reconnection

I spent the weekend at a wonderful place called – Solitude.  A place that fills the spirit with quietness and contemplation, a place that allows you to step out of your busy life and just be for awhile.  It asks nothing of you except to be still and in return you are given the gift of reconnection.

Solitude

This weekends retreat reflected on the words of the writer and monk Thomas Merton. His words are beautiful, challenging, and reflective and call the reader to be present.  He challenges you to slow down and listen to the sounds of nature, to hear the wind and the birds and to ultimately hear the spirit of God.  You are called to examine your authenticity.

 Merton says, ‘a tree gives glory to God by being a tree,’   for in being what God means it to be it is obeying Him.  It ‘consents,’ so to speak, to His creative love.  It is expressing an idea which is in God and which is not distinct form the essence of God, and therefore a tree imitates God by being a tree. (Thomas Merton - new seeds of contemplation)

It was a weekend that also challenged us to consider our footprint on this planet, to realize that it is us that need to heal, more so than our earth.  It is us that have to change our thoughts, our very consciousness if our planet is to survive.  We need to slow down, to be still, and to honor our earth and our place in it, to understand our interconnection to all things.

When I returned home on Sunday evening I was filled with peace and a sense of being, a contentment for where I am at present.  I was absolutely blown away with the synchronicity of the gift my husband presented me – while sorting out some books for the shop on Sunday afternoon, he had come across seven books of Thomas Merton’s journals…!    

my dream business

As I continue to develop my art business I've been busy with all sorts of different things. I've set up a website -Clare Dreams. It's been fun to do, although I have been driving myself mad with the perfection bug.  I've also had fun designing my logo and learning how to naviagate around photoshop - I'm not really sure why photoshop is so complicated! Once you get the hang of it it can be quite additive - hence the bags under my eyes from late nights.

I've joined a wonderful on-line shop for arts and crafts in SA called Heart Emporium, it's similar to etsy I suppose.  I'm not sure how well etsy works in SA or even if we have it here?  I've been suprised at how many sales I've had through the site.

It's been a challenge keeping my own shop stocked with pictures. The shop is doing well, which is wonderful considering the hard economic times we are in at the moment. Through my shop I've managed to get a few wholesale orders from other shops. I put out lots of business cards, and signs saying I do wholesale orders - which seems to have worked well. 

It's fun, lots of hard work (which I think I might have mentioned before I'm not too keen on), but the results are worth it.  There is something special about selling one of your own creations, it always makes me want to giggle when someone buys one of my pictures, the weird thing is I really don't know why!

Heres to lots of giggling!!

past hurts

she thought for a long time about how to be happy - but decided

that maybe she was happy already

Isn’t it amazing that just when you think you have dealt with an issue in your life then wham it seems to rear its head and wag its finger in your face?

This year was turned out to be difficult.  It has been a busy year, filled with too many things to do and not enough time.  Somewhere in the hazy of rushing around, I’ve patted myself on the back for over coming many of the issues that have hampered me and held me back most of my life.  These issues are the usual ones, self esteem, family relationship issues etc.  I’ve done the work and slowly put things into perspective, become more aware, learnt to put distant between myself and the issues and believed that I had moved on.

Then things happen, and you are right back where you started, or are you?  I’m not sure.  I was distressed about this but then released that I have changed, sometimes the old hurts do come back but mostly it is because others are still where they have always been.  Yes, the same old stuff can hurt but somehow I seem to have more resilience, more grit maybe even more maturity – I hope.  It is easier to pick myself up, shack off the dust and begin again.  I guess the old hurts will always hurt but maybe just not in the same way.

the child in me

I've been doing quiet a bit of thinking about how to create a 'creative business', a business that is more than just my pictures but that emcompasses all my talents and experiences gathered over the years.  I've made a fairly good start this year, all the art products I've made have been selling like hot cakes. Boy, and do I get a kick out of selling my stuff.  It always makes me want to giggle when I sell one of my pictures, I have no idea why it's so funny, but there you are - as my kids say, 'mom you're weird'.

As a way to try and figure it all out, I've been doing a bit of journalling and have been suprised at what has surfaced.  I've been allowing the writing to take over, to tell the story and to allow the unconscious to speak.  What has been amazing in this process, is how different images have surfaced as I write. 

The other day I had this very distinct image of myself as a child.  I was excited about all the possiblities of things that I wanted to make. I can remember paging through a 1970s child's craft book and marking off all the projects I wanted to try.  I could feel the excitment as I was writing this all down, I could feel it in my body like it was yesterday. 

Then the feeling changed, suddenly all the excitement was replaced with a sense of guilt and shame.  I was puzzled by this change in emotion and pace, where did this come from.  I'm not sure I will ever get the answer, it could have been going to school and comparing myself to others, or it could have been an unkind word spoken by a teacher, I really don't know.  What I do know is that somewhere, somehow I believed that being creative wasn't the thing to do and I stuffed down the urge to be creative - I tried to snuff it out and spent many years angry with myself and the world. 

Many many years later, I sit here and have come full circle - I know that I have to create, that I am a creative being and that it is absolutely the right thing for me to do. Phew - what a relief.

From that child inside me I make this plea -

Please -  let us remember that when a child shows a creative spark that we must encourage it, never put it down or dismiss it, it could just be what saves that child

it is what it is

taking the easy way out?

I have a quote I use on my pictures – 'life is simple it’s just not easy'.  I believe that life is simple, that the simple answers normally turn out to be the correct ones.  How you get to the answers might not be easy.  I think that sometimes we complicate life; we expect that things should be hard and difficult, but often this is not the case.  Sometimes, if we just move away from a problem or ask a different question, and stop expecting to have the answer immediately we can be surprised when the answer softly seems to arrive.

I’m really trying hard to stop holding onto things too tightly, expecting to know all the answers, and irritating myself by having to have everything sorted out.  I’m trying to loosen my grip and to be happy with what is. 

“It is what it is”, has become my mom’s new motto and I think I might just pinch it from her – what do you think?



listen to this

there's something in my hair

A few years ago, when I was still studying I worked as a volunteer family counselor. Our main task was to teach families the importance of communication.  When we introduced this into the counseling sessions, people always got excited as they were hoping that we would teach them how to get people to hear them better.  But they were always disappointed when we began with – the importance of listening.

Listening is probably the hardest part of communication. Do we really listen to others; do we hear the unspoken as well as the spoken?  Who really has time for this, the world is too busy, and people are too full of their own importance, trying too hard to get their own point across.  We have forgotten to listen, to truly listen.  What a wonderful gift it is when someone listens to you, gives you that space to speak your words and feelings. I know that I need to be reminded of this! 

I think it’s also important that we listen to ourselves, find time to listen to what we are saying all day long to others and of course what are we saying to ourselves. 

catching the monkey

catching monkeys

In the matter of two days I heard this term used about five times, from five different sources.  It made me think, is something trying to tell me something?  

Oh, what was it that I kept on hearing – the term ‘monkey mind’.

Monkey mind is a Buddhist, term meaning unsettled, restless, inconstant, confused, indecisive and my favorite uncontrollable.  It is those thoughts that run around in your head like an ADHD child on a sugar high.  

Boy, and has my old mind been a monkey lately, jumping around, with hardly a single still thought in sight.  I have practiced meditation in the past, I’ve watched my thoughts without having an attachment to them, but somehow life has just got too busy and all that peace has evaporated.  I do hope that I can calm the monkey inside my head; it seems to be less of a nuisance when I can put a paint brush in my hand.  Oh dear, there it goes again – excuse me I need to see if I can catch it..........