studio this morning with an outside temp of 25, so I was able to do two 15 minute sessions and will go back this afternoon when it has warmed up just a bit more. I certainly have plenty of office work to keep me busy in the meantime.

The working title is now "Accidental Smile"

Living Your Spirit #28 ~ Doing What You Love

I have recently been working on a series of meditation paintings, small 12 x 12 inch canvases that are supposed to impart a feeling of drawing the viewer in. My current one is a challenge I gave myself, a vortex that is not doing what I want it to right now. I'm a little frustrated and  I have to set it aside. I'll come back to it, but I have decided to work on what I love best. The human body and portraiture. I've only started this one, but I will post the progress.

What a difference this has made! Some work we want to do, and challenge is good for us. I like to challenge myself with the new and unfamiliar, but oh, how stepping back into the world of love refreshes the spirit. Working on this will renew me and give me the energy back that I need to tackle the other painting.

What is is that renews and refreshes you?

This is the beginning, as yet untitled.

11x14 - Acrylic on stretched canvas

Living Your Spirit #27 ~ Always Learning

There's always something new to learn, every day, every moment.  Yes, years of experience count, but life is always changing. New things are emerging, new ideas are forming, new technology is galloping forward. There is no way we can possibly learn everything there is to know, let alone keep up with all of the new knowledge bursting upon the horizon.  It is said that humankind has acquired more knowledge from the turn of the 20th century (that's 1900) to the present time, than all of the knowledge that was acquired from the beginning of time up until that point.  I don't know if that is true, but there sure is a lot out there to learn.

I am learning a lot right now as I am moving forward into social media land, a land that was only being discovered a little more than fifteen years ago. I am such a new student and am still exploring many basics. I am learning that there are some things that work differently than they did several years ago.  I am learning things that did not even exist several years ago.  I am learning old things that are resurfacing as good and valid.

One of my favorite sayings is, Those who think they know, don't know, but those who know they don't know, know."

I hope to continue learning until I draw my last breath on this earthly plane.

What have you learned?
What do you hope to learn?

Living Your Spirit #26 ~ Spending Your Energy

Energy ~ I always had plenty of it. Even my high school yearbook says, "Small, but every ounce is energy." I won't tell you exactly how many years ago that was, but my energy stores don't seem so easily replenished these days. I often turn my thoughts to just what it is on which I spend what energy I have.

We can wear ourselves out pretty quickly by expending too much too quickly without adequate rest in between. We can pace ourselves, going along methodically and spending our energy in smaller allottments, enabling us to go a little bit longer. How we go about budgeting our energy varies as much as our personalities. We can, however, choose how to spend our energy wisely.

Painting is one of the best uses of my energy. It brings me peace and happiness and is almost meditative. Spending time with loved ones is a most precious and welcome use of energy, and holding a sleeping child brings exquisite joy. Working, whether it be the physical labor of digging in the garden or cleaning the bathroom, gives the reward of satisfaction and exercise to the body. These are but a few examples... then there are things which simply seem to be a waste of.energy.

One thing for sure ~ negative thoughts are a waste of my precious energy.  Complaining ~ right in there too.  Being around negative people somehow drains my energy.
How do you spend your energy?
What do you think are energy robbers?
Which things are energy restorers?

A Peek Into the Studio

Where I sit ~ many things make their way to this makeshift work table/desk.

Yes, it's 53 degrees...I wear a hat

Storage area - mostly tools

  

Works in progress and paper trimming area (army blanket over chest freezer)

Painting area and storage for supplies.

I like the little cubby things because I can move them myself!

Living Your Spirit #25 ~ Problem or Inconvenience?

So many times we are faced with what we consider problems in out lives. Indeed, there are those. They happen all the time. Many of us, however, use the definition too broadly. When a situation (let's call it that for now) arises, we can look at it two ways. Is it a genuine problem, or is it an inconvenience? If it is a true problem, then we need to step back and figure out how it is to be handled, or solved. But, upon examination, if it turns out to be an inconvenience, it may very well be able to be let go ~ and so we weigh...problem or inconvenience? Work it out or let it go? Sometimes the answer is simpler than we had imagined.

Your thoughts?

Living Your Spirit #24 ~ Weather...or Not to Go Out in It

Many areas have been experiencing some harsh Winter weather lately. People in these areas have been heard complaining loudly about such weather. My take on it is this:

1. It takes all sorts of weather to support life on the planet.
2. For the most part, one chooses where they are going to live.
3. Complaining does nothing to help and only sets a negative tone for the day.
4. If Winter weather is that hated, one might consider moving to a place that is warm all year.

I know, I know - people still have to get to work and driving is risky and children are home from school and the logistics of child care has to be figured. It is grey and the lack of sun has some people depressed, but it happens every year, and there is really nothing to be done about it, except to be as prepared as you can or move somewhere else.

Do be aware that there is light therapy, also called phototherapy, for those who suffer from SAD (seasonal affective disorder). Studies have shown it to be helpful.

Eveyone loves to talk about the weather. Here's your chance!

Living your Spirit #23 ~ Life Interrupted

When illness strikes, whether you work away from home or at home, the work doesn't get done, the house suffers, sometimes family is neglected, and there is absolutely nothing on the social front at all.
So, back at work, there is a lot of catching up to do. Looking around the house, setting it back in order becomes a priority again. All of the social aspects, family, freinds, media, come back into play.
Although it is easy to become overwhelmed at the thought of the seemingly monumental "catch up" tasks, adding a little at a time to your daily regimen may take a bit more time, but it will be a much more peaceful transition back into your schedule. There is no need to be hard on yourself.
How do you best catch up from unscheduled "time off"?

Living Your Spirit #22 ~ The Art of Family

Where would we be without family? They shape our lives, intentionally or not. We are a part of some sort of family, like it or not. It might not be what we think of as traditional. It might be blended from pieces of other families. It might be created from people that just want to be together and have no blood ties whatsoever. It might be all male, or all female, muticolored or monochromatic.
This art of family can be a drawing, painting, sculpture, collage, mosaic, graffiti. It can be small or large, free standing or heavily supported. It can reside in a museum or on the side of a building. It can be traditional or controversial.
Tell us about your family's art.

Living Your Spirit #21 ~ Visit the 3D World

When you work at home, it is so easy to stay there. There is always so much to do. The studio time, the marketing time, the paperwork time, then when you are not officially working, there is the house time and the family time, meals, pet care, laundry. I could go on and on, and as it appears that I already have, will stop here with the list.
Especially with our social contacts a fingertip away at our computers, people can have a more difficult time actually getting out into the three dimensional world where people actually do come face to face (I think Facebook might actually be misnamed). Many of us are forced into this world every day as we navigate through our workdays. Some of us have to make the deliberate choice. It is important to do so, even, very possibly especially, when we don't want to. Schedule the time, make the effort, get out of the house, talk to people.
What is your best "out of the house" tactic?

Living Your Spirit #20 ~ One Habit at a Time

Experts generally agree that it takes three weeks (21 days) of steady and daily practice for a new behavior to become a habit. In this sparkling clean new year ahead of us, may of us have habits we want to change, or habits that we would like to introduce into our lives.The longer we practice the new habit, the more firmly it becomes ensconced in our subconscious.
Unfortunately, when trying to inject too many  new habits at one time, the more likely it is that distraction will occur, days may be skipped, and a jumbled mess of overwhelming proportions will be in front of you instead of a neatly ordered world of nice, new, positive habits.
Maybe the first habit we should adopt is, "One at a Time". Take the time necessary to get the first and most important habit well established in your routine, and only then, pick up another. It may not go as fast as you like, but then, faster isn't always better.
What habits are you trying to establish? How are you doing it? How is it working for you?

Living Your Spirit #19 ~ Pondering Oil Prices

I hear people complaining that oil prices are too high, and they are. I hear conversations about alternative fuel situations, such as natural gas for heating and solar power, to name just two examples. But there is another alternative. Another alternative - reduce consumption.  Reducing consumption generally brings prices down.

We are a nation of consumers and expect our wants to be met. We are not good at depriving ourselves on even a small scale to a common end. Yes, there are many who live a life committed to preserving the earth and are frugal in almost every action. I applaud and admire you., but the majority of Americans are consumers who buy what they want to have when they want to have it, mostly within reasonable limitations. The far reaching impact of this is high. Only one facet of this is that it takes a lot of fuel to move those products.

Steven L. Hopp says, in Barbara Kingsolver's Animal, Vegetable, Miracle,
"If every U.S. citizen ate just one meal a week (any meal) composed of locally and organically raised meats and produce, we would reduce our country’s oil consumption by over 1.1 million barrels of oil every week.  That’s not gallons, but barrels.  Small changes in buying habits can make big differences."

When we consider what a large number of people can do by each making such a small contribution, why would we not?

Living Your Spirit #18 ~ Loss

Loss of life, loss of property, loss of home, loss of health...all of these have been very visible in my life these past two weeks. To friends, to relatives, to townspeople, you have my deepest sympathies and energies for peace in your hearts.

We do not generally think about loss, except when it happens to us, sometimes unexpectedly. There is really no way to prepare, as there is no way to predict what will happen in the next moments of our lives.

Author and lecturer Leo Buscaglia once talked about a contest he was asked to judge. The purpose of the contest was to find the most caring child. The winner was a four year old child whose next door neighbor was an elderly gentleman who had recently lost his wife.

Upon seeing the man cry, the little boy went into the old gentleman's yard, climbed into his lap, and just sat there. When his mother asked him what he had said to the neighbor, the little boy said, "Nothing I just helped him cry."

For those suffering loss today, we will help you cry.

Living Your Spirit # 17 ~ Challenges

There are always challenges. I wouldn't want it any other way. I am fond of challenging myself, and usually, there are plenty of outside challenges to keep me occupied.
Sometimes the challenge is just getting my day together before it runs away with me.
Sometimes it is mastering (or just learning) a new technique, or a technology application. 
There are times when it is challenging to make myself relax...in the face of so much to do.
Then there is that challenge of making myself do something I need to do and don't really want to.

What do you see as a challenge? How do you challenge yourself?

Living Your Spirit #16 ~ Mouth...on Keeping Quiet

Sometimes you just have to shut your mouth! Or, I should say, I have to shut mine. There are times when it is better to say nothing. So many times in the past I have thought to myself, "Way to go. You have to go and open your big mouth, didn't you? When are you ever going to learn to be quiet.?"  Apparently, the learning is a constant process.

We have all heard the cliches about opening mouth and inserting foot or engaging your brain before putting your mouth in gear, but I am pondering the question of whether and when to speak at all.  I have often wondered what would happen if I chose not to speak for an extended period of time and just observed.  This does not fit in with my practical life, of course, so I have never tested it, but it still intrigues me.

We all say things we wish we wouldn't have from time to time. I am not speaking of nasty or rude things, although I am sure there is plenty of that, but those things we choose to share with others, and then we get comments for which we we didn't ask or feedback we didn't solicit. Often, this is not constructive and comes from unqualified sources and in a negative fashion.  Especially when we are discussing our work, comments such as these can smother the spark that ignites the creative process. This is when pausing to think before choosing to speak can come in handy.

Critique is good, and we should seek it on a regualr basis. It gives us something to look at from another's point of view and perhaps gain a fresh perspective. It helps us improve and often encourages us to try new things.  If you aren't in the frame of mind to receive critique, however, whether it be your work or your personal life, then you just might want to keep quiet.

Any words?

Living Your Spirit # 15 ~ Borrowed Time

Death came this week, not once, but thrice, to people I know and love.  It has visited the periphery of my life, a dear friend of my daughter, fathers of two friends.  We are often hit hard when death happens, even if it is expected. It knocks the wind from our sails and we have to stop. Life interrupted. No...life continuing, the way it always has.

Death is part of our everyday lives. It gets close sometimes, right into our personal space. My deepest wishes for comfort are with the families that are grieving these deaths, and celebrating these lives.

We are all on borrowed time. We live to die. We can be sterilized from the reality of it in these times because we have removed the face of it from our daily lives. Hospice, funeral directors, nursing homes, hospitals...all of these wonderful professionals handle the details; the things that used to be done by families. As I so appreciate the amazing jobs done by these caring individuals and organizations, I do ponder if we need to recognize more of death as a very intimate part of every day.
To this end, I do not wish to go to bed angry, or leave the house angry. I always wish to speak my love at the end of every conversation. I want to keep in my mind that we are here for so short a time, and to make every moment precious.

I may not be here tomorrow.
Peace and light.

Living Your Spirit # 14 ~ Fragments

Pieces of my life have been fractured, and there are times I wish a had a more singular, cohesive path; one steady trip instead of several different ones. But, and this is a big but, the continuity, however attractive, would never have given me the wealth of experiences I have had.
I am fortunate. I have seen much, and experienced much, good and bad, joyful and  tragic. I have lived in different arenas, each with its own perspective. Of course there were troubles, and still are troubles from time to time. There was pure joy, giddy happiness, deep grief, decisions both positive and negative.
I am thankful for patience and the tenacity to hang on to whatever good floats, and also to embrace those things we see as bad because they are important pieces, too. As I look at all the fractured pieces of my life, I see a beautiful mosaic, where all of the pieces have come together to create a one of a kind work of art.
So it is with your mosaic, your quilt, your collage of a life.
Bless you on your journey.

Living Your Spirit # 13 ~ Enlightenment

Sometimes there are things you know, learned by experience and repetition and hard lessons, that you somehow cannot verbalize. Not that you don't want to share, but sometimes the lessons are so deep and large, that the words don't exist, and so you are left to ponder and cherish a bit of truth. You watch as you see others learning the same, and you smile. It is a wondrous gift.

Living Your Spirit #12 ~ Doing too much?

I do a lot. I know it. I've been told I do too much. I don't know why I do so much...it is instinctive for me. I might have been one of those children that didn't want to go to sleep "for fear she might miss something", as the saying goes.

Life is all too short, and so I have no problem saying yes to things I want to do. I'll find the time. I'll make the time. I always do. There is still plenty I will miss. I simply can't do everything, so I will do what I can.

Edward Everett Hale said, "I am only one , but still I am one. I cannot do everything, but still I can do something. And because I cannot do everything I will not refuse to do the something that I can do." This is often attributed to Helen Keller, who famously quoted it.

While doing, it is still a good idea to monitor the level at which doing so much crosses the line into overwhelming. I have had such episodes and have had to back off a bit to recreate balance. Remember the see saw?

This is how my spirit was created, and I will live it the way it was given to me.

Some spirits are slow and langourous, some are quick and frenetic, and so many other combinations. What is your spirit?

Living Your Spirit # 11 ~ Solitude, Sweet Solitude!

It can be called loneliness when unwanted; when one is wishing the company of others and conversation and interaction, but when one needs to be alone, especially when the creative process is taking place, the solitude becomes precious.  There are those who can create on demand, come up with ideas or visuals or poetry in the midst of the cacophany of a household or office...not me. I require alone time, sometimes to the exclusion of all outside influence altogether. Not voice, nor music, nor written word penetrates my need for moments of isolation so I can access my deepest creative powers.

I know, that sounds a bit sci-fi, maybe imaginary, and perhaps a tad pompous, but I certainly didn't mean it to be so.  Those solitary moments of which I speak may be several hours at a time, or perhaps just fifteen minute increments here and there. Even when I do manage to sequester myself in my studio, that door just may open at any time, with someone at its threshhold smiling at me in some sort of conversational expectation. I try so not to be rude...sometimes I just smile and wave and go back to what I was doing, in hopes that the visitor will get the hint of my wish to be uninterrupted. Often, I voluntarily allow myself to be dragged back into the world with other humans and lose my reverie to varied interactions with those I love.

Although my solitude is something I need from time to time, and precious to me, nothing is sweeter than knowing that my presence is desired by another.  It feeds my spirit like nothing else can.

Living Your Spirit #10 ~ The Cobwebs of Your Mind

The attic...storage room for unused things, or things we need out of sight to get to when we need them, or a place to put things of sentimental value that we just can't seem to get rid of.  Sometimes we need to get in that attic to sort things, clean up the dust and cobwebs, and very likely get rid of some stuff.

The same is true of the mind. It gets cluttered and dusty with unused things. Finding your way through all that stuff every day in order to get to the things you really need and need to do can be stressful. It is more commonly known as mental clutter.

Do you make a daily list of things to do? Do you find yourself writing the same task on the list each day so you won't forget it, but you can't seem to get it done? I't kind of like ducking under the same cobweb day after day and not getting it out of the way so you have a clearer path. It  is sometimes called procrastination, or avoidance behavior, but I just like to call it cobwebs. It seems to give it a better reason to clean it up and get it out of the attic.

Did you ever notice when you have a space in your home all cleaned and organized just the way you want it, how you like spending time there, and you want to be in that room and enjoy it? The same is true with your mind. Now no one wants to be in an empty room - there needs to be some furnishings, but how much more we will enjoy being present to our own mind if it is cleaned of the cobwebs and put in order. What a simple way to nourish your spirit.

Remember the chunking down?  Here. Just clean one little corner at a time. Oh, by the way, our minds are not square rooms, you know *twinkly eyed grin*. There are myriads of little corners and angles that can accumulate dust and cobwebs. Just find one or two and get started, and I will do the same.

Let me know what you find up there. Sometimes we uncover wonderful surprises about which we had all but forgotten.

Have a peaceful day.