When I paint or draw I try to enter the flow, and the success of it all depends on how well I merge with the flow of things. I don’t really freeze a moment in time like a photographer. I register the flow through the tip of the pen or brush. Entering the flow is my own prescription for myself to be more and more in the moment.

This is perhaps why drawing can connect me with energies that wish to enter a given place at a given time in order to uplift the space. More and more I am trusting the pen to make me part of the dance of evolution of Consciousness for the land and the beings that live upon it.

Our cultural emphasis on the triumphant part of the story, where one powers through adversity to rise heroically in short course does us all a great disservice. It misses the long and painful part of the story where we’re being cooked by the flames and, while the things we love are being burned down to ashes, we are all the way left behind by the world.

In the old way, you’d be expected to listen to your elders telling of such epic odysseys that you’d never get anywhere fast and your food would always go cold for the long prayers that are owed to your ancestors’ endurance.

And eventually you’d come to know the stories by heart because they’d wiggle down into your bones and take life in the landscape; in the fire and the lakes, and the mountains your people have named because they’ve earned the right by crossing them.

And when your time comes, as it does for all of us – to be cooked – you’d know that you aren’t the first to be chosen by the fire and it will hurt for as long as it takes, and the only way through is with your heroics humbled.

– by Dreamwork with Toko-pa

Live in the world as it is. Embrace it.

Be part of it,  lend it your precious heart.

Go forward, not driven by some need to make your mark,

But led by your tender heart that would heal the wounds that are everywhere and in all beings:

The wounds that are even in the land, scratched into the stones.

The wounds borne by the birds, the flowers, old men, trees, and pets.

With your heart as the soft cloth,

Wipe the brow of those in pain.

Your worth lies in little else than this.

Come home at last, to your own body, to your own Mother Earth.

Come home.

— Pamela Ann McDowell Saylor, 3.12.14

I am inspired by Laura Simms to reflect on the value of a fairy tale. Fairy tales are a gold mine of assistance in the art of living consciously. To go deeply into the layers of these stories which are actually in our own psyches, is to find a gold mine of assistance to remedy the agonies of living and to find inner peace. These journeys represent huge work on the part of the storyteller, who herself is forever altered in the process. Because of her work, others are able to take the journey, tailored to their own needs, liberating themselves.

Think, dear friend, reflect on the world that you carry within yourself. And name this thinking what you wish…Just be sure that you observe carefully what wells up within you and place that above everything that you notice around you. Your innermost happening is worth all your love. You must somehow work on that.

Ranier Maria Rilke

Something Laura Simms said about story inspired me to reflect upon my own understanding of what a great story is.  A great story is a shared experience, ever new each time it is told. It has infinite possibilities ready to be mined that lead to deepened self-understanding and empowerment. To “use” a great story to prove a point or to teach a “lesson” short shrifts its precious possibilities and grates against the soul.

Everybody can be great… because anybody can serve. You don’t have to have a college degree to serve. You don’t have to make your subject and verb agree to serve. You only need a heart full of grace. A soul generated by love.

― Martin Luther King Jr.

“Hold the vision. Trust the process.” — Anonymous on Facebook

Today I added a new element to the sunrise painting. I had not planned on this, but I felt compelled to do it. I wonder if I have taken a diversion from the vision or if this is trusting the process. Time will tell.

Make the Ordinary Come Alive

Do not ask your children
to strive for extraordinary lives.
Such striving may seem admirable,
but it is a way of foolishness.
Help them instead to find the wonder
and the marvel of an ordinary life.
Show them the joy of tasting
tomatoes, apples, and pears.
Show them how to cry
when pets and people die.
Show them the infinite pleasure
in the touch of a hand.
And make the ordinary come alive for them.
The extraordinary will take care of itself.

By William Martin, The Parent’s Tao Te Ching: Ancient Advice for Modern Parents.

— Thanks to Joanna Patton

This is a file from the Wikimedia Commons. Commons is a freely licensed media file repository.

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http://www.landscape-perception.com/

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/stonehenge-is-like-a-sacred-prehistoric-glockenspiel-researchers-claim-9168812.html