6-Word Memoir
SOLD: Creativity. Received: Someone else’s path.
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I am Angry and Afraid
If only…
different decisions had been made or different people had showed up or…
But decisions were made by those who did show up and the outcome has left me feeling like a stranger in a foreign place. I’ve been forced down a different road and toward a place I don’t want to be in. I’ve wandered through this new landscape and listened to conversations. It’s a hostile, strange place where strangers are not welcome.
The road behind me, the one I arrived here on, has been closed.
I’ve been throwing my energy in every direction, trying to find a way out and all I’ve found is more anger, more hostility. False fronts have been built to cover up the ugliness of this place. I’ve learned that walls are being built and defenses are growing.
I am angry and afraid…
What can I do? What decisions can I make? What do I need to know?
That is what I asked myself as I sat in meditation this past Wednesday morning. On the floor in front of me sat a deck of Tarot cards. I cut the deck and flipped the first card over.
The Empress III
I spent some time with the image, noticing things: the color green, a mountain and a cave, a stream of water that runs past the Empress, who carries an unborn child and a sheaf of harvested grain from the field that is behind her; a shield, a tiny bird, three flowers growing. The Empress is resting (grounded) and looking forward as she listens to the bird. And she hears:
Pay attention to the messages, be grounded and know that you have the resources at hand to be what you need to be. Be the Empress in thought, word, and deed. Stay close to the stream. Face the future and remember the trinity. You are creative.
Image is from The Nigel Jackson Tarot
Day 2 of 30-day Challenge
#2 Lebanon on Tuesday. 8×6 inch oil on panel.
What real artists know that others don’t is this: It’s not the painting that’s hard. What’s hard is showing up to paint.
I painted 50 pochade studies in October and November 2016, and distractions cropped up from everywhere. Weather—sun, heat, wind, rain, storms, flat light (no shadows), cold, ice, and snow—is a big distraction for plein air painters. Extreme cold, wind, snow, and ice are common here in Minnesota in January. But the benefits I have realized from daily practice are SO worth the effort that I decided to do it again.
Tomorrow, it will be windy and 2 degrees. I’ll be painting inside.
