Being There

...so, several things have been trying to get my attention lately.  The need for focus, the desire for a deeper, more authentic experience.  For being there. Showing up for my own life. Synchronicity has spoken to my soul, loud and clear.

My re-reading of my last year's rewilding posts and how they got derailed by my tendency to turn everything into work, into a "jobligation" caught my attention.  An inveterate teacher and a lifelong "fixer" (as well as spending a chunk of my life as a caregiver), it's no surprise, but not all that conductive of the end I'm aiming for.  Or mean to aim for, at any rate.

And then this post appeared in my memories, on what inspired you, from our Artist's Journal Workshop blog, and this one, from this blog three years ago today, on the addiction of social media.  (Yes, three.  I keep trying...)

And yet...there is this pull, from both directions.  If something becomes habit, becomes dry, only going through the motions instead of being engaged, fully THERE...is this productive?  On the other hand, this caught my eye in a book I'm reading--the concept that structure, discipline, repeated actions or rituals can keep us going through those dry times, until we can find our focus again.

That last was something I often heard in my church years.  I spent a time in the Third Order of St. Francis 20-some years ago, but found when I needed a more focused, personal spirituality--at least that's how I perceived it--rather than saying the hours with the church, I was no longer welcome as a member of that community.  The discipline, the praying with the church, was paramount--so said my director.

A friend just repeated the concept on a Facebook post, in different words.  Keep going, keep doing it (whatever it is), until you're inspired again.  But does that work?  For you?  Or for me?  I suspect that's a very individual answer.

I want to be present to my life.  Presence has been a goal for many years now...mindfulness.  Being there.

And yes, I have a tendency to read about it rather than DO it, sometimes...believe me it's not the same.

But I recently read a pair of books that made a very big impression on me: Gerald May's The Wisdom of Wilderness, and David Abram's Becoming Animal: An Earthly Cosmology.  May's book was brilliantly written, personal, engaging, and deeply moving to me.  Abram's had a similar theme...being fully ALIVE, in all our senses.

I don't want the days...my journals...my reading, my creating...to be simply going through the motions.

And yet...two years ago I chose "presence" as my word of the year.  Last year at this time, I wrote of re-focusing.  Presence.  Being there.

Perhaps someday I'll actually get there...

Day 14, Re-wilding--creativity in ancient ways

I love to explore how our forebears might have worked when creating art...discovering my own pigments, grinding and making paints, making my own pens or other tools, trying out natural dyes or inks...

Drawing with a twig dipped in paint or ink connects me to ancestors long gone.  They drew on cave walls and stone and parchment, I on paper made from plants--but still I sense them looking over my shoulder.

Hematite on a grinding stone...it makes a beautiful reddish brown color.  That's the hematite stone itself at lower right.

My palette of natural colors! 

This is the healing hand symbol currently on my healing drum...it's limonite I found in our local river's gravel bar.  I've since found a darker stone, perhaps a type of hematite like the one above, that I want to use, so may give it a try.  It's a good feeling to honor our ancestors and to use the kinds of tools they might have used.

I often use this river stone for smoothing, rather than reach for the sandpaper...

Check out Nick Neddo's book, The Organic Artist: Make Your Own Paint, Paper, Pigments, Prints and More from Nature, or Sandy Webster's Earthen Pigments; Hand-Gathering & Using Natural Colors in Art for much, much more.

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It was a honeysuckle, honeybee, and hummingbird kind of a morning and I loved sitting and working
where I could see these little visitors.

This little female repeatedly darts in for a taste, chittering each time, then draws away before chittering and diving for another taste.  None of the others seem to need to vocalize before drinking--perhaps she's giving thanks!

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Interesting, to me, the way my blog offers related posts or those you might be interested in.  I checked back on this one, on nurturing or killing creativity and found it relevant but ironic, in one way.

Though I am normally not one for challenges or prompts, I have taken on this 31-day challenge, and I DO feel a bit constrained by it, as I thought I would.

Still it is one I need, and it's deeper and more personal than most, and completely self-directed--letting the days unfold as they will, grateful for what they offer me. 

(And if you're interested in what DOES nourish my own creativity, that was the post before, here.)

Finding quiet when I can...Day 9

Washing my face with the holy water of dew on clover in the early morning...then nature's own rich, dark mud between my toes...that must be healing. I feel like a child at play in the morning of the world.

This tiny star-shaped flower smiled at me from the dew-covered ground ivy...I'm not sure what it is, other than similar to a buttercup in shape.  I love the little mysteries...

The garden is in transition...life and death clearly illustrated in miniature.

A mystery squash, as well...it volunteered this year and I have no idea what it is.  Summer squash, winter?  Is it ready to pick or should I wait...?

They WILL ripen...eventually...

 

It is still comfortable at this hour--coffee on the back deck, sun on my face and bare legs.  Pepi-cat yawns and stretches nearby and the birds ignore him totally.

Sunlight sparkles on the fountain and catches the lemon-colored leaf boat amongst the bubbles.

The new fountain never fails to offer some small bit of beauty...

Bright sun catches glitter-lights on the old garden sculpture; it is weathered to its current form, grains of silica in squirrel shape.

He's lived in my back garden for 30 years, slowly weathering away...

Looking with the eyes of a child, I see a hudred colors and a myriad shapes...and now feel the need to take my hand microscope to the garden to see this magic that hides in plain sight.

I sit quiet on the deck, bare feet on the earth, whistling the song my big drum taught me (for each drum has its own voice, its own song)--and a chickadee and a titmouse landed nearby to investigate.  Our chickadees are normally quite shy, but the song seemed to intrigue them; they cocked their heads to listen.  I half expected them to answer.

It's not so much "carpe diem" as simply being--this moment, before the day gets busier... 

Life truly IS a journey...first day wanderings.

Sunbeams and woodsmoke...

I have shared bits of this elsewhere, but I believe I'd like to use my blog for a bit more in-depth record, for myself as much as anything...

Yesterday, I began 31 days of mindfulness, paying attention, being there, in nature. Of course I spend much of my time there in any case, but I plan to do so with more awareness, more direct contact. More childlike or primal attention. It may only be 5 minutes a day, some days, but fully, completely THERE--and responsive.  To the moment as much as I can manage.


I will journal about my experience, perhaps sketch, and may share or not, as feels right.  Here in my blog, I'll add bits and pieces, but much will remain private between the pages of my journal.

As I've said elsewhere, I've struggled a bit with focus and feeling rudderless lately, but I do most firmly believe that nature and we are One--we're not sovereign, but an integral part. I have long felt that the Universe is a manifestation of the Creator...everything, not just humans or the Grand Vista, or the things we tend to see as "beautiful," but everything.

I intend to explore that in whatever way presents itself.

Yesterday, Day One, I had intended to go to the river, early...Joseph was off doing Legion duties, and I had the morning to do with as I felt the need. But it was if a voice in my ear said "not intentions, nor plans, but HERE, and NOW..."

I listened.


So here are bits of my first day of mindful inner journeying...a fire on a cool July morning rather than going anwhere to search but right HERE.

The oak green man had resided on my fence for some time...but I only yesterday, this first day, noticed he was anything more than a fallen leaf. 

Oak greenman in my journal...

Little serendipities after the rain...I went to weed the garden and check how it was doing, encouraging and praising as I went along...and what should it do in return but give me a turquoise nugget, just lying on the ground. It's tiny, but it's magic...

The gift of turquoise...I am glad of sharp eyes!

In the afternoon, we took a drive to our old cabin to check on things...I began to fall into old habits of impatience and pressure.  Can we leave now??  Are we ready??   We need to get OUT there, before it rains again!

NOT what was needful, though it was good to see all was well, if rather weedy.  For whatever reason, we didn't stay long...

Safe and sound...

The evening was cool and delightful, and we DID go to the river...Joseph to fish, and me to...be there.  I was entranced by the small stones at my feet, as I so often am...fossils, rocks, pigment stones, hagstones (also called viewing stones or vision stones, sometimes friendship stones--those stones with naturally-occurring holes)...

And of course came home with my pockets full and my field bag heavier than when I started out...

Natural pigments waiting to be used...

Limestone and a horn coral on the left...fossils at center right...

So many tiny lives...millions of years ago, these creatures lived at the bottom of the inland sea.

Corals, brachiopods and more...

I made a small ephemeral cairn or inukshuk to celebrate...it will wash away in the next high water...

And hope that 31 days of re-wilding, exploring my small wilderness, becomes the rest of my life.
Inspired by my friend Diane Perry...we will do this "together," along with my online tribe.