LunarMusings

My Sacred Life Project: Day 7

My Sacred Life Project
Day 7

Sometimes, not taking yourself or life to seriously, is the only medicine that will heal.

(pictures courtesy of my Macbook Pro)

 

My Sacred Life Project: Day 6

My Sacred Life Project
Day 6

So despite my wonderful day yesterday, I woke up grumpy today.  No real reason, just off, out of sorts, and feeling a bit cloudy.  As in gray clouds over head as opposed to fuzzy minded.

I tried to do my morning meditation and breathing, but was all over the map with my to do list and restlessness.  I didn't last very long at my altar, and decided to just check my email, and then run out the door and do my errands.  While in the car I attempted to come back to my breath and center.  It really wasn't working.  I was everywhere, but in my body.  I then began to do my mental checklist.  I'm ok, right?  Nothing happened to trigger this feeling?  Did I dream?  Did something happen yesterday that I forgot about?  Am I hormonal?  Which I am thinking now, is exactly it. 

So while I was sitting with that and running my errands, I was really trying to create a way to be able to still myself and connect in to spirit even while hormonal, or upset, or off.  There are so many ways I do this.  Meditation, breath, yoga, dance, tarot, journaling, jogging, creating...  But sometimes that just doesn't work.  Or perhaps its just that I'm not available to it. 

I was at Trader Joe's buying some yummy hummus when I saw these gorgeous flowers.  I didn't think about it, I just added them to the cart.  And as I looked for my food, I kept looking down at the flowers and really just savoring the gorgeous color.  Each time I did, my breathing became slower, deeper.  Funny how these things just happen. :)  I was so caught up in what I needed to DO in order to still myself, and here were these flowers just peacefully existing in my cart, and my body just took them in, while my head was busy trying to figure it out.

Life is so simply miraculous. 

My Sacred Life Project: Day 5

My Sacred Life Project
Day 5

The image above represents a few things.  Clearly its the top cover of the coolest laptop ever.  (MacBook Pro) But more then that it represents for me generosity, abundance, the magic of the universe, The Secret at work, love, following the heart instead of the head :) and receiving.

This beauty arrived at my doorstep today as a gift.  There are no words to describe what I am feeling.  There is so much.  Gratitude certainly, but then not really.  Its more then that.  I have been needing a new computer for quite a while, and this time around I didn't want to skimp on it.  I wanted what I wanted and was just going to have to save up for it and wait as long as it took to get it.  I have also been doing the other things I know to do to manifest.  I go to the apple store online and look at the laptop I want, go through the motions of filling my  shopping cart and then I go to another website and pick out the laptop bag I will get for my brand new tool/toy. 

Today as I was tearing the box open and crying, setting everything out and turning it on, squealing with joy, more crying, phone calls and instant messages to gush complete gratitude...  I had other things, deeper things occur.  The awareness, that receiving on such a huge scale is hard.  The awareness that I called this computer, this abundance to me, and really hadn't put any restrictions on how it got to me, and it found its way to me, through other more significant channels.

The act of giving is always about Spirit. But the channel created by one person giving and the other receiving is something even more.  Receiving this computer for me represents the opening of the heart to override the mind.  It represents a generosity that is based out of deep love.  It represents for me the Universe reminding me that there is more then enough for every single one of us to have exactly as we need and want.  And those are both equally important. 

And you...  Its truly beautiful and sleek and sexy and so so cool.  But more then that, its where we are right now with this opening that we are creating together.  Its that we are treading through new and sacred ground together, and this gift will forever remind me of that and this time.

I wonder if Steve Jobs had any of this in mind for his little company? :)

Another quote to stir the morning...

Jon sent this to me the other day.  Its one of my favorite quotes from one of my favorite Women writers in the world...

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented and fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There's nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.

Marianne Williamson from her book, "A Return to Love," p. 165

I am teetering these days between the ways that  I play small and the possibility of "what if..."..  Actually, I have been playing with this for quite a while.  How would it look to be and do and feel and have more?  How am I still playing small and trying to pass it off as just run of the mill reality?  How am I powerful beyond measure?  And what does it feel like to walk in that truth?  I am open...

My Sacred Life Project: Day 4

My Sacred Life Project
Day 4

This is the doorway into my home.  I love my door.  I love that these are the first things that I and everyone else sees when coming into my home. 

The Om sign.  The primordial sound from where all creation sprang from.  It is also a mantra that stills the soul.  And this lovely sign that says "trust".  Putting this word on my door was very much an intuitive impulse that at the time I wasn't clear about, but felt that I needed to, so I did.

And what I get from this is that my home is a place of Truth.  A place of Peace, and Connection.  Its a Sanctuary.  Once I walk through this door, I am in another place.  A sacred place, that holds me in a way that the rest of the world will not.  It is so, because I have chosen for it to be so. It is so, because that has been and is the intention for my home space.

One of the things that I so appreciate about being a self possessed adult woman in the world is the ability to choose.  I choose who comes in.  I choose and have chosen what will come in and what will not.  It is such a potent freedom.  And the ability to walk in through this door into this place heals my soul, and offers it a sanctuary that I completely trust.

My Sacred Life Project: Day 3

My Sacred Life Project
Day 3

This is a detail of one of my altars.  I have 4 in my home right now.  I have the altar I sit at each morning to set the intention for the day and do my mantra work.  There is the big working altar in the hall way where I do my lunar intentions and whatever else needs divine attention at the moment. And then there is a small one in my bathroom and a small one in my kitchen.

This image is of a part of my hallway altar.  Kali Ma and a Day of the Dead Mermaid, along with some special stones.  These pieces are holding a space for the things that are dying away in me right now.  Its about the necessary deaths that occur as new things are being brought forth into the world.

I stood at this altar this morning before dashing off to work.  I had a very little sleep last night and felt like I had been hit by a truck. But I was reminded as I stumbled past this place, that the shifts that are occuring right now, are very much a sweeping away and a birthing at the same time.  The discomforts I am feeling in moving through my own fears, the challenges in my relationship, the new role as a working artist... all of this is both a death and a birth and the discomfort is both labor pain and death grip.  And it is all holy work.  Jai Ma!

My Sacred Life Project: Day 2

My Sacred Life Project
Day 2

Its been a fairly gray Sunday morning and afternoon.  Its the best kind of Sunday actually...

I have been nursing a sinus infection, and moving around fairly slow.  Woke up, made tea, checked email, set up my art space... 

Today is usually Farmers Market day for me, but I just couldn't get it together enough to make the trip.  Instead I strolled down the street to Olives for some sustenance and yum.

I got some salad, some soup, a few avocados, a shallot, some eggs, and of course olives.   

Back at home and back in my pjs the olives were the only things I pulled out.  There are no words to explain my love affair with olives.  All of them, all types, all colors, all tastes... all. of. them.  And for me there is something divine about eating olives.  Every time I treat myself or my Sister Friends to delicious olives, its almost like a pause in time to worship the Goddess in each of us. 

Truthfully, I haven't done any research to see if there is any Goddess lore associated with olives.  There must be.  But its always this Moment.  To savor, to feel the succulence, the tart salty juiciness.

Yum.

Rumi's wisdom...

A little pearl that just fell on my lap while in the midst of some deep life pounderings.

"Forget safety. Live where you fear to live. Destroy your reputation. Be notorious."

~Rumi

What would life be without Rumi?

My Sacred Life Project: Day 1

The My Sacred Life Project is an amazing exercise started by the beautiful Carla at Zena Musings.

It is an attempt to capture a photo every day for however long you can or choose to, of something from your daily life that connects you to Spirit.

Carla writes:

"My Sacred Life isn't really a challenge -- that sounds too strenuous -- it's really more of a softening ... into a moment, a treasured possession, a companion -- people, parts and places of your everyday life that you cherish. Whatever is sacred to you."

I think its a beautiful idea, and a wonderful way to creatively practice gratitude and mindfulness.  Anyone is free to join in, so if this calls to you go to her site and let her know you will be participating.  I am wanting to try to post an image everyday, and will be gentle with myself if I don't get to do it as often as I can.  I am also thinking of creating a set for these images on my Flckr page, and will include a link to that set when its created later on this evening.

The image above is a macro shot of one of the art pieces I created for my Trees of Life series.  I love art that re-minds. This piece is on sale, but I have it hanging on my wall in my room just above my altar.  I have been renewing my breath practice.  Sinking in to whatever nuances happen to surprise me while letting every single thing fall away but the sound and sensation of each inhale and exhale.  It is the sweetest revolution...

 

Art And The Power of Etsy

The last few weeks have been a flurry of painting, reading and prepping for the launching of my Etsy store!  Tada!!!!

LUNAR ADORNMENTS IS HERE!!!!

There is also a nifty Mini Etsy on my side bar that you can peek at and click on to take you there.

I don't think that I will ever feel done with it, so I am finally unveiling it here.  I have been watching myself as I go from blissful art mode, where I am lost in the colors, to stressed out production mode.  Which isn't at all the energy I want to infuse my art with.  So what you have is what is done, while the other bigger undone pieces stare at me from their corner of the room daring me to defy them and their very own process of becoming.

The image above is of a Mandala piece I was making last week.  I was so into finally seeing the end results that I pulled out the hair dryer and began trying to speed dry the paint so that I could move on to the next layer of work.  I laughed at myself.  I have done this before, but I finally saw how completely impatient I am for things to develop as they need to.  This is such a metaphor for every single other thing in my life.  Its painful sometimes.  Another reminder to breathe.  Just breathe with what is wanting to happen right in the moment. 

I'm excited about doing this.  My dream has always been to work for myself creating art and writing.  This is the first step to doing that.  I love being home and feeling like I am playing, but its actually work, but play, but prayer, but love... All of it.  Its also a beginning.  My love right now is the journals.  But the bigger vision are the Book/zines.  Not quite a book, but much much more then a zine.  Yes.

Thanks to all of you who have sent me words of support and excitement.  Its a fun time.

Blessings!
e