Reveling In The Treasures Of Simplicity

I was having some trouble sleeping last night, I have that sometimes...maybe that is just the fun process of getting older. After laying in bed for hours without being able to get to sleep, I went to the internet for some possible solutions to my dilemma and found 10 Ways To Cure Insomnia. I started using this list to evaluate if I had done my part in preparing myself for adequate and healthy sleep patterns. I have found that as I have gotten older, along with a number of other significant changes, I have noticed that it is even more important that I get an adequate amount of sleep. No longer can I run on 5 hours or less of sleep and still be at my best (I suppose even when I was younger I was not ALWAYS in top form with little sleep...but maybe now it matters more to me how I feel, and how I react to the world?).

Checking The List
As I went through the list I realized that I was doing pretty good on 1-4, and 7. In addition, 8-9 did not apply since I am single, and #10 was a little hard to maintain since I have been working full-time while being a graduate student in what is now my second master degree. So I blew 10, was that my problem? Hard to say. As far as #5 and #6 went, I found these to be the most helpful. Even though I often read before falling asleep (usually a textbook is a great resource for that), most nights I do pray, and I listen to relaxing music sometimes also. This list seemed to be great for attempting to GET to sleep, but it seemed to not provide me with what to do when I already could NOT sleep. As I reread #5 and #6, I realized that I had to stop fighting the fact that I could not sleep which was causing me to get frustrated and anxious.

Mandala To The Rescue
Once I let myself off the hook by realizing that most of the things on the 10 Ways To Cure Insomnia list I was pretty good about, I decided to take the pray, meditate, and paper suggestions of #5 and #6 to heart and I decided to start another Mandala for my Circles Of Time Mandala Series at 2:00 a.m. Well, ironically when I was done I felt peaceful, relaxed and I was ready for sleep even though it was 3:00 a.m. I have learned that being creative does not always come at the most convenient times, but I have found if I can just let it flow as it does come, it can provide the right comfort at the "right time".

Words To Live By
The free association words that I wrote along the outside of this Mandala proved to be very insightful to me. They read "The power of HUMILITY reins...RELINQUISH control and seek and you will find. Revel in the treasures of SIMPLICITY—SEEK NOT—What is not for you to find...knowingly surrender". Wow! These words really spoke to me. I wondered to myself how much of my inability to fall asleep was around trying to plan, control and otherwise foretell or imagine what my future career, school and life in general, held for me. I often find that I spend way too much time in thoughts about the future and a good amount of time dwelling in my mind about the past. I am consciously trying to remain in the present and to experience life as it unfolds with God's plan. It's hard when you are guilty of being a "Control Freak" about some things. I am definitely getting some messages about learning to relinquish that control and learning to live more simply and to question less the things that I don't really need to be concerned with. Faith...it paves the way if we listen.

We Are All In This Together
Do you suffer from difficulties getting to sleep or waking up at odd times in the night? What do you do to help yourself get to sleep or get back to sleep? Do you ever try anything creative such as creating art, playing the guitar, writing in your journal, creating poems or songs? Have these types of right brain activities helped you to quiet your left brain "analytical" processing that might be keeping you up and making you anxious or frustrated? I would love to hear your thoughts about my Mandala message, and any of your own personal stories about sleep or your lack of it. I would welcome your comments and I may even find some other ideas of how I might relax in the night for the future.

Blessings and Love,
D.

Bouncing With The Glow Of The Holiday

Once again, I am posting from the Art Every Day Month Challenge, this was my art activity for Day #27, which was the day after Thanksgiving. I have only three more posts and I will have it all up for everyone to see. I am slowly trudging along, slow but steady as they say. I would rather trudge ahead slowly, than not move at all...so here I go!

This year I was lucky to be invited to one of the best Thanksgiving celebrations that I have ever attended. After many consecutive years of spending this holiday with my family (I am a prime target each year for ALL holidays now that I have officially been single for close to four years), I chose to do something different this year. During the years that I was in a relationship, the holidays were negotiable as to what ones were spent at what parents house. I know this may sound bad, but I liked the variety that this arrangement provided. Since I have been single, it is just assumed that I will have "nowhere" to go, I will just be alone and depressed, sitting at home eating Kraft macaroni and cheese and drinking myself into a stupor. Maybe that is over exaggerating, but I sometimes wonder. This year I chose to add some spice back into the event when I accepted an invitation from a couple of very good friends of mine to spend the holiday with them and their very large family of four daughters, their husbands, their grandchildren, a brother and his wife, and an elderly uncle from out-of-town. This was a lot of people, but it was "glorious"! So different from my small family.

A Bouncing Ball Of Energy
After such a wonderfully exciting and fun holiday, I was exuberant the following day! I got up, shot off to the gym, treated myself to a hazelnut latte, and came home to create my Art Every Day piece, Day #27. Once again, I chose to play with the spontaneity of the moment. I took out a big pad of 18x24 inch paper, pulled out some big bottles of tempera paints (you know, the ones that we got to use as kids in school or art class) and squirted out some big blobs of each color on some paper plates and went to work. What I ended up with kind of reminded me of a big ball of energy, so I called it "Energy Ball". So original you are probably thinking. Yes, that's why us artists get paid the big bucks! (Refrain your laughter to a minimum please).

Glowing Emotions
Anyway, I thought it really captured my emotion for that day in visual form. I had lots of fun with it at least. Have you ever tried to just paint the emotion you are feeling at a particular moment of your life? Or have you asked yourself what certain emotions might look like if you had to represent them in painted form or some other art medium of your choice? This exploration can become a finished art piece, or it can just be a nice way to begin a painting session since it allows some connection to begin with that place in your heart and soul where our true art originates. Once the connection is ignited, or the wick is lit, it will continue to burn into whatever you choose to do next. Try it and let me know how it goes for you by posting a comment or a link if you would like.

Blessings and Love,
D.

Swimming Upstream

I am still trying to catch up on my blog entries from this past week, the holiday time and my daughter coming home from college has set me back a bit. Today is actually the last day of Art Every Day Month Challenge, but I am still posting art that I have created in the days prior to today. What can you do? Eventually I will be caught up. I am practicing cutting myself some slack and just doing what I can do and trusting that it will be okay. I don't have to measure of to anyone else's progress chart but my own.

Playing With Ink and String
As I mentioned in my last post, I used the couple days prior to the Thanksgiving holiday to do some loose, fun artwork that would keep my stress level down and provide some relaxation into my life. I created this piece for AEDM Day#25. As you may remember, I was picking my daughter up from college in Chicago on the 24th, so that day was very long and the following day, I was pretty tired. I began this piece by using a technique that I learned from an art therapy mentor of mine that involves dipping cotton string into India ink and creating various abstract shapes and spatters onto the paper. By dragging, dropping, spinning and laying the ink drenched string onto my paper I created some very abstract black shapes without any preconceived notion of what the creation might become. This aspect is very much like the Scribble Drawing "Flowering Lady" post, they both allow the artist to work very intuitively, which is just lovely for relaxing and letting go of your "inner critics" inhibitions.

Gazing Into The Water
Once the India ink was completely dry, I tried to find a picture that wanted to emerge from the abstract shapes. I began to see a striped fish first and I started to add some pastel colors to it. As I worked, I found a seahorse and another little pink fish come out to greet me. I finished the piece by adding some green seaweed and some nice blue swirls in the water that surrounded my sea creatures. In the end, I felt really pleased with my creation. I was kind of surprised that I was lively enough to actually create anything after all the driving the day before. If you look closely, all three of the sea creatures do have pretty droopy, sleepy eyes...especially the little pink one at the bottom. Hmm...something always carries into our work from our personal experiences. I have gotten caught back up on my sleep now.

More Art Every Day Month pieces to come!

Blessings and Love,
D.

Freeing The Flowering Woman From The Scribble

With the Thanksgiving holiday coming up around the corner, I chose to use the days prior to the big day as a way to just have some fun and relax with my art. I created this fun scribble drawing for my Art Every Day Month Challenge Day #23. I was going to be leaving the following morning of the 24th to pick up my daughter for her college holiday break from DePaul University, in Chicago, and I knew that day would be a long and tiring one. The drive was about 3.5 hours one way and then we had to pack up her luggage for a five week holiday stay, and then we drove the 3.5 hours back to Grand Rapids, MI. It's not really too bad of a drive, I used to live in Chicago for 10 years and I don't mind traveling there, but it makes for a long day to go there and back. I planned that I would not be able to create art for Day #24 due to this traveling day.

Squiggling To Music
I chose to use my body a bit when I created the blue scribble that this picture was formed from. I have found with my clients and workshop participants that doing body movements prior to creating art pieces will often open up a nice creative flow for them and it worked for me this day too. I danced and frolicked around, probably looking a little silly that morning if anyone other than my dog and cat had been around, but they are used to my crazy antics so they just slept with one eye open just to make sure nothing got out of hand. I cranked the old iPod up to some favorite tune and went to work. I also like to close my eyes when I do the scribble so that I am not inclined to force an image or to prejudge what is going on with the strokes.

Color Choices Are Interesting To Contemplate
I also like to pay attention to the color that I choose to make my initial scribble with. I tell those that I do this technique with that they need to sit with the colors that are available and see what color calls out to them to be used that day. I usually get some odd looks from some of them, especially if they are not used to being so intuitive with their art materials. But they usually humor me in the end.

Blue was my color choice of the day. I usually have a sheet of various color meanings that my clients/workshop participants can look at when they are trying to see if the color they chose for their scribble has any inner meaning for them. Since color is very subjective, much like the art itself, I like to have a list of some of the more common associations that people have had with each color and then I tell the artist to read through the list and if something jumps out and "resonates" with them they might want to pay attention to that or they may just want to jot down their own thoughts that they might associate with their color choice. I treat this also as a very intuitive process. I usually reserve this color reflection until the rest of the drawing is completed, so I just tell them in the beginning to respond to the color that calls to them and then to create their scribble.

Some of the meanings of blue that resonated with me on this day were loyalty, security and rebirth. It was kind of interesting later when I reflected on this color choice, that I had chosen to add a flower to the hand of this woman. Rebirth and flowering into something new?

The Final Drawing Emerges
As I squinted at the scribble and looked for a hidden image, much like the watercolor technique I did a few posts back, I saw this woman quickly emerge and she instantly grabbed my attention. I loved her style and something about her attitude was very appealing and strong for me to draw that day. In the end I added the blue lines to the scribble to form a flower for her to hold. Maybe it was the size of her nose that suggested that additional element for me? I'm not sure, but either way, when I was done with the drawing and I reflected on it's presence, I felt that she was a strong messenger for me. She had a very distinct style about her and she was not afraid to show it, it was what made her unique and she seemed to love her life. Hmm...I thought to myself, maybe I need to let more of my style out and embrace my unique qualities and gifts. We all have something to bring to this world. We should not be afraid of who we really are.

Do you ever try and hide your uniqueness sometimes behind the ways that society tells you that you should act, look, behave, etc. Try and let the "inner you" shine more openly, and see if you feel brighter and lighter because of it. We can all benefit from the unique nuances of each and every person in this world of diversity that we live in.

Blessings,
D.

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!

Holiday Fun in Douglas, Michigan

I decided yesterday that my Art Every Day Month Challenge for Day #21 was going to be "feeding my soul" so that I would have some things tucked away in there for future creativity. I was fortunate that several of my friends suggested that the five of us take a run over to Douglas, which is a small town by Saugatuck, MI (where my favorite beach on Lake Michigan is located, if anyone is interested). The trip is only about 35 minutes from my house in Grand Rapids, MI so it is a quick getaway...and during the holidays, the little shops and galleries are really decorated quite nicely as you can see from the photos...with the exception of the "creepy window dressing man" as we called him, that you will find below. I had to take a photo of him AND the three clown heads art piece that was in a gallery that we went in. There was certainly "something for every taste and interest".















I had a wonderful time laughing with good friends and we had a fantastic dinner at The Wild Dog Grille shown above with the wreaths lining the windows. The name of the restaurant is not any indication of the elegant menu that it holds and all of the luscious wines that they offer to their patrons. My dinner was Butternut Squash Ravioli in a Marsales Sauce with walnuts and onion complimented by a lovely glass of Malbec wine. I was in heaven. Let the holidays begin.

I even had one of the fun shop keepers, who was really decked out for the season, offer to have his picture taken with me since we had been admiring his little elf hat with the bell. I'll let you figure out who is who. Overall, it was a fun filled night, full of laughter, good food, good wine, treats and champagne at the little shops and galleries, carolers and even a nice hazelnut cinnamon fat-free latte for me. Decadence at it's best.

Blessings,
D.

Decay From The Inside Out

On Day #20 of the Art Every Day Challenge I found myself thinking a lot about about my friends and/or their friends and loved ones that have been either recently diagnosed with a serious, life threatening illness or who are suffering from chronic illnesses that they have been dealing with for a very long time. I found myself thinking about the cells in our bodies and how they are both very strong and very vulnerable at the same time. They are susceptible to so many things, nutrition, environmental threats, chemicals, stress, lack of exercise, limited hydration, the list goes on and on. It seems what frustrates me most are all the things that are not easily within our own control to change such as environmental issues and toxins in our foods etc.

I get really angry sometimes when I think about all the people that I care about that have illnesses that they cannot control and sometimes they can even feel like the illness wants to control them, or worse, kill them. Sometimes it actually does kill them. This iphone painting is about those feelings that I was dealing with today.

This piece is called "Killing From Within" and it is my visual representation of all of the internal wiring (or various body systems) that go "haywire" in the body when it's cells start to break down and a disease spreads. The disease grows and spreads outward and things break apart from within. The dark splotches are like rotting, spots of decay that is spreading into the body but might not normally be seen from the outside. Sometimes disease is seen externally and sometimes it isn't.

My prayers to all those who who suffer from disease. May God watch over you.

Blessings and Love,
D.

Effort Can Still Fall Short Of The Vision

I have finally gotten around to posting my Art Every Day Month Challenge piece for Day #18 and #19. Can you feel my obvious rebellion to posting? Even though I spent a lot of actual time on this piece, I feel like it still looks unfinished and amateurish to me. Ah, "give it up" and say, you tried something and "you have what you have". Life will go on. As you have probably gathered by now, I am not extremely pleased with the final result, though I like the second cropped version a little better (see the narrower image below). Do you ever have one of those times where the image you see is much more interesting than the way the piece turns out in the end? I have to look at it as an experiment. I figure this is God's way of telling me to remember to be humble. I tried a few new things, namely colored pencil on rough watercolor paper...I can't say I am a fan of the effect, or at least my own execution of the technique. I have done this hidden imagery watercolor work before to produce a few pieces, but at that time, I went back into the original abstract watercolor pieces with more watercolor lines to define areas and then added some other mixed media stuff and those pieces seemed to work better for me. I might play with this one in Photoshop and see if I can do something else with it...you never know.

A Process Of Exploring Imagination

The process that I followed to create this art did allow me to enjoy engaging the  imaginary, playful side of my personality and that is always good. They say this type of imagination work is good for keeping Dementia at bay, so Kudos for me...I'm not getting any younger! Here is the process that I did, in case anyone wants to try it. It is a really fun process and it always provides new ideas and visual shapes to challenge your imagination, much like dragging or dripping India ink to make shapes on the page and then finding the hidden image.

Here we go: 1) Wet a sheet of watercolor paper (I use a watercolor block of cold pressed paper so that I don't have to stretch the paper before starting, but you can do the stretching if you want to). Cold press or rough watercolor paper is preferred over the hot press papers due the fact that they are both rougher, and they allow the pigment to settle into the crevices and create really cool shapes when you complete Step 3. 2) Once the paper is thoroughly wet; pour, drip, or spatter watercolor paints of any color combination onto the wet surface. 3) While the paper is still wet, take a sheet of plastic food wrap (or more than one if you are working on a very large sheet of watercolor paper) and lay it over the paint. Once you have it on the surface, take your fingers and "scrunch" it up is some areas or push areas together so that the plastic wrap has lots of wrinkles and crevices for the paint to flow into. 4) Set the watercolor sheet, with the plastic still attached to it aside to dry thoroughly. 5) Once it is completely dry, slowly peel back the plastic to reveal some lovely abstract images that you can work with (you can see a sample below of how the watercolor sheet that I drew into looked after the plastic was removed–this is a portion that I cut off, but you can get the basic effect). The shapes are always different.

Once you have your abstract shapes, squint a bit at them a bit or spin the paper in each direction and look patiently until you find some imagery that is waiting to come alive for you. This is a lot like finding shapes in the clouds when you were a kid. If you aren't inspired with found imagery, these shapes are still fun to embellish as abstract art or they can be used as a background for another art piece.

Have fun and let me know if any of you try this fun technique. I would love to see posts or any art you do with this if you are willing to share. This process is usually quite relaxing, that is, IF you do not get too frustrated and overwork the piece trying to get something to work...like I did.

Happy Painting,

D.

What Does Playing Do For The Soul?

I have been working over the past two days on my Art Every Day Month Challenge piece that is shown here. It is my offering for both Day #16 and #17. I drew in the big shapes with the colored markers on Day #16 and I managed to finish up the many details while I drank my coffee and sat in the sun that was streaming into my dining room this morning. It seemed deceivingly warm to me, but I was forced back into a midwestern Fall reality when I took my dog out and I realized that it was quite brisk and windy. Once I was back inside, I was pleased that I could feed two important needs at once, my creative "innerspirit" and my physical and emotional need for sunshine. More and more is being found out about the importance of adequate vitamin D in our bodies and the sun is a great source of that in a natural form. This time of year in Michigan it is a little too cold for me to enjoy being outside drawing for a couple of hours, so sitting inside at the table was a good way to still benefit from the warm sun.

A Planetary Mandala Drawing Emerges

I just allowed myself to play with the shapes and lines again today with this Mandala since it is also part of my Circles In Time Mandala series. I did try today to stretch the series a bit by doing a mixed media Mandala. After playing with the watercolor Mandala on Day #13, (see the previous post if you would like to see this image) I felt that I could take some artistic liberty and use whatever I wanted on this Mandala and it still would be part of the same series since it was the same size, I approached it the same way, and it was still being used for the prayer/meditation time that it was intended to create for me. I really became quite involved in the intricate line work in this piece and it ended up looking like something from outer space, maybe a really cool planet that is yet to be discovered with many circling moons or suns? I listened to several soothing, contemporary Christian music selections, while I created, and I thought a lot about how God manifests himself in my life. I began wondering why it is so hard to see God sometimes in my life, and other times it seems that he is so very close that I can actually almost touch him...I felt closer to my creative source when I was done, which I believe for me, is God.

Missing AEDM Days Creations?
Those of you that are following this blog might wonder, what happened to Day #14 and #15? Well, I have to admit, Day #14 did not consist of any art, but I was excited that I did manage to do a little artistic "playing" in the way of incorporating music into my Day #15. I have not played my guitar much over the last year, it seems this goes in cycles for me. Sometimes I play a lot, and other times I move away from it and into other things. I enjoyed playing and singing a few songs, but I soon regretted having let it go so long when my un-calloused finger tips started hurting after only a few short songs...this should be reason enough to not let this pleasure go so far between music sessions. Singing and strumming the old familiar songs was a soothing and relaxing way to feed my creative and artistic soul. I find that music in all forms can really move quickly into my heart and it makes me feel alive.

What types of things do you do to feed your artistic soul? Do you take the time to "eat" regularly from this "soul food"? It is easy for us to push time for ourselves down to the bottom of our "To Do" list, even society would tell you that art and artistic endeavors are "frivolous", especially if they do not make money. Don't buy into it, our soul needs the time and the honor of being "fed" and "cultivated", and in return, it will feed and cultivate us in many abundant ways.

Blessings and Love,
D.

Swirling Colors and Lines Free Me

I am a little behind on postings for my Art Every Day Month Challenge. I was out of town and without my laptop for a few days so I did not have the ability to post. I was in what I will call a "forced techno escape". I had my iphone with me, but I was only checking email infrequently and the idea of trying to post a whole blog entry by typing on that little keyboard seemed a little "crazy" to me unless I was a problogger and I was actually getting paid to get something up for those days that I was pretending to be "techno free". In addition, since I was doing traditional media artwork, I still had to photograph it, upload it, adjust it in Photoshop (which in this case still is not the most pleasing photos. but you get the idea anyway), and then get it into the actual blog entry. All of this is much easier when I have my laptop back and I am home. This way I get to sip my coffee, listen to some nice Diana Krall (a lovely, sultry,  jazz singer—if you are not familiar with her work) while I am blogging.

Relaxing Into A Meditative State
The Mandala shown here (in various cropped views to highlight the details) was created for Day #13 of Art Every Day Month, but it is also part of my Circles In Time Mandala Series that I am working on. I have not used watercolor yet in the existing Mandalas that I have created for this series, even though a lot of my primary artwork is in watercolor. I originally started my Circles In Time series with colored Sharpie markers, in various sizes, with the idea that it would be a very portable art form and that it would force me to think less about each Mandala having to be a "finished" art piece, and it would also allow me to focus more on it's prayer/meditative properties as I worked. I often say a prayer before I start or during the creation process, other times, I may simply take several deep breathes while reciting a simple breath mantra before beginning the work to help "center" or "ground" myself prior to drawing my beginning circle. The Sharpie markers are fun to work with and they have freed me up to new possibilities, but on Day #13 I was moved to work with a more flowing media for this little Mandala for something different for my Art Every Day Month piece.

Allowing My Body To Feel The Flowing Peace
I initially followed the same process as I always do for this small Mandala (all Mandala's in this series start with the same size circle of 7.5"x7.5" in diameter) by saying a prayer before beginning. On this day my prayer was simply "Lord, allow me to move freely into this space and to be held softly in your creative source as I rest and I am replenished by you".

I dipped my brush into the sweet, wet watercolor and rolled it out onto my paper, concentrating on the tactile feel of the brush in my hand and the soothing flow of the colors as they flowed into each other and onto my paper. Oh, how glorious this process felt to me. I wanted to live forever in the swirling colors and puddles of spontaneous exuberance. If only we never had to return to the complications of life. At some point my small Mandala was filled with color and it seemed time to put the brushes down and allow the paint to dry. In reality, I do have to admit that I cheated a bit with the drying process since I was so excited to add some details to the piece. I am guilty of using the blowdryer to speed up the drying in some highly saturated areas. You won't tell anyone will you?

Pulling Out The Details
Once the piece was sufficiently dry to accept another media, I started playing with my colored pencils and I began to add details as they came freely from my creative source. I loved playing with the various lines and working with the soft texture of the pencils on the slightly rough paper. It was very relaxing and it allowed me to continue to rest my analytical mind (which is often raging far too fast for my own good). I did not really have any preconceived notion of what the details would suggest, but in the end, as I reflect upon the piece now, they seem to suggest a kind of organic quality. Parts of the piece appear to suggest to me a marine theme of some sort containing organisms such as starfish, jellyfish and various aquatic plant life.

What do you see when you look into the Mandala? We all have our own interpretation of what is created by other artist's abstract imagery. As I look deeper into the work, there also appears to be a lot of roots and new growth budding in this piece... is this about my own stretching and growing? Sometimes I think am being forced to stretch and grow too quickly in some ways and other times I feel frustrated that I am not growing and stretching enough in other areas of my life...do you ever feel the push and pull of "growth and stretching" in areas of your life? How can you cultivate those areas that you would like to grow? You may also need to consider taking a break in areas that you may feel are moving too fast for you and in which you are having a hard time catching up. This racing often causes internal stress. It's okay to slow down a bit, we need to give ourselves permission to be where we need to be. Only you know where that is at any given moment in your life.

(This Mandala can be viewed in it's whole circle form on my InnerSpirit facebook page in the Circles In Time Mandala Series).

Much Love and Blessings,
D.