An Artist's Quest for "Soul" in a Chaotic World—by InnerSpirit

This is my InnerSpirit blog page...a page of reflection...inquiry...
and artistic questions about myself, my life, and the world around me. A place for my own personal contemplation of my emotions, my actions, my art, my spiritual journey and how they all intertwine and influence each other. I hope that you check it out, think a little about your life and the many creative things that you might be engaged in...how do those fit into your life and impact the various aspects of your own life? Let's reflect together!

Saturday, November 28, 2009

Catching Up After The Holiday


I have gotten pretty behind on my Art Every Day Month Challenge with Thanksgiving falling during this month. I am going to be spending the rest of the weekend catching up on my blog and showing the various AEDM things that I have been working on. I apologize for the fact that I am not going to be posting all of my creative undertakings in chronological order. I am choosing to post the Mandala that I did today for my Circles Of Time Mandala Series (Day #28 of Art Every Day Month), and then I am going to go back and blog post some of the other art pieces that I have been working on for the last few days.

Relaxing Into The Creative Flow
This morning was a good morning to just relax with my coffee, some nice Joe Henderson: The State of the Tenor saxophone music playing, and taking advantage of the sun shining into my dining room (a rare event the last few weeks, since it has been dark, overcast, and sometimes raining the last few weeks here). It was a nice morning time to recuperate from the last few days. I just allowed myself to enjoy creating the flowing lines and the nice little design elements that began to form on this piece as it went along. In the end I wrote the following free association words around the Mandala. [ • Rain • Robins • Respite & Relaxation • Random • Relinquish • Rejuvenate • Replenish • Recharge • Responding • Rebirth • Respite • ]

The words seem fitting after a long, and eventful Thanksgiving Holiday. I had a great time with friends and I enjoyed a wonderfully decadent dinner, but I was very tired on Friday and I am just now starting to feel like I am coming back to life. I guess my Mandala message today was to spend time "rejuvenating my soul and my body", much like spring rain and robins rejuvenate the winter landscape...I will have to remember to treat myself well today.

Treat yourself to something that will rejuvenate you after your own holiday time. Take a bubble bath, get a massage or find someone who is willing to give you one for free, take a swim at your health club if you are a member, go to a museum/art gallery, take in a movie, or just treat yourself to a nap in the middle of the day. We owe it to ourselves to pamper our soul and body after a stressful, tiring, or just an eventful holiday with friends and family. You owe it to yourself...INDULGE! Feel free to share how you chose to spend this indulgence time with yourself, I would love to hear of what other things you are doing that I might like to treat myself to during the next holiday!

10 comments:

  1. Hi Diane, I apologize for such a quick stop...I LIKE your mandala! Interest choice of colors and I like the rhythm you achieve...and it looks great!

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  2. I love this mandala! Enjoy a wonderful weekend of self-rejuvenation! Now...my bath awaits me.

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  3. Sweet of you both to stop by and check out my Mandala art. Yes Peggy, I thought the color choices were kind of interesting too, not my usually choices, but they seemed right for today. Funny how that happens.

    Shannon, I see that you are indulging in your own pampering tonight with a bath. That sounds just "glorious", unfortunately, that is not an option at my household since there appears to be some leak in my tub either in the drain itself or worse, a hairline crack of some sort in the tube. It leaked last time through the kitchen ceiling, we can only take showers right now, that does not seem to cause a problem. I will have to look into it further after AEDM.

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  4. Beautiful mandala design. I love the colors and patterns. The longer I look at it the more things I find.

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  5. Diana...thanks for your comment. The colors were an odd choice for me as you can see from my other comment above, but they seem to work and I like that they created that feeling for you. I love your new horse painting too...hope you are also enjoying your new "real" horse.

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  6. Melia...Thank you also for your nice compliment. I sure appreciate you visiting me here.

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  7. Gypsy...That's cool that you also include words. Isn't it wild how they sometimes just "speak" to you in such profound ways? I love to include them in collage too for the same reason. Thank you for saying hello!

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  8. Brilliant and still simple. Poignant expression of all life. Red for blood, Green for organic. I have never seen the handprint theme so visably attuned to the imprint of life on all levels of reality. I see an atom, an amoeba, a blue star about to go supernova. Body, spirit, soul.

    I have not painted in twenty years. I have to try and get it back into my schedule after the first of the year. Thank you for this image. I absolutely adore it.

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  9. Hi Mike...Thank you for finding your way over to my blog. What a wonderful comment that you made about my Mandala being so symbolic of so many types of life for you! I never really saw all of those aspects until you pointed them out...very interesting. I like that you see the Body, Spirit and Soul all encompassed in this piece. I hope you are successful at getting your painting back into your life, art is very fulfilling in so many ways.

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