The title says: the path to peace is to love or at least accept what is.
Journey into Collage is a project for 2012. You can read more about it here.
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Here are some more pages I did:
The full text reads: do not guard your heart. love with abandon. (I used this beautiful art as a guide.) And here’s the next page:
The full text reads: do not hesitate to reach for your dreams. even if they seem far. you can do it. you can. Well here we go. More coming next week. I am creating multiple art journaling pages a week for now. You can read more about this project here. This set uses the Fabriano Roma papers.
Today’s my birthday. I am now officially thirty-eight years old. Just a few more before I get to be in my forties instead of thirties. Aging is not something that worries me. I feel privileged and grateful to get each year I get. It’s been a long, messy, rough, hectic, muddled few weeks here. As expected the schedule changes aren’t really settled down yet. I am behind in all my classes and emails and comments and just about everything else. And instead of spending time catching up, I seem to just want to slow down more and more. Last weekend was intense for me emotionally and physically and work’s going to really go up a notch next week, so I decided to take myself off the hook this week and do as little as possible. I am still running but just one mile a day and I am doing my sketches but simpler ones. Other than that, I’ve only been doing what I have to and nothing else. I’ve been going to bed between 8-9pm each night and trying to get rest. While I am itching at the bits to dig into some stuff (like my coursework or several books that are piling up on my ipad) I am forcing myself to slow down. Reminding myself regularly that things will wait. Life will wait. With kids at school, September seems like a more appropriate beginning time to me than January, lately. I feel like with the start of the school year, we have a new schedule, new classes and teachers and challenges. It seems like the right time to be choosing words and projects, etc. So I always have a lot of ideas come up this time of year and have to (im)patiently wait another few months to implement them. I am at the idea-collecting stage. However, in honor of my birthday, I will take today as an emotional resetting/beginning of sorts. This year has had a lot of tough times for me and this past week has been emotionally rough. So as I look forward to my 38-year-old self, here’s what I want to focus on: 1. Kindness Above All: I’ve learned time and again that this is the one big thing for me. I can tolerate so much but I cannot tolerate unkind people. I grew up with mean friends (whether they meant to be or not, they were just mean.) I learned early on to be mean to myself. And it’s a horrible, terrible thing to be unkind to oneself. So it will stop now. I will no longer be unkind to myself. When I notice myself going there, I will put my hand on my heart and give myself some compassion. I deserve kindness. You deserve kindness. We all do. Every single one of us, no matter what. I will not tolerate unkindness anymore. From myself or anyone else. I will do everything I can to remove unkind people from my life. I notice that sometimes unkindness is how people try to gain power over others. Sometimes my need to seek approval and kindess from these people overpowers my ability to receive kindness from those who give it to me regularly. No longer. I also will do my very best to be my kindest self possible. Have no assumptions, be open and be as kind as I can. 2. Patience and Calm: I find that, I often feel a sense of panic when multiple things are happening simultaneously. I might even end up putting my focus on the wrong thing and stress the situation further. I like getting things done, but I like feeling calm more than feeling accomplished. I want to work on my patience and calm. Patience with myself and my kids, my loved ones, strangers, friends, work mates. Not jumping the gun, not yelling, not assuming. Being patient and open and calm. Knowing, and truly believing, that things will work out. Because, honestly, almost always they do. And when they don’t being impatient doesn’t help. 3. Being Completely Present: The word savor has been good to me. Between that and the mindfulness classes/talks I’ve experienced, I feel confident that life, fulness, joy are all in this moment. I want to be present. With myself, with my kids, work, marriage. All of life. I want to soak it all up. Right now. I don’t want worries, stresses, even potential joys of the future to get in the way. I want to soak in this very moment. I want to fully live it. Bathe in it. I want to notice all the colors, sounds, textures. Every little thing. I deeply believe that life will feel much less challenging and work out more smoothly if I can embrace this mindset. I will bring back my gratitude practice. I’ve been slacking. But no longer. Last night, David and I used a wonderfully liberating ritual I learned in the Brave Girls’ Body Restoration class. It made a significant shift for him. It has to do with writing a letter and then burying it. Today, I plan to write a letter to my 37-year-old self. I want to bid all of my past a good-bye. I have no doubt the lessons will always stay with me but I’d like to unload as much of the burden from the past as I can. I’d like to wake up tomorrow knowing that the labels I have been carrying are gone and I get to create new ones. Good or bad. So here’s to hoping thirty-eight is a great year. I’m grateful that I get to be here. And here’s the spread for week 34:
here’s a closer up of the left side:
This side is how it feels to have life with my boys, then a little hike we took together. And finally how Nathaniel looks up to David so much. And here’s the right side:
The first one here is about how david loves comic books. Then how happy Nathaniel is all the time and one about his thumb-sucking. Art along the bottom as usual. Another great week. Happy Savoring. The Savor Project was supposed to be a weekly project for 2012. You can read about my setup here.
For someone who takes a lot of online classes, it’s amazing that I haven’t taken Susannah Conway’s Unraveling course. But here we are. I’ve thought about it on and off for a while but never actually took the plunge. However, when This I know came out, there was something about it that pulled me immediately. And I am so glad it did. This book is sad. But not in that “so miserable” way. It’s a book about grief. It’s a book about coming back from it and creating a new life. Finding and owning yourself. It’s sad but also thought provoking, deep, and gives you a sense of hope in a profound way. It is very recommended. And now I’m going to have to take her class. Here are the sketches from last week. not delighted with this week’s offerings but some weeks are like that: Sunday:
Monday:
Tuesday:
Wednesday:
Thursday:
Friday:
that’s it for this week. Daily Sketching is a weekly project for 2012. You can see a detailed post on my sketching journey here. This is a canvas I made for Maya Road for CHA.
I just had fun with this one. Played with trim and sprays and wooden birds and chipboard. details:
Here is the next spread from our book:
A note his friend Cameron gave him. David’s Book of Good Memories is a bi-weekly project for 2012 with my seven-year-old son David. You can read more about it here.
Here are some snapshots from our week: Legos are a big part of our day. I am so grateful for them.
and now biking is too. nathaniel really loves riding his bike and david’s getting better at the scooter. I love watching them so much.
david started school this week. first day of second grade.
nathaniel was there, too (not so sure he wanted to pose).
david got to draw a picture and his name while he was waiting in the classroom and nathaniel was super-excited to watch.
right after we dropped david, we had nathaniel’s orientation since he’s starting david’s school this year, too. he then got to play in his playground for a while.
daddy was full into it.
and ran all around the track with Nathaniel.
David made some lego creation this week for a site. The topic was olympics so he chose swimming and did this amazing creation with people swimming and splashing.
i really loved it.
on jake’s birthday, i was working late into the day but I still tried to have a little cake and a candle for him.
not the best photos. but still a moment i wanted to capture.
then it was time for family photos.
yelling how much we love each other.
Nathaniel was in a funny mood and just wanted to be silly.
so we laughed a lot.
and then tickled and laughed more.
i got to have some shots with my boys this time, too.
i kept falling cause they were leaning on me.
which made us laugh in the end. love my boys.
and here we go. i hope your week was lovely, too. Weekly Diary is a project for 2012. You can read more about it here.
This was my monthly mixed media work for My Mind’s Eye. The title says: smile and soak it in, remember that today is all you get. make it count Journey into Collage is a project for 2012. You can read more about it here.
In honor of my very long, very tiring day I decided to leave you with a wonderful poem by Jean Little from Hey World, Here I Am! : Today I need a rest. with thanks to my wonderful friend Jessica who introduced me to Jean Little, who is absolutely magnificent. Here are some more pages I did:
The full text reads: it is your time to shine. And here’s the next page:
The full text reads: you can be your own savior. you are strong. Well here we go. More coming next week. I am creating multiple art journaling pages a week for now. You can read more about this project here. This set uses the Fabriano Roma papers. |
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