Moon Shell, Celtic Gene's, Fear and preparing....

I don't know and than I do know.....but letting go of what reactive state others will have to this is where I have to let go.   Blogs can be many things and this blog has been my refuge over the years.

 I just love the Moon Shell- a dear artist friend gifted me one....Carol Leigh  I treasure it greatly.

I show this Moon Shell because of the path that it naturally leads us to....the center, the core of all living things I would like to believe and the core of my own nature being.  great book also is "Gift from the Sea"...

A quote from one of my favorite Authors- Julia Cameron...Growth is a spiral process doubling back on itself reassessing and regrouping. The road is never straight.   I've heard this in other context as an artist journey is never a straight path either.  If one has expectation of that their be an awakening there for sure. I would share I'm more of a wanderer.....

 Here is a linoleum square I carved out a few years back.... quick reference of it's meaning being I now know I've got some Celtic in my Gene's- life-death-rebirth, spirit-mind-body, mother-father-child, past-present-future, power-intellect-love and creation-preservation-destruction to name but a few.

So taking the long way around this morning blog post... as I prepare for my own Creative Guest...Note: Some may call what I'm about to do a sort of a residency with a spiritual nature. Anyways... there are some fears....and one needs to address some of those but fear will not go away and never come back...there is a purpose for it. 

I will need to face and accept myself as I really am...and who and what am I...Number 1 & 2 questions.  In Buddhism....one can devote themselves to realizing the true nature of the mind- the mind in me, not some other, different mind. In Sanskirt it's tathagatagarbha ...a Creative Quest of the  Truest Nature.  This leads to the stuff in the mind...you know...Monkey mind...where one is believing in...I'm obscenely fat, I'm grotesquely skinny, or I'm a neurotic loser...  I have to say that this kind of mind has been tamed for the most part but does have it's flare-ups...when I'm not in the present and balanced with myself and life around me, it will act up.  

So I lean into Fear... as I prepare...it can be a huge obstacle, some of the known reactive behaviors to fear are withdrawing, hiding, procrastinating, running or berating ourselves. As I'm learning...fear in and of itself is neither good nor bad. It's not a sign of weakness or cowardice, as I once thought.  It's just a signal that some decision or action is needed on my part. 

I know I've posted this before too...Fear for me stands for...Facing Every Action Realistically.  Which all about taking refuge in a source and seeking a decision, direction and action. And not that I haven't at all in my life but I guess I would like newer experience and more honest ones now. 

A Quote from Henry David Thoreau- "If one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours."  

Today I celebrate with a meditative walk in the woods....I am 19 years without smoking cigarettes today...what a nasty beast that was in my life.  So grateful to be on this side of it.  


Questing a  more Natural being of myself... as I advance confidently on my spiral journey of Life and Art...Knowing Thy Self is the First Step and meeting myself where I is a wonderful beginning.  As they say we can always begin again and so thankful for the grace in that...