Winter Approaches-Into the Dark Holding the Light

As the Winter Solstice approaches, I am trying to place my attention on holding the light..as I feel the dark moving into my body and soul.    

It is a time to move into the deep of the night and  to take time to dream my life anew.  With the New Year comes change and it is time for reevaluating direction and remembering to follow dreams put on hold.

Encaustic on foam core.  

"Follow your Dreams"

I am revisiting the places, people, and blogs where I find inspiration to guide me towards the light. 

I love Lanie Gerity's  Artist's Happiness Challenge and her Secrets for a Happy Artist's Life.

14 Secrets for a Happy Artists Life. Here they are.

Find 3 good things every day, whether they are experiences, or objects or both.  

Find a way to use them in art.

Make everything special.  Embellish you life.

Look for Fairy God-mothers and Angels.  

Be ready for experiences that will delight and surprise you.

Play more often.   Look for smiling faces.

Wish everyone a happy life.

Find something to love about where you are every day.

Make art everyday. 

Create time for yourself.

Honor thy grandmothers as much as possible.

Play with the grandchildren as much as possible.

Create beauty wit what you have on hand.

Mare art with friends.  Make art as gifts.

Create a list of  secrets for a happy life and pass it on.

So please pass this on...I too am making a list for a happy life.   

Happy and Blessed Solstice to All  

HOLD THE LIGHT!!!

HOLDING THE LIGHT 

 Encaustic mixed media.  3"x5"  on masonite panel

Available for purchase on my etsy store.

Soularteeclectica

I have just come across this wonderful poem about the winter solstice 

and I just have to add it here.  Enjoy....

So, the shortest day came, and the year died,

And everywhere down the centuries of the snow-white world

Came people singing, dancing,

To drive the dark away.

They lighted candles in the winter trees;

They hung their homes with evergreen;

They burned beseeching fires all night long

To keep the year alive,

And when the new year's sunshine blazed awake

They shouted, reveling.

Through all the frosty ages you can hear them

Echoing behind us - Listen!!

All the long echoes sing he same delight,

This shortest day,

As promise wakens in the sleeping land:

They carol, feast, give thanks,

And dearly love their friends,

And hope for peace.

And so do we, here, now,

This year and every year.

Welcome Yule!!

Susan Cooper, The Shortest Day

Challenging Times

These are times of change and challenge for many of us.  I too, along with so many in the country was taken by surprise this week, when I was laid off, permanently,  from my position of over 28 years, as adjunct faculty teaching at Santa Rosa Junior College.  There is a hole in my heart for the curriculum as well as the  students and program I have taught in for so many many years.    And for the field of Art Therapy. 

Transformation Through Time

Supporting people, with the powerful healing aspects of artmaking, and being able to facilitate creative growth, has been deeply enriching and rewarding for me.  I have been blessed to witness transformation on many levels, over and over, with artmaking as the catalyst.  

I am in mourning, but also filled with hope and possibilites for opportunity.  It is time for me to take my skills on the road and to share in different ways and venues.  Fear definitely rears its head, but along with it is transformation and surrender.  

Things I am grateful for:

1. The opportunity to witness so many people grow, change and transform through art
2. The beautiful, tragic, and inspiring individuals I have met, taught and befriended.
3. The community and staff I have worked with through Disability Resources Dept.
4. My creativity, strength and resourcefulness.
5. Art, ART, AND MORE ART
6. The stories of so many individuals
7. The opportunity to grow, change and develop professionally with like minded individuals.
8. Many many mentors and friends.
9. My family, husband, son  and cohorts.
10. The synchronicity of the universe.
11. My dog chelsea.
12. Vision and creative impulses.
13. Living and living in beautiful northern California.
14. Beeswax!!! and the bees.
15. The sanctuary of mandalas.
16. Time for artmaking!!!!!!  And Visioning...and dreaming!
17. And on and on and on into the future.