Monday, July 12, 2010

Following the Moon



'Healing Heart for Tim', Drozda 2010
8x10"
Media Blend
Sold today


Welcome to the New Moon. Growth is the keyword through July. Keep in mind that the New Moon on July 11 brought a Solar eclipse. Sandra Mosley  offers some interesting points of reference for your creative path. 

In the 21 days remaining in this month I invite you to:
Pause a moment.
Close your eyes.
Take a deep calming breath.
Simply imagine the creative possibility before you.

The idea is that you can choose to slow down a bit even in the midst of the most active time of the year. You can recognize how you intuitively align, or you can start now, to become more consciously tuned in to the eternal rhythms of the lovely lunar patterns.
Note: 'Luna See' is presented as an artist tool for looking at time and your movement through time. It is offered as an instrument for gentling through the day.


'Earth Calendar', Drozda 1995
Ink and Prismacolor on Bristol

"...the light of the moon waxes and wanes, giving an endless succession of full moons and new moons. Think also of the continuous rising and falling of the planetary tides, inseparably linked to the invisible pull of the moon's gravity, as the earth spins and the moon moves more slowly than the earth turns. Without these eternal rhythms, our ancestral forms of life would never have emerged from the sea to find dry land.

You and I, being physically composed of more than 70 percent water, are moved and touched by the same powerful and invisible forces of the moon. " Joel and Michelle Levey


Between today, Monday, July 12 and next Monday, July 19, the moon's phases (new, crescent, first quarter) continue to provide you with creative focus points for visualization, research and action. Until Wednesday morning be setting your intention for this cycle. What do you choose to Grow during time? What are your studio projects and how will you allow time and space for them to come into being?


At each New moon you can give birth to the next piece of your vision. You don't have to start from scratch. Think of a spiral that unwinds through the year. Visualize where your over-all sense of creative identity is at this time. How's it growing?

Creating a Mind Map or a vision page collage between now and August 9 will bring clarity to this segment of the year's spiral.

July brings with it the keyword of Growth. Think about creative expansion. The idea is to continue tapping into your vision for the 29.6 days of the cycle. Each of the 8 successive phases that unfold from New (July 11-14) through Balsamic (August 5-9) provides a focus.
What are you now growing within the ground of your creative soil?

Our planet needs the artist who has the courage to express a new view and a true heart connection. This whole year is about feeling what is happening 'in the gut' as you forge a new sense of identity.  A renewed sense of identity requires that you know how to endure. When you practice conscious endurance you grow stronger and more capable.

On my studio wall for 19 years


My Short Story:
Each year at this time I have the anniversary of one of my art/life's most defining moments. We all get those and it's useful to be clear on what they are.
It was this point in the summer calendar when, as a young and trusting woman, I arranged to visit a house full of my artist friends on the campus of Case Western Reserve University. I recount that story in my graphic memoir published starting here last summer.

Telling that story, even though I've gone through decades of healing, was a profound and emotionally creative experience. I used a new medium, the Sumo paint program. I put this intense story of violence 'out there' by placing it into a blog format.

 I'll never forget how anxious and exposed I felt sitting here alone in my wonderfully tranquil home feeling every cell of my body recounting the experience as the simple Sumo images emerged.  It was chilling and empowering simultaneously.

By writing/drawing the memoir I was facing my fear of being seen at a very deep and a brand new level. I had echoes of demons reminding me that: being seen is very dangerous. Those voices tried to stop me. I felt possessed. I could watch the part of me that tried to convince me that if I did this, if I continued to work on this graphic memoir, something very bad would happen to me again. I didn't stop.

In creating those weeks of blog posts... I grew. It felt like the last vestige of reclaiming my authentic power. It required decades of growing to reach that point and it was a monumental creative event that no one even needed to see....and very few did. Growing can be like that. Private. Monumental.

I had told this deeply personal, yet universal woman's story, over the years to intimate friends and in women's shelters. I'd given a keynote address at a symposium on sexual violence. I had once been 'raped by the pen' when a reporter asked where my art is sourced and I told him the story of that summer "off the record".
He and his editor then proceeded to betray my trust when they went ahead and published my private journey in the popular arts monthly magazine that carried my 'whole story' thus 'exposing me' raw and naked to my community. I didn't know.... but my Muse knew... I was ready to endure and grow.

I have tremendous power and authority for my art/life as a result of these woven story lines. They don't control me, they remind me.

Be awake. Be conscious.

Have a pattern that provides the qualities you are choosing to grow in your precious art/life.


Don't have a goal? Don't know what this remaining 21 days of the July 'Growth' cycle is about for you? No problem. Your Muse knows and is gently, silently waiting for your engagement. Ask for guidance.
Isn't it lovely how, when we move into August, growth will gently place trust at our feet, lapping like a gentle soothing wave.


Be certain of this: When honest love speaks, when true admiration begins, when excitement rises, when hate curls like smoke, you need never doubt that creativity will stay with you for a lifetime.

Ray Bradbury



~May you sing your day~

11 comments:

  1. The is wonderful news and a clear road map for growth and personal vision.

    Each time I visit new possibilities open for me.

    Since my beginning with you I have begun writing and trusting myself to be honest, with myself.

    I am reaching into the Luna See teaching learning how the moon affects me.

    Great teaching and so many good places to go and nurture a life.

    Thank you so much!

    Blessings.

    Sandra

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  2. Reading this post is perfect for me. Thanks. Thoughtful and necessary stopping. Just to Stop, or as you say pause. But, I've been going so much lately, that Stop is what I'm feeling.
    I love the painting that sold!

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  3. I have copied some of these key thoughts and intentions into my journal as a way to keep them in my awareness, to write about them and spend time with them.

    I love the elemental quality of moving with the natural ebb and flow of this mysterious and marvelous universe. Thanks for the inspiration!

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  4. SOOOO many possibilities! This week has an incredible amount of 'planning' and literal mapping going on in it for me, with yesterday's hours under lasers, cat scans, and hands pushing, prodding stretching and manipulating my body into position - eventually creating a mold to hold me in place for radiation's perfect hit, to begin on the 19th. I find it pretty wild that it's fitting so perfectly into the luna's timing. Meanwhile I have new news about mad scramblings (not on my part) happening to try to make the studio building project happen after all, also begin on the 19th. A whole lot of creative visioning, planning, and coming together will have to happen, and the first huge pow wow was last night on our patio, as I came home from the dr's. Sorry I'm rambling, but it's cracking me up at how aligned your words are to what is unfolding before me. these are only the big pieces - there are several other pieces to this map I see unfurling and needing a visionary boost...
    Thanks for the guidance of this rich series Donna - it's so well written and richly presented for us.
    and congrats on the sale, too :)
    much love, K

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  5. Thank you visiting Luna-tics ;-)

    ~ Sandra...Merci, your words are healing balm and I can ony imagine how your Muse will whisper the perfect guidance to you as you are writing...that's Luna See' at its best...reflective, creative inner directives.

    ~Indigo ...so good to see you again...and yesss..the pause that refreshes in the midst of all of the activity...let's remind one another to stop and take a calming breath. (thanks for noticing my sale...it was a group of 6 pieces...the one pictured here done this week, with my broken wrist)

    ~Zendot..and I come away from any of your posts eager to recall your words and this is how the 'Luna See' grows...gently and from one to the next and back round again...'The Pull of the Water Moon'...you know that story don't you?

    ~Hey darlin' K... "Visionary boost": to that I say..I know your Muse(s) hear you!!!

    What 'gives me pause' in your comment is this:

    "to hold me in place for radiation's perfect
    [f]it"...

    I am speechless and silent in the image that this brings.

    and then this: May the translucent light of 'Luna See' wrap about you as you lie still in these weeks before you.

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  6. Incredible--your painting, your blog, and the comments.

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  7. Donna, It's fascinating how as you weave the story of "luna see" emphasizing the repetition and the rhythm, the thousand chances to see clearly, you bring in your own history (or "herstory" in this case) and allow its brilliance to shine through the lunar light. I want to share this with a young person who is going through a very difficult time. Your gentle light is a balm.

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  8. First, congratulations on the sale of your wonderful art work. It is a winner!
    Secondly, I enjoy and look forward to the readings. I seem to be right inline with them. I've been trying out some new techniques for my collage journal.
    Third, but not last, I applaud your bravery. I wish I had your courage.

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  9. I like the new moon concept-- new beginnings, new ways to start-- your blog connecting the moon to life and art is wonderful.

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  10. Dear Iona,

    There is so very much to absorb and reflect upon, that it feels a little overwhelming. Maybe it is because I am thinking of my defining moments, in which I was pulled from an altering state of being.

    I no longer remember the dates, other than the incident and what I celebrate now is the day of my open heart surgery as my second birthday.

    As I read your post I could not help but wonder off and contemplate of the years in which I lost contact with the unseen energies of the moon and the spirit of the Muse.

    It feels like I have been floundering about and maybe it is why i have not been creating art that is not photography.

    Thank you for sharing.

    Wishing you a wonderful weekend,
    Egmont

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  11. ~Thanks All~
    ~Hallie...I love the comments that are appearing too...isn't it lovely to meet other 'Luna tics' making fabulous art and living genuine creatively invested lives ;-)

    ~Hannah...I am pleased that you have a young oneto share the Luna See with...we owe it to those coming along behind us to pass along tools that provide focus and benefit, doing no harm.

    ~Eva...thanks for all that you bring. I am not so much brave as determined to claim my joyous art/life moment by moment, phase by phase...and I so appreciate the gentle way in which time unfolds as we align with the reflective qualities of La Luna.

    ~Thank you Donna...it means a lot to receive your feedback and to recognize how we each communicate with these universal patterns in our own unique way...there's nothing 'cookie cutter' about working with these 'Luna See' rhythms...I love that!

    ~Hi Egmont...So very lovely to see you here...and of course 'Happy re-Birthday' (every day)

    Isn't it a defining moment when we recognize that our creative connection, in its deepest forms, has "been floundering"? That happens for a reason and there seems to be a bridge before us, almost immediately, and the Muse dances across to embrace us and she says 'hello again, hello'...such an exciting reunion it is.

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Thanks for stopping '-)