regrouping

Sometimes it is truly better to be away from one's creative work.

I started this morning by walking down our long private driveway in my pajamas with the camera to catch the morning light.

This great mast of a maple must come down soon as it is rotting from the inside.

Such a pity; I will miss it.

These mysterious beauties are growing just about to the right of me as I took that last picture.

Don't they look somewhat ominous!

The Echinacea or Coneflowers have a white imposter growing amongst them- a Shasta Daisy.

I do love to walk in nature when it is so-o quiet in the morning.  I keep expecting to come upon some creature that never expected to find me there.  But the only thing I scared up was a bright green leopard frog that went bounding through the grasses as I approached.

It was another day out of the studio.  It rained most of the day.  I took a friend's invitation to run off to the farmers' market in town and scraped up enough pennies, with her help,  to buy a fully rooted basil to plant at home.  Regrouping after a disjointed week and a half of waiting for the roofers to come and go still has me reassembling the house after removing pictures and other art from the walls.  Now we're talking about painting- the walls that is.   We've been talking for quite a while now about down-sizing, but the house still needs an overhaul before we can put it on the market.  It is a wonderful place to live, but requires the attention I'd rather be putting in my artwork.  I can't help but feel I will regret a move even though I know it is the practical thing to do.

I often half-jokingly call us  'grasshoppers'  because we neglect the work we should do in the summer.

Wally says he could cry when he looks at his "poor garden".   He never meant to neglect it,  but once the moose and deer got in it,  it was never the same.  Still, there are a few stray tomatoes and some zucchini or squash in there somewhere .

Creativity is like a garden.   It is still alive with growth;  just not the growth we intended.

Left fallow,  there is the much needed rest the soil (soul) requires,  still full of potential when one is ready to start back at it.   I have a lot of incubating to do as I rethink the point of my etsy store.  When I started it,  it was meant to be incentive for me to have a daily habit,  as was this blog for that matter.  But there is an artificiality to this discipline  I require of myself that has nothing to do with matters of the heart.  You will often hear about  'showing up' for the daily routine of creativity as if it were a 9 to 5 job.   While that may be great for a direction already chosen,  I'm not convinced it is the way to find one's true calling,  or "bliss" as Joseph Campbell would call it.   Within my love of creativity lays a golden nugget that has more to do with hearing my soul's voice  than making just any old thing.   I don't really want to just make stuff.   Each session for me is like a prayer,  a communion with my higher self.

I know there is something very special calling me if only I will be still enough to hear it.  I share this with you because I think it must matter to you too.

I'll stop here as it is late.  A warm welcome to eveyinorbit who I discovered 2 days ago on etsy.

Believe in your dreams.

  There is something wonderful waiting for each of us

if only we would give it the space to come in.