Eternity in my Heart

I want to write. I want to write. Such a good feeling when inspiration bursts out of you isn’t it..

Exactly as my digital art is portraying today is how it feels. The original inspiration is not mine but it is all my own drawing. No tracing.. I have a coffee beside me. I feel happy and free. It is cold outside my window. Grey sky and cold air. There are bright yellow daffodils that are dancing in the wind. I love the garden outside my bedroom window.

I did have to push myself to finish that art last night.. I actually prayed. LORD this is taking so long and as I zoomed in on the digital painting there was so many pixels that were not right. Yeah the bad thing about digital art is you can zoom right in close and it’s not always pretty. I will say I am not really an artist. I don’t really know what I am doing. I haven’t done many classes or even seen a class live or sell my art. I cannot always understand what the artists I watch via the Internet are doing because often I cannot hear the instructions. I really do feel novice when it comes to following even things I can see. I am not putting myself down. Some people have gifts and talents and they just do things exceptionally well and pick it up quickly. I am not gifted.. I can do things but it is a bit hit and miss for me. I am learning and improving but I don’t feel near where I could be if the talent was already inside of me and honestly you know people notice and are drawn to talent and as nice as the people are who notice my art and I am so thankful for those who support me. My art isn’t wowing the masses and that is ok.. LOL Definitely not a natural at it. I am still so thankful for being able to share it and be free with it as I am. It keeps me going I tell you.

I prayed LORD I do not want to give up. Help me. And HE really did help me. I believe I finished enough to be personally satisfied. My youngest daughter saw it last night and liked it. My bestie in Canada said it was ‘nice’ lol.. But I like it and I am happy with it.. I see GODS hand upon me helping me because it could have been so easy to just not finish it.
Thank You LORD I see your hand on me that I got it done and your strength and power in me that I am writing today and that I feel so happy and inspired because there has been days it has been a struggle to even do the basic things. Because this art it says so much how I feel and ohh that is a miracle of sorts to get that out of me.

My life is very stay at home even before we were ordered to stay at home. Art expression is another world to me.. Helps me bring what is inside to the outer and when I share it I honestly feel like fist pumping the air it feels that good. Like my inner introvert self has become just for a moment an extrovert.

I often feel like I am in a world of my own and although in my art it is depicted as pretty art or even inspirational art.. It is because I love the world around me and it is because my art depicts my spiritual world..

I see God in the world around me and it strengthens my faith.. gives me zest for life despite difficult days. Living from my Spirit is to me more important then physical life..

So hence the flower field where the woman is standing but she is standing alone and that is significant.. The sunset is behind her and I am so thankful for sunsets, flowers, gardens and animals.. Many earthly things like that in our world are daily inspiring to me. Despite disabilities. Despite trials and tribulations there is still much beauty and comforting things around us.. I am aware of them and they help me get through this life and the life I have been given.

But I do still struggle. Quietly. I do not like to burden people with my trials. I mean I would talk their ears off lol if they gave me long enough because look at this picture. I cannot communicate easily being deaf.. I am an emotional creature and I hardly talk to anyone much and I feel so many many things. My online bestie in Canada some days, many days I struggle to think of things to say and the chat is very limited it is a miracle he stays a friend. It is hard when you do not communicate much you kind of lose the ability to say it out loud. I have all of this stuff inside me though.. And just like in my digital painting it is going to burst out.. It needs too. LOL.. And I am so thankful when I can write because that small trickle I usually have to contend with.. it gets to running a nice steady stream here. And I have to write like this despite the lack of people to read it or be around me to hear it. I have to burst out somewhere and at least this way people have the choice to read or not and I am not annoying them with a one sided blast of things I feel and think and hope etc..

Heaven is better.. Is the name of a recent heading in a daily devotion book I use not so daily.. Lol. But I have been using it sometimes.. When I have struggle days when Netflix becomes a welcome escape but still you finish watching it and there’s a longing for more that doesn’t seem to be fulfilled.

I like to imagine myself in heaven. What it would be like to step into it from this life I live. A daydream if you will. This devotion ties in nicely with this art too.

In my devotional this scripture was at the bottom of the page. ‘Eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor have entered into the heart of the man the things which God has prepared for those who love Him.’

1 Corinthians 2:9

A niece Kayla when she was much smaller gave me that verse years ago. I never forgot it I think it was a Sunday school project or something. Some things stick in your memory and when they resurface they encourage you.

So like my art expression encourages me.. So does dreaming of heaven.

Of imagining stepping into heaven which is like another world from this one to a place where I am not disabled, where there is no relationship drama. I mean anyone I meet there you’d have connection with.. No shame. No sadness. No one turning away from you because you were strange.. In heaven they’d all welcome you and you would relate to anyone I mean oh wow.. You would have no fear. No failure. You would never feel alone or separate to everyone else and the world would be full of love, acceptance and belonging. Warmth.. Light.. Colors but you wouldn’t be alone with it or feel alone.. And you could be fully you there in every sense. And the LORD would be there. Face to face.. Imagination is a good thing.. Light and love and beauty.. GOD with us but visible.. I found there was no rush to see HIM even stepping into heaven using imagination or funnily enough no rush to see family that have passed on already I guess even in my imagination you are aware that eternity is forever so there’s no rush.. that peace I already know here on earth is there too.

Maybe living the way I have concentrating more on Spirit I am more aware of HIM here with me and on the days I am heaven minded or spiritual minded I do not feel my aloneness and I am content as I am.
I love how the mind and spirit can be at peace even as you imagine. Heaven inside seems to burst out of me here on this page. I feel so happy right now. Even though truthfully there are nights I have cried for a human to love me and be beside me and cried because my heart longs for meaningful connections. The physical world and spiritual world are so different. Polar ends to each other yet our spirit lives in our body.. Fascinating when you think of it.

Yet despite limitation’s and frustrations in my physical world.. My Spirit is content even as I am when I live from it. Otherworldly power at work that lifts your mind, heart, emotions upwards which draws you away and apart from all the lower things and you will notice that earthly things and concerns seem not to matter at all. The things that might confuse, sadden, rob, destroy you and even as amazing as the physical world is.. there is as God says much much more to come..

Higher life and more amazing life to live IS possible than even I can imagine.

I hope my thoughts, my spirit, my art.. God experienced through my imperfect self encourages you right where you are.. Eternity is not just for when we die..

It is within us and at our work in us.. even now.

A Gentle Soul

If you are ever going to know someone personally.
If you are ever going to see a soul.
It is in how one expresses themselves.
And no. Not in how one dresses. Or in how one spends their time.
One is seen when the heart is expressing itself freely without fear.
It’s when you can best view the essence of ones spirit.

Soul flows best when one doesn’t expect it to be one way or another but just accept it as  it is. No force is needed.. its just natural and harmonious.
When we are fully living as we are created to be it invites us all to be at peace.
We all can enjoy our own individuality but also as each takes our rightful place in the circle of life we just fit better together.

How much I have loved creating this digital painting.
I cry even writing about this.
It is a painting of my son and I love him so.
He even helped me name this art piece.
Which I will further explain.
An art piece is as much about the artist as it is about the matter or person\subject painted and it is also as much about how the artist feels about it personally.. as to how it is portrayed.

I was letting my soul/spirit paint..

This young man. This beautiful young man.. This gentle soul is my second eldest son.. Yes I know I share him with his dad too but for the sake of my personal writing and feelings I will use my instead of our.

I also want to thank GOD.. I had started this art way back maybe 2 months ago?
I stopped as I do with many things I take on.. But last night and today I picked it up again.. And I have been determined to finish it.
I got very frustrated with parts of it that I have worked on over and over for ages..
To be honest I asked God for help.. I just couldn’t get it to go the way I wished.. I do not really think I have talent perse because I am lazy and I procrastinate so I do not deserve to have that said about me. But I can see that now it is finished I am happy and God somewhere along the way has come alongside of me and helped me that is obvious. I want to honor him by giving thanks!!
I really like it now and somewhere along the way I started doing different things and kept doing and redoing them till I was happy with it and I really love how it has turned out.

I added hot pink in it to show my spirit and soul working. I added gold and orange to show GODS vitality of spirit working with me and helping me bring forth the essence.

I believe Spirit in art and life is most important. I love the abstract bright colours so they just complete the background perfectly and make Keanu kinda shine.. To me it all resonates the absolute worth of acknowledging Spirit.. I’ve experienced it right here and now doing this art and writing and it just beautifully means everything fits together perfectly even if it appears imperfect..

Keanu is a beautiful soul. And yes my mother, his grandmother and I both agree a gentle soul.

He has not had it easy this year.. He doesn’t have a job and as I am on a disability pension, single mum, don’t have a paying job and no longer have dependent children. I too am on a very low income and you just cannot do the things everyone else does.. I understand how difficult it is not having a lot of cash and what one would call a standing in the community. People do look at you differently when you haven’t got much money and can even discredit you. It affects how you look, where you go, how you interact with others and how you leave your footprints in this world and I think even how you present yourself.
It means there is only so much you can do and you tend to withdraw from everything where you do not fit, can’t afford it and which also means people need to help you financially if you wish to interact with them..

I am so thankful for souls that have been so generous with me!!!

But in general I do not focus on my outward self very much which unfortunately also means I keep my physical self absent from many but on the upside expressively speaking I see my art in the world as also my presence. That probably doesn’t count the same to many though.

I don’t just want my art piece of Keanu to be something only for private viewing so art gives me a reason and a purpose to be somewhere and sharing it a reason to show up. This is where my heart can best be found.. I freely let my soul pour out here with many words that I just do not have the same liberty or ease to share deeply with anyone in the normal physical world. I actually need this.. like air to lungs.. or water to a parched desert.

I can even take heart in the hours of pouring myself into digital art, hours spent honing my writing and working my skills into what feels like a meaningful connection even though I am sitting alone in my bedroom…

Time and emotions are my commodity which is thankfully something I do have a lot of to give and as it has always been so with my creativity it is always such a joy to share it even when sometimes nobody is here reading and very little is flowing back to me.

To share ones creative heart to me is Spiritual life and I truly hope it’s not just a selfish one sided pursuit, but that it is a continual freely giving of myself and sharing my faith which will or does do something for even one other soul.. To me it feels a fullness that never ends once it starts flowing and I think it does vibrate my essence out into the world as only Spirit can and wonderfully internet takes all that I have to offer to even the other side of the world. I can’t wait till I finally come into what is actually happening in this creative journey because God doesn’t waste anything it all means something.. I just have not been privy to much greater meaning for it on a human level apart from the joy of sharing and some looking at it online and two very supportive online friends who’ve cared about my art/heart and writing through the years.

Online is where we gentle but passionate hearts can release all that burns inside when we don’t find anywhere and anyone physically to bring it forth too or even can in such a way as to be heard and seen daily..

You cannot gain a thing from the worth of a soul in just knowing the physical body until you start interacting with them and for us introverts we can take heart here cause what we lack in physically putting ourselves out there we can focus on the spiritual and there’s no barriers here and I don’t believe it’s for nothing..

That is why I can be at peace working on bringing Keanu’s spirit into digital art form and sharing my thoughts and feelings on it via this blog and I have given him a kind of vitality and beauty of soul realm that may perhaps look more perfect of form then I meant it too. But if you look closer you will see I also worked in sort of a scribbly detail too. The scribbles keep true to my kind of messy soul and roughness of life and the way life can be too.
And you can only see them when you view it up closely.. I think true value and worth has to not just be from first glance and especially not from others opinion but rather from a deeper introspection. It is also when you do not just see and judge the scribbles as imperfection but value them as part of the whole that makes one unique and I think all the more interesting.

Worth of soul only comes from knowing where true value lies and that is where God looks too and you really do grow to a much greater depth in life to partake of it. You can draw that essence deep into yourself. Not only noticing the outward but dwelling on the richness of what really matters.. Ones greatest treasure rises from within and if we give it wings and value it.. it brings a richness to everything else I think.. It is incredibly powerful to live from Spirit because this is the realm where God says the Kingdom of heaven is to be found.. In us.. Wow!!! I guess when it all boils down I hope my art shows this realm.. This realm which flows from within us and gives us so much abundance. The true value of a soul is found here!!!

The name of the painting isn’t just because Keanu is a gentle soul. It came from a conversation we both had not too long ago..

The other day I was asking him why not approach your dad who is manager of security at our local city hospital and even other major aged care units in the city too. As manager he is responsible for many security staff and is often looking out for new guards.. Often in the last few weeks and also at various times in the past he’s had to cover shifts on top of his normal busy job as manager when there isn’t enough staff.
I know hiring family is not the done thing, isn’t encouraged at all and hasn’t been an option.. But humanly I get so fed up sometimes that Keanu really needs work and they do at times require staff and his Dad IS the Manager. So to me it seems silly to not be considered when he is always available, able to work and also needs work?!?!

Anyway he said to me recently along these lines ((as a deaf person I cannot quote word for word EVER))

“Mum security work isn’t the sort of work I am interested in…”

I am like hmmm… impatiently and loudly emphasising the hmm…

Both Keanu and his father get frustrated with me cause I have asked before and haven’t yet given up asking.. lol.. Security work of course does take a certain kind of person though. Not everyone is suited..

Keanu also added..

“But Mum..

I am a gentle soul…”

Ohh… be still my heart.. Yes Lol.. Of course he is..
I am much the same myself.. He is my son after all..

I smile.. And go ahhh yes of course Keanu.. I just love that he said that… that he says that about himself. It is so important to accept such things about ourselves such as being gentle etc

So yes I do understand you have to be a certain type of person to be in that line of work and yes I do agree being in this kind of work isn’t the best for gentle souls like us and YES… my son IS indeed a gentle soul.<3 ❤

…….

Take Courage My Heart

I wish I could just do art and not go into it but sometimes I just need to explain some more.. I do not even know what it means till I look at it after I create it and then think about it some.. then it amazes me how meaningful it is.

I rarely if ever plan.

This art piece came to me in pieces. It is based off a photo. A photo that means a lot to me and I always knew I would want to do an art piece on it since I took it but yeah ask my youngest daughter I am never in a hurry.

The photo was taken on recent holidays to the beach. Family holiday that included my mother, brother, sister, both my siblings families and also my 5 children! It was a fantastic time!

The photo was taken on the last day after we had already left the accomodation and actually it was because for once in my life I made a plan and that is how everyone came to be there… Coffee at the beach cafe together before taking off for home!

I did not notice the pigeon at the time.. my sister did and told me. It was sitting on a ledge above the coffee house tables in an outdoor area where the family was sitting.

White birds appearing have been a thing for me. I see it as an encouragement from GOD. It is incredibly life affirming and personal for me…

Now the reason this one really inspired me to take a photo, do an art piece and write about it is…
That only moments before I saw it I had sent a friend request to my sister via face book. We had not been connected on face book for quite some time and for years have had a distant relationship.. At my request.

That is not something I care to explain in full in this writing. I will just say that it was something I felt strongly I needed to do.. I did not take it lightly but unfortunately I do not think many people understood my side or my feelings etc.. it actually made my life harder in many ways.. But I do take pride in the fact I stood up against things that were hurting my soul and causing me harm.. I do believe I have healed up with Gods help and because I did not do the easy thing but stood against it God has rewarded me..

For all that I lost God gave me greater gains.. one of those things has been taking a whole new path in art expression which has really been birthed out of a long and difficult period of my life..

I have found my peace perse about it. And will add that I had for awhile desired to change things but it didn’t seem the right time and it was on this holiday I decided it was the right time..

And therefore that is why I decided to add my sister back on my face book and it was my quiet way to take a step towards reconciliation and strangely nobody has said anything at all about it since lol but that is very normal.

At this point only moments later my sister saw the bird.. I also added a small message to say that I thought we should keep the momentum of the holiday going but that it was totally her choice to add or not add me back.

I had simply done all this while quietly sitting at the table surrounded by family typing it out on my iPhone before hitting send.. It was actually quite a huge thing for me because Face book is a place where I can communicate without deafness robbing from me and it’s been my safe place..

But nobody noticed and that has been the way it has been all along.. I for the most part have had to deal with it alone.

So perhaps there is significance in this quiet and gentle way I dealt with it. Humanly I have no idea why nobody talks about such things but we just don’t.

I do not think Shell (nickname for Rachelle) would have even seen the request at the time and didn’t appear too for a little while after perhaps even the next day I cannot remember now.

The encouragement for me was almost straight after I made that deliberate choice Shell saw the white pigeon and told me.

I had seen a similar white pigeon on a ledge of the Darwin hospital way back in 2007 when baby Tyler was in NICU which encouraged me then too.. I think I was 6 floors up at that time..

So to see this bird after I made a huge personal choice to seek peace seemed to me a sign from GOD it was indeed the very right time.

So my art today is symbolic of GODS Spirit and presence with me and to me it’s absolutely crucial to inspire me to keep looking up and not at what is or what is not happening.. Seeing that HE is helping me when I most need it. And too of course that my sister showed me the white bird resonates that even our enemies will be at peace with us.. Not that I call or ever called my sister an enemy but I know the enemy of souls uses people close to us to cause us harm.. And the enemy has certainly tested me to the extreme limits through a few close relationships and it hasn’t only been testing that’s come via my sister but with myself and her it got to the point I just broke down because the spirit I struggled with in a previous close relationship was attacking me through her as well. It was too similar and I couldn’t bear up under it any more.

Definitely seeing this bird at such a time shows me HIS peace and that I can trust the decision I made.. HE has never made me feel wrong in taking the stand I did rather people made me feel wrong.. I felt peace thankfully even when so many appeared to turn their backs on me and I lost support that perhaps could have helped me find strength and fortitude much much sooner..

I was broken.. and I needed to heal.. But true healing can only really come through God alone.

But I cannot keep looking backwards and surmise as it does not do one any good.. I tend to move forward and simply let go and let God.. The sign to me I was doing the right thing at the right time even despite the hardships has always been peace in my spirit.. I have never lost that since this moment above, nor have I felt anxious! I just tend to look to God not people.

There was a light bulb lit just like this below the bird on the day and in the photo too of course.. which I so love that I can capture this in my art piece.. His light with me. His presence and also symbolic that my prayer and heart cry has always been for my light to so shine and I believe for all that has happened the darkness has definitely not overcome me!!!

A very good sign to have the light shining in this art piece and it symbolizes that GOD has always been my guide and always will be and HE will take care of all things that have not been addressed re my past and that seemed an invisible battle to almost everyone and that nobody even seems to have noticed much then or now… but I take heart that they are certainly important to HIM and I can find complete rest for all things.

And wonderfully I want to and can share it now.. even if nobody knows the greater why..

One last note.. it is also my wedding anniversary today or would have been.

29 years since I married on this very date.. 10 years of being single ohh lol.. which is not so fun.. it’s hard I get lonely.. I find it hard at times seeing others celebrating love and all that and keep it to myself now cause I do not wish to take away any of someone else’s good feelings..

I wanted to stay married but my then husband did not.. it worked out though as we were not happy together and we are better friends now.. I’m just thinking about the date today and all that it means to me.. nobody has said anything.. just me thinking so this art piece comforts me today too.. God was with me in my past, is with me now in my present, & He is also already in my future so I can cherish the peace I experience and treasure these moments in my heart and from all this my heart takes courage..

****

She Remembered

I read those words in a novel I am currently reading and they stood out and motivated me to create this art and make a perfect heading.

Absolute struggle for me personally of late and this time I have told nobody except God alone. I don’t think I have ever done that before. Especially considering the intensity of it. I had a night of disturbed sleep and very dramatic dreams and I was struggling with what it all personally meant to me. Alone with it but I went straight to GOD and it was enough!! Peace came.. An absolute complete turn around in me.

The girl or woman figure in the painting is in black and white. No colour in her world. She craves it but you cannot change things sometimes no matter how hard you want it changed. I knew immediately that she was going to be in black and white and you were only going to see half of her face. She is right there easily accessed awake and waiting. But she’s struggling.

I wanted to add these words too which were my own truth.

She fails. She hurts. She’s anxious. She doubts. She has faults. She needs.

But what strikes me in my own life as I created this is that I can so very easily interpret it right here and there is so much meaning and I don’t intend for it, or work for it or even have to think it out. But yet I am able to easily see it in what I have created that it is flowing out of me with absolute ease..

I can tell you I am not one to easily explain myself to anyone even those closest to me and yes I didn’t recently tell anyone either even though it was such an intense battle I was facing. In fact my hardest battles have mostly been fought on my own. So it is from all this that my art expression in this painting finds its outlet.. And there’s this incredible difference between flesh and spirit and how I face the world when I live via one as opposed to the other.

So my black and white portrait despite the struggle is up nice and close, even in her rawness shes not staying small. She is incredibly upfront and vulnerable but to me that is bravery. My life too has been incredibly hidden yet I believe and can see that at least art wise, creative wise I am up front.

She is looking straight ahead. I find such strength here despite the fact I am writing raw words, hard words. Even void of colour she is still head forward, eyes opened and I think very fearless.
The painting is depicting that moment where she is remembering HIM and all that HE has become to her on her journey and how when that comes into the light faults don’t even matter in fact we can be shamelessly bold. I know I quote this alot. When I am weak HE is strong but I am going to take it even a step further because the well known verse talks about being able to boast about it and that this is exactly how best HIS help is seen in us and through us.. And it is exactly how it is in my life to especially me.

But here I think you can best see the juxtapose of my painting. The frail human next to the strong figure of Jesus who is the Christ yet they stand level and together as one. In HIS rich and vivid colours HE is full of beauty, majesty and also ever present help and is accessible to me but it is not by sight but by faith so I chose to have his eyes closed because HE is my rest and my comfort and I don’t need to see him to know HIM. I also believe that I can fully trust HIM to bring together all my loose ends and all that troubles me and it will be a great ending despite some very hard and long chapters..

I know many talk of walking and talking with HIM.. Hearing HIM and even seeing HIM.. I haven’t had that to a great extent in my life. It has been a pure faith walk.. Spiritual battle that is way beyond my strength and ability to cope and even make sense of… So I find incredible fortitude when peace fills my heart despite all that comes against me and all that falls away and all I fail at. Gives me rock solid unsinkable hope.

Changes the atmosphere around me and I can find my rhythm and express my faith in a way that paints purpose into my life and I also get the joy that comes because I share that with you. I resonate also with the red colours on his face.. There is pain in HIS face mixed with royal beauty and majesty and I resonate with the suffering HE went through coming to earth to live as a fragile human to help me find and access eternal life on earth even before I die.

This painting so lifts up my spirit because its so meaningful to my life, journey and testimony but its also honest about where I am and I who I am and I hope and pray you can see HIS strength because it is absolutely life changing especially when I have been so fragile and it is radiating in me so strong and beautifully even though people close to me only partly see me and that for the most part I have felt so black and white in this world ..

I don’t want to impress people with my talents that is not my desire at all. I want to show what GOD has done to help me through my difficulties and I know my weakness shows that up better then my strengths ever could.. HE is so real to me and so present. The inspiration behind the painting.. The creative ideas came from HIM. I had nothing I was nowhere even close to creating something like this but HE just makes that much difference and the peace that comes I mean you need no props and it didn’t come from anyone else at all so anyone can have all this as well right where you are and right now as you are. I truly was all those things I wrote. I just desire with all my heart to show what HE does for the fragile soul for the soul that struggles in this world and does not understand what is going on. But who can find hope, purpose and joy just in being who I am, and encourage you to find all these as you are and through who we are created to be… faults and all.

I was struggling but when I remembered it made all the difference..

HE is
I AM
LOVE
PEACE
TRUTH
LIFE

****

“Meg, I give you your faults.”
“My faults!” Meg cried.
“Your faults.”
“But I’m always trying to get rid of my faults!”
“Yes,” Mrs. Which said. “However, I think you’ll find that they’ll come in handy on Camazotz.”

From the movie ‘Wrinkle in Time’

Touched By An Angel

Just a lovely moment I wanted to share..

The Spirit is moving!! God does use angels to touch our hearts!! Connecting us in a myriad of incredible ways even across the world.. providing comfort, inspiration and strength.

I love Instagram it’s where I get so much inspiration.. meet with countless creative souls and also share my own photos & art.

Today I found myself at the Instagram account of Roma Downey. She posted a photo of her close friend Della Reese who recently passed.. It’s of a keepsake printed for family and friends as they came together to celebrate her life..

I’ve loved and admired both these women because of the tv series “Touched by an Angel”. Anyway I left a comment on the post saying something like “You will see her again one day.. but I know it’s hard to wait ❤️️.”

Not long after she liked my comment..

ATM there is over 3,000 comments and I don’t know how many were there when I posted but to even try to respond to so many is amazing..

Anyway what was most amazing is that I felt that exact moment in my heart.. I literally felt something touching my spirit when I saw a message pop up on my phone that Roma liked it..

I stood there a moment hand to my heart and experienced a real connection which is hard to explain but there’s an awareness of a connection with Roma’s spirit at that exact moment.. Heaven moving inside you l really don’t know how to explain it.. but it feels exquisite..

Once my feet touched the floor again I had to immediately go back and share that because something tangible was happening.. Roma is grieving.. it’s hard to say goodbye to someone we love no matter how many lovely memories and times we share.. you just miss their presence..

I just hoped that sharing that small moment might do the same and comfort her heart.. of course not even knowing if she’d see it..

Spirit transcends our grief, time barriers and also distance in some amazing way.. Amazingly she did see it!!

Snap shot of what I shared and Roma’s response below.. 😍 I realise re-reading it I spelt Della’s name wrong 😩.. somehow though Spirit & Angels work though our imperfections too.. we really do need to see the heart sometimes because flesh so easily err’s..

Also a digital art piece I did because of all this.. Using a photo of my own angel statue from my art desk.. It’s like a pictorial black out poetry piece except I’ve blocked out pieces of the photo using words from items in my desk as the poem.. and added a few images to it as well.. Poem is not the right word though but I’m trying to explain how I did it.

Untitled

I can’t think of a suitable title. So ‘Untitled’ is perfect. There are no words for how I am feeling today.
I am vulnerable and weak. Apart from a very late night pickup of teenagers at an out of town party.. Running on little sleep. I have been fasting food since Friday night or rather that was the last time I ate.
Prayer and fasting. For a very close friend. My best friend. The reasons are private but this friend has been more loyal than anyone else I know. The scripture says there is a friend that sticks closer than a brother. And this friend is all that. Today I could break it but I don’t want too at least not yet. The scripture “when I weak, HE is strong”… is resonating inside me right now. I feel that power too. My stomach is growling and loudly but I feel this surge and I know it’s GOD in me and that is just a little too good to want it to end. And I NEED that. My friend needs that. Our world needs that. And I can use it.. I can use the emotion the spiritual elation. That hunger for food mirrors the emptiness of my life and the crazy life of lack that dogs me. The areas that crave connection to the point I have thought at times of not existing at all in this world. Because it has felt too much to bare. Too impossibly hard to yearn for physical connection I have missed out on and fall so short with. I know even though I am a loner, a self confessed introvert I still need soul connections. I need someone else but close and deep not shallow. Yes even I need not to be alone or not feel alone.

It reminds me of a movie I watched called ‘New Moon’ when Bella misses Edward. He suddenly removes himself from her life and she is desperate for him. Absolutely lost and desolate without his presence. But she finds out when she is in danger or testing her human limits that he appears to her and she goes out seeking similar so she can see him again.

Once before in my life I relied on religion and it was everything. Form, rules, obedience and routine to ritually act out what the bible says and what others who believed were doing too, what I believed Christianity was and what was expected of me. I would attend with my family and I was desperate when I had my own family for us to all be in the building together but my than husband was not as passionate the same as me and more often than not was not with me and it felt empty and I started to feel alone even in a crowd. We didn’t share it in life or religion the same.. Often I just went religiously with my children for a long long time desperate and hungry but you just say hello I am fine instead of tell it like it is. It was hard with 5 little children to do it without help and sometimes I was so busy with the children going in and out of the service for different needs I wasn’t gaining anything at all. I have attended a church since I was an infant in my parents arms up til maybe 4 years ago. Maybe its longer

The point in sharing this is. When I stopped going, when I lost that huge part of my life. My desire for God was still very much there I just wasn’t able to rely on those things anymore. I had to have GOD 24/7 not just sundays and with fanfare. I had to have HIM with me always and I knew HE was there because HE said HE was and I believed HIM. I just felt the trappings were distracting me and depressing me. Cause while I sat there all I could think of was all that I was missing and it sucked.
Due to traumas I have gone through I just couldn’t fit in a service with people’s backs to me. Unable to hear what was going on (deaf) and feeling so disconnected. It felt very fake and I couldn’t do it any longer. I was also failing miserably at keeping the show going. My performance level was zip. So much mental energy at keeping my family together that had now separated. And just found myself tossing out everything that drained me and kept only the most important things close to my heart. That was in every sense of the word. Physical, mental, people etc… If it harmed me, I lost interest, it went or eventually I weeded it out. Many people weeded themselves out lol without my help. 🙂 Perhaps it was God or it was just my way to cope. I don’t know.

Spiritually though my story feels like it was just been beginning. When you are not relying on one way anymore you adapt and do things differently. You flow into a new way, a different way and Gods Spirit became my comfort, joy, peace and strength. My everything. Art became so very important too like it was my hands on and my physical way to be a part of the process so that I wasn’t just sitting numbly I was flowing and active.

Creativity in expressing myself and how my spirit was moving and flowing. It became a main way to communicate though because a majority of people in the world do not see art/spirit the way I do I lost even more contact with people. I guess the more I slipped away from outwardly living the more important it became to me and the more people lost contact with me too. I don’t blame them for not getting me anymore. I just missed what I could have with them. What I wanted with them.. Deep soul. Getting each other and not just here and there but always having it. I don’t mean I needed to be in their faces or they in mine. But there are people you don’t see but when you do see them you just pick up again where you left off. You aren’t stressed in any way by time that has passed or anything one might call as lack. You just enjoy the here and now. Why on earth can’t I find those people???

On-line was easiest it still is. People who are heart people or spiritual people get me most. And strangely even with little contact you have depth and connectivity that is amazingly satisfying but it is a different realm. Many still do not recognize it but if you are aware or even start to be aware your eyes are opened to something pretty amazing.

I guess that is why today that weakness from no food is so powerful. Because I am diverting myself away from regular patterns and relying on being full with food and that physical energy. I am not eating and I am not thinking about food, not concentrating on my physical needs. I am tapping into my spirit/soul realm and despite the growling stomach and the need to get up and feed my body.. I am aware of a force within myself that is strong and fired up and its the me I am most in touch with and perhaps 95% do not know. God with me. In me. Helping me.. Me and HIM as one yet separate…
I mean honestly that is miraculous. It is so loud and clear to me that all is not lost. HE has not left me like so many humans have. HE is beautifully present and ridiculously crystal clear when I am not physically strong or not caught up in the ‘Do this.. Be that’… just wow.

I am better able to be aware of things normally that are quiet or even absent in myself. Like even as I am typing this my clarity of events and feelings are coming together in ways which are beyond anything I have realized before. I have read about how if you can keep on this path, push yourself out of comfort zones, push through doubts, blank pages, writers block, life block, gremlins of the art world/or one might call them demons or doubts about yourself even.. Just Being…
That tell you everything you are not and repeat to you all your failures and that paralyze you from growth and improvement and just enjoying life. You reach a place where you are literally tapping into sacred ground and into the highest power.. I suppose people might flinch and say ‘New Age’ which is a no no in Christian circles but only if you throw out the baby with the bath water. It is all God, Jesus, Holy Spirit to me yet in me. HE is the one I credit but this is the miracle that the kingdom of heaven is within. So I get to be the container of the most spiritual proportions in my own unique quality. 100% me flavored lol. The fragile vessel that HE says shows HIM up best. That there I like.. I like very very much.

You wanna see GOD. Just look inside me. ❤

l

Confessions

A month of paying attention August Break 2017

One Wish

That I could speak truthfully about everything without fear, without guilt, without shame.. Being fully myself without censoring & I’m getting there slowly.. 

Journal page created as part of a course I’m doing called [Journaling Into the Deep] by Jen Morris Creative..  clearing emotional clutter.. 

Love Notes

From my children.. whom are my life, my breath, my heart. Precious oh so precious.. So very thankful to God I am a mother.. ❤

Soul Smashing

Day 21 Soul Smashing.. 30 day Journal Project. Obviously I have not done this in 30 continuous days lol.

“It’s hard to go. It’s scary and lonely… and half the time you’ll be wondering why the hell you’re in Cincinnati or Austin or North Dakota or Mongolia or wherever your melodious little finger-plucking heinie takes you.
There will be boondoggles and discombobulated days, freaked-out nights and metaphorical flat tires.
But it will be soul-smashingly beautiful..
It will open up your life.”

— Cheryl Strayed

Prompt..

It has opened up my life…

Oh absolutely. I mean it gives me a story to tell unlike anyone else’s stories. I am just going to share this little moment I had recently.

I have a heap of books on the go. Don’t look at my Good Reads account and my personal list of books I’ve added there.. lol I have SO MANY books on it that I have started reading and stopped and picked up something else. Oh my. My latest addition is ‘The Artist’s Way’ because a reference to it keeps showing up over and over and I am taking it as a sign. 🙂
In this book it suggests doing morning pages. 3 pages of writing anything at all just to get it on the page and out of you. Apparently this is supposed to help unclog our creative flow. Even if all you can say is ‘I cannot write today I have nothing to say.’ over and over. Getting yourself into a writing ritual and it isn’t meant to be pondered and it’s just for your own eyes.
I have done Morning pages for two days now.

I found myself writing about the difficulties I have had with other people who have gossiped about me and how it has possibly ruined my reputation or clouded people’s opinions of me. I will not quote myself here because it’s personal and I have never learned to write in such a way people cannot see right through me. I am not about ruining anyone else either. Of course I am not 100% about what things these tongues are saying about me. It is just that a lot of people have been indifferent towards me for quite some time and if I put two and two together I suspect that this is what has happened. I have had fall outs with a few people and I have spoken about such here on my blog and on social media. Never to out or gossip about people but to cope with it, survive it. Anyway I was sharing about this today in my Morning Pages and something else completely unrelated came into my path almost immediately after.

It has amazed me and indeed smashes my soul and is perfect for this prompt for Day 21 of 30 days.

I randomly picked up a book of Sonnets by William Shakespeare and was flicking through it. The thought bouncing around inside my head was that possibly reading one sonnet a day could help my creative inspiration or even just that I could see if the book was worth keeping. I have a very bad habit of collecting books and art supplies and ‘gulp’ not always using them. I have been slowly weeding out one thing daily and today I wanted to see if this one was worth keeping for reading, cutting up, or getting rid of. Yes I do cut up good books but most of them I pick up second hand at thrift stores so although it is still strange to cut up books I feel more justified doing so with old/used books.

At first glance I thought why am I bothering with such writing. Old style poetry/sonnets? Kept browsing looking for pics to cut out and keep and I was almost going to just ditch it when I found a sonnet with crow pics that caught my eye. I love crows. I see them all the time when I walk and I don’t know they seem to watch over me almost. Keep me company because they are simply always there.. I identify with them. They are seen as a bad omen by some yet I see great goodness in them. Birds created by God and HE takes care of them. Many scriptures about God caring for birds.

So I gave the sonnet No.70 my undivided attention. I can thank the recent Mental health and literature University course I’ve done for teaching me the value and strength of writing like this. To look deeper into it. Not expecting every word to make sense but to read out loud or ponder it and stay with it’s words and meanings and identify with the heart of the poet/author. I even went on-line to see if I could find the actual poets meaning of it. Lo and behold it echoed much the same as my feelings and thoughts I had written in my Morning pages, of course not in so eloquent of words but woah!!!

Just like that a bridge appears in my life. A bridge that connects me here in the future to the past, via my own frustrations and struggles and links me to what William Shakespeare for his own reasons wrote so very long ago. It is at this point I’m blown away with the unique timing of it’s appearing. The similarity spanning ages and my soul just sighs.

I can’t help acknowledging God immediately. I just sit and let the moment sink in. I just see so clearly as I study the words in the sonnet that the similarities found show something much deeper and far more reaching is at work. I think my jumbled and mis-matched life just makes it that much more of a miracle that this sort of connection happens. It kind of says to me something greater is working in and through us all which does link past, present and future.

I AM going to cut this sonnet out and use it in an art journal page. How mysterious that a sonnet penned so very long ago connects with me in 2017 and so beautifully describes to me similar feelings. It encourages me that all is not lost. Using Crows as well none the less.
Strengthening me that such things said about oneself shall not be to one’s defect! One’s worth shown to be greater simply because tongues have indeed risen against.

Such moments of connection do indeed happen so often in my creative life that I swoon over them and it is why I naturally want to be arty. Heart is overjoyed and my whole outlook is lighter. I feel a huge overriding sense of a past and present oneness of Spirit and at least at this moment can see it all melds together. That no matter what happens and how strange it might seem all peoples’ throughout time have experienced such. Identifying a similarity, a common thread and it comforts me. I am helped by these words in this sonnet which I will copy a pic from the book here below.. It is extraordinary.

I think to myself. For something as powerful as a connection like this to happen in a small tiny random moment in my life. How much more is happening out there to all of us that maybe we are not yet aware of but it IS still out there working beautifully and hopefully my sharing might make someone else notice soul smashing moments too.  Gives one incredible fortitude to think of the similarity of Spirit connecting us all.

 

When it comes to dirt roads…

JOURNEY: 30 Day Journal Project
Day 12
DIRT
“Of all the paths you take in life,
make sure a few of them are dirt.”
— John Muir

Today’s Journal Prompt:
When it comes to dirt roads…I am off the beaten track. There is the direction the majority takes and there is me. It has not been choice for the most part but rather that I just don’t need to fit into the mainstream anymore. The funny thing is we are told to go out into the world. Internet is a great world bringer together and a perfect going out all over the world vehicle. And yet majority live from the position and conduct of where they are and how they are rather than the spirit within themselves being the transporter into the world via self.

 
I see myself as one who has shot off the main stream into a smaller off shoot stream but the same current did carry me here. It happened to me rather than by me. I just went with the flow even though it is different to others. I do not have the fortitude to go back upstream neither the desire either. I go with it. There is no turning back for me. Force beyond myself that propels me forward and I have no idea where I am going I just know I am not alone even though it feels it. Spiritual sense of greater connection and purpose.
When I think of the word ‘dirt’ I think of earthy, I think of natural basic core. I think of dirt as perhaps bumpy, different and unforced perhaps a little rough and very spontaneous. I think of slowing down to enjoy the journey and being in the moment wherever you are. I think of adventure. I think of bare necessities. I think of getting lost but being found.

 

I am at a place in my life where I am out of my comfort zone. Not living from a throng of people around to influence me or support me or validate me. Not too many distractions. It is rather by the moment existence. Look up. Look within. When things around me line up I am glad it gives me intuitive vision to keep trudging on. This inner compass doesn’t say what will happen or how or what is next. It just appears from time to time and you feel things are right. Hard to explain. Relying on peace to guide me. If there is no peace I want nothing to do with it. If there is peace I can cope with just about anything at all and get through it no matter what it is.

 
As I was praying today this scripture has become a base for my prayers.

Ephesians 1:8 ‘the eyes of your heart being enlightened, in order for you to know what is the hope of His calling, what are the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints.’

As I said earlier it feels very much this ‘path’ is my calling. Yet I do not understand it and it can be very strange and much like being in unknown territory. It seems selfish. It seems in denial of all that most believe and are being. It seems almost defiant. IT IS a different track to most. A lot of believers talk about being holy, clean and pure. But this artistic, different, expressive, whole-hearted inner path is a breaking ground existence which can get rather messy. Would be considered very much a ‘dirt’ path. Self is frowned upon yet this is exactly where GODS Spirit takes up residence?!?! Being in midst of a larger congregation seems to be the in thing. So being on a solo type path is rather a no no. Yet it’s exactly here I have learnt the most.

 
Yet I am not alone. Never alone. Spiritually speaking we are all in the one vine yes? He being the unifying, eternal force that connects the whole of us into one so can one ever say we are alone when we are in the vine? Yet faith travelers tend to identify one another only by living a certain way. Being the church is seen as people coming together and God dwells in the midst. Yet in Spirit and truth how I live even in my artistic endeavors the Spirit is in the midst of ME and I function from that place where He and I dwell. I am not really different at all. Just my perception of it is different. I am from the same earth, the same dirt that our first ever ancestor Adam was formed from. The same Spirit breathed into him that exists in every human being and also in me. This dirt is my flesh home for His Spirit but in my size and shaped form. Beginning and ending in me but when I do things it’s flowing from me. I have the very same life force that Adam had and I believe and am seeing this is exactly where my beaten path is eking out from. The path is being lived out from inside of me. So therefore where I put my every foot, which creatively is my words, my expressions, my feelings, my hopes, my values, my life force however it comes forth. This is my path as wild and as back to the basics of ‘dirt’ it may appear. Everything I do even from my ‘core dirt soul’ is the kingdom life force living within and expressed through me.

 

Amazing how the messages come to me

— Wrote in my diary — today 24th January 2017

Looking through the hashtag on Instagram #myfearlessyear2014 by artist Beth Morey. 

Feeding my soul. I think this is my problem. I’ve been starving. A starving soul. Wondering why I can’t function.  I need to eat first. 

(Bizare) next thing I see.

Quote from pic below

 “The main thing is to stop struggling and nourish yourself.” 

I’m so thankful. Gods Spirit with me wherever I go. Always speaking.. 

Two more quotes I found while there that I love.. 

Stop being relevant. Just be you. 

I’m not interested in spirituality that cannot encompass my humanness.