Following the Moon / Growth of Courage

'When I Was Born', Drozda 1992

8.5 x 15 inches

Acrylic on wood

Welcome to this week's 'Luna See'. 'Luna See' provides a model for lookin' up and feeling time (and your movement through time) with a calm and focused flow. I present 'Luna See' to you as an instrument for gentling through your art/life day. You may also subscribe to the monthly 'Luna See' newsletter.



Let's begin by taking a deep calming breath. The planet may be cranked. Your life may be feeling the pressure... yet let's BE the artists that are filled with courage. Courage means to have heart. Right here, right now, with what's happening, you can calm down and trust your individual growth process.

Here's a reminder... it fits so beautifully with this point on the year's wheel:


Wild Geese


You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.


Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.


Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.

Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting--
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.


© Mary Oliver.

'Mandala', Sarah Myers

cellphone photo

Creativity Salon Participant and Dear Friend

Between today, Monday, July 19 and next Monday, July 26, the moon's phases (First Quarter, Gibbous, Full) continue to provide you with creative focus points. They are: take action, analyze and realization.


The First Quarter Phase offers three days to be about expressing the growth that's bringing forth your new sense of identity. Until Wednesday night, July 21, be active by feeling and moving. Active is the idea, dancing toward your goal for this cycle. Perhaps you can't dance in body at this moment...if that's the reality then dance in spirit. Be shamanic. Joseph Campbell relates this: As a Native American Elder giving advice to a young one said,

'As you go the way of life, you will see a great chasm.

Jump.

It is not as wide as you think.'

This action phase offers an excellent opportunity to S T R E T C H ... then take time to write in your journal, make the call, send the email, communicate with your tribe. Choose a way to anchor what you've manifest thus far. Can you feel the sense of celebration for what you've allowed to percolate and grow since July 11? Maybe. Maybe not.

When you wake up July 22, Thursday morning, reconnect to your vision from July 11. If you made a mind map or collage during the New Moon go back now to check in with those images and ideas. Actively analyze and prepare to be the uniquely qualified artist at life that you are born to be. You are the artist who has the courage to express a new view and a true heart connection. You transport us. If you read that and say, 'Who me?' that's OK. The beauty of the natural wheel is that it will bring you around to this point again next year. You will be given the opportunity to grow further into who you truly are. I love that about the wheel...it keeps on turning.

Late on Sunday, July 25 (I'm working with EST) the phase shifts to Full and we have all the way until Friday, July 30, to reflect on what Growth has taken place since July 11. Next Monday we will visit what the Full phase offers.

Creative exercise: Until late Wednesday make a stretch and be brave. Take a leap of faith in the area of your art/life projects. Find that place within you that will give you the feeling that says, "YESSSS... I can do this!" At the Gibbous Phase, late in the evening on July 21, create a conscious connection to your support system.  Anchoring what it is your art/life is manifesting right now. Make notes. That's what anchoring is. After you leap, you anchor. You honor it all by putting the experience down in writing or some chosen creative medium.  Then you call on a trusted witness and tell them about the abyss you've flown over. You rejoice.


Above all BE your fearless Self. Remember that July brings with it the keyword of Growth.  Growth implies development. The idea is to continue tapping into your vision for the 29.6 days of this cycle taking you to August 9. In August the keyword turns to Trust yet you can be actively growing toward that quality now.

Each of the eight phases, in turn, brings a focus point that you can utilize in tandem with your Muse. Your Muse is yours alone. She helps you in doing the inner work of connecting with your on-going guidance. Her joy is to craft an experience that is uniquely yours....ever preparing the way for what's next.


You are the artist who has the courage to express a new view and a true heart connection. This is the year to be about forging a deeper and truer sense of Self. This year's global energetic field impacts us all. A renewed sense of identity requires that you know how to persist and carry on. You may find inspiration by visiting a completely courageous artist  here or by relaxing into a healing meditation here. As you practice conscious fortitude you grow stronger and more capable...year by year.

I recognize July as the 'push point' every year. Notice the opposite point too: how and when you feel like stopping. Then pay particular attention to where you feel the 'safety net' that gives you the stamina to, as my dad always said, "Carry on".


"Sometimes I wonder how all those people who do not write, compose or paint can manage to escape the madness, the melancholia, the panic fear which is inherent in a human situation."


Graham Greene

'Don't Stop the Dance', Drozda 2006

60x60 inches

Media Blend on Unstretched canvas

 Share the Growth of your 'Luna See' and...

~May your heart gently sing the days