'Following the Moon': How Does Your Garden Grow?

In the Temple Garden, Drozda 1994

48x48"

Acrylic on Masonite

Private collection

This weekly posting of 'Luna See' is presented as an art/life tool. You may find it useful. It's quite spectacular for relaxing time. You may even become more creative with your conscious movement through time. It's offered as an instrument for affecting the quality of the day as the highest of arts. There is a companion monthly Luna See newsletter published at each New Moon. You can subscribe here.


Welcome to the Full 'Growth' Moon! The Full Phase arrived last evening July 25 at 9:38 p.m. and extends through July 30, Friday at 12:30 a.m. (est). That's five ful days...an unusually long stretch for one phase. Consider it a gift...a time for reflection on the stunning growth opportunities that this year has offered in terms of being a pioneer in some area of your art/life. Tuck into your awareness that the whole year is helping us to grow by learning a new level of endurance.


Now you can look over your shoulder to July 11.  Two weeks have been invested. Remember that Solar eclipse? It created an interesting springboard for the increase and expansion offered to us this year. That Solar Eclipse extends its influence all the way into December. It places emphasis on the way you show yourself  'Out There'. It brings a terrific opportunity to pay attention now regarding what we would choose to grow by then.

You might decide to place your feet flat against the floor, imagine making direct contact with the earth, the Earth Mother, the Divine Feminine. Breathe in the quiet. If we continue to breathe deep as a tool for slowing down at this most active time of the year, we'll have a balanced energy reserve to draw upon in the months ahead. You may think that you don't ever seem to get quiet for long these days but a little bit of 'Luna See' can help you to remember. Quieting time in this way offers a temperate focus rather than a frenetic pace.

A Prayer for the New Millennium

May all beings everywhere be awakened, healed, peaceful and free; May there be peace in this world, and an end to war, poverty, violence, and oppression; And may we all together complete the spiritual journey.

                                                                                                                  Lama Surya Das

Tara, Drozda 2010

8x10

journal page

Between today, Monday, July 25 and next Monday, August 2, the moon's phases (Full, Disseminating) continue to provide creative focus points for reflection as well as sharing. Reflection means that until Friday you might consider what stands in your way from accomplishing your vision/goal for this Growth cycle. What did you choose to Grow during this time? How have your studio projects developed up to this moment? Are they ready to shine out into the world in some way during the next week? Maybe/maybe not...following the moon is not a rigid task master. In fact the longer we spiral on lunar month by lunar month the more a lovely rhythm unfolds; imagine a personal creative tidal inhale/exhale. So relaxed.
At each Full moon you can 'gaze back over your shoulder' and see your vision as it began. AH. Look at all that's happened since July 11. Hindsight being what it is you can observe your trail with clarity. Now, gently notice: what have you not yet addressed. The week ahead is ripe for inserting one more aspect of actualizing your sacred dream for your art/life.
July's keyword of Growth and its attendant idea of opening out will soon turn to Augusts' Trust. Summer each year offers the peak of possibility for the assertive, ambitious, go forth aspect of the natural years' push. Each of the 8 successive phases that unfold from New Phase(July 11-14) through Balsamic Phase (August 5-9) provides a focus. Focus is so helpful in manifesting your vision.

What have you been growing?... can you trust what's to come?

August arrives on Sunday and brings with it the cross quarter day of Lammas also called Lughnasadh. You are at the midpoint of your current 90 day art/life goal. The will to trust what you grow becomes the focus point now. This time of year is referred to traditionally as 'first harvest'. Play with these words and see how they fit into your creative spirit. No one else like you has ever been here before. Again, ask yourself, 'What are you growing?'

Don't you love being the artist who has the courage to express a new view and a true heart connection? Can't you feel this whole year being about feeling what is happening 'in the gut' as you forge a new sense of identity? This renewed sense of identity requires that you know how to do the 'endure-dance'. When you practice conscious endure-dancing you grow stronger. Your strength helps us all grow into new levels of trusting this miraculous opportunity called life. Each of us deserves to celebrate the steps and stages that have brought us to HERE and now.

All the past up to a moment ago is your legacy. You have a right to it.

~Robert Henri

I once had a very difficult time with time. Violence and post traumatic stress can clearly make it difficult and challenging to trust life. I felt pressure. I wondered how life was ever going to happen well enough so as not to be filled with continual unpredictable bouts of panic/fear. Naturally there are times when I still get that demon jumping out of the bushes to surprise me...to test me. Its job is to try to stop me from loving and celebrating my precious life. Twice so far this year that demon has done its dance! That's when I spring into action and do what I call the  'Endure-dance'! Try this: Throw your hands up toward the sky, extend your longest finger on each hand toward the ethers, bounce about, kick up your heels, step out and do your best moves...call up your light heart and then call out to all seen and unseen, known and unknown demons, "You may not enter here!"

'Following the Moon' is for help in remembering to face the heaviness and anxiety that jumps out onto the path of the art/life. Look it in the eye. My teacher called this process 'Getting On Time'. I call it Luna See. I love being a Luna-tic in a world that is ever uplifted by balance and wholeness.

There's a kind of wandering opportunity in the gentle rhythm of the lunar patterns. It isn't another thing to believe in or work at, it's simply natural timing. Tuning into the phases brings a joyful stretch to art/life days.

         Artist Lynne Lofton at Salon    

                 

Between now and next Monday notice how you take stock of your gifts. Create a way to surprise yourself by sharing some aspect of what you've grown during this cycle.


As this most outgoing season of the year unfolds share your awareness with your community/tribe. Be sure that you imagine the possibility. Trust your art/life and its amazing growth thus far. I'm so glad that you're here bringing your wonder to life.

It was 105 degrees today so I went kayaking in my backyard on Lake Smith with good reading:

Alyson Stanfield's

                                                                      I'd Rather Be in the Studio



~Sing the day~

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

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~

Following the Moon/Stepping Through the South Gate

'The Handless Maiden', Drozda 2001

13.5x9

Acrylic on wood

Welcome to a brief look at the 'Luna See' for the week ahead. 'Luna See' is presented as an artist tool.  Choose what you will, apply it, invest in your creative movement through time. 


I chose the painting 'The Handless Maiden' from my archives file because my hands are 'speaking to me' during this broken bone healing time. I'm drawn to symbolism and metaphor and life has prompted me to once again read the tale of The Handless Maiden as told and interpreted by Clarissa Pinkola Estes in Women Who Run with the Wolves.  Estes says, "The Handless Maiden" covers a many-years-long journey...the journey of a woman's entire lifetime...so read it and sit with your Muse, turning it part by part, over a generous period of time."

I hope that you'll find the stories that speak to you, that help you grow.

It's time to say 'Thank you'.
A lot of creative brilliance has happened since the cycle began on June 12 hasn't it?  On June 21st the Summer Solstice point opened the South Gate and you 'turned a corner'. June 26 brought the Lunar Eclipse and the stage is set for pure poetry.

Much of 'Luna See' is sourced in the Earth Calendar/Medicine Wheel teachings of Sun Bear. In future posts I'll bring in more information and diagrams so that you can actively visualize the movement and the patterns of your creative life within this beautifully grounded approach. Today I want to introduce you to a fabulous teacher of 'walking in balance'.  In her  Dancing the Wheel of Psychological Types Mary Loomis, Ph.D. equates the Summer Solstice point in the year to "Choosing a myth that allows you to learn through pleasure instead of pain."
Working with them since 1989 I have great respect for these 'quarter points' of the year. Each one marks an excellent opportunity for setting a 90 day studio goal. Year upon year you can focus upon 'what needs to be addressed and acted upon' for your creative growth during the time between Summer Solstice and Fall Equinox.

Robyn asked a question in the comments section of last weeks post. Living in South Africa she wondered how to translate particular seasonal aspects of 'Luna See' to her hemisphere. I would suggest intuitively applying the parts of 'Luna See' that feel natural. Recognize that within one year this wheel will give you the opportunity to feel a deeper connection to your own creative rhythm. Simply applying the monthly keywords to your studio work is majorly creative. In the July 11 'Luna See' newsletter I list all of the keywords and how you can begin to use your personal pair. Subscribe here.

Through Wednesday, July 7, we are in the phase called Third Quarter or the Waning Crescent. It is here, at the 3rd Quarter each month, when we can pause and review what actually has taken place since the cycle began. Factoring in gratitude and thankfulness for three whole days is quite empowering and energizing. Make a list. Appreciation and recognition of what has been received, as you know, opens the way for more inspiration and ideas to arrive. So first of all say Thank you very much, Gracia, Merci, Dankeschön.

Growth is the keyword for the month of July. Thursday morning we enter the Balsamic phase, the last three days of the moon cycle that began on June 12. Dream about the growth that you want to have happen in conjunction with your creative work. This is an excellent time to meditate on the way that your work is currently being shared. You might ask for dreams to show direction regarding the best way for your art/life to Grow. 

Journal page, Drozda 2005

11x4.5"

ballpoint pen

On Sunday the New 'Growth/Trust' Moon cycle begins with a Solar Eclipse. Here's a portion of what Sandra writes at Zodiacarts:

A solar eclipse is a New Moon with tremendous impact. The Sun that gives us life and lights our path is joined briefly with the dark and mysterious qualities of the Moon. The Moon blocks the light of the Sun. In this moment of perceived darkness, spirituality and the psyche combine anew, beginning another cycle in the spiral of our personal development.


The last time there was a solar eclipse at this same degree of Cancer was in 1991; the next one will be in 2029. Think back to the personal themes in your life during the summer of 1991 and review the progress of your personal growth over the last 19 years.


All eclipses indicate change; solar eclipses signify beginnings and usually manifest as events in the outer world. At solar eclipses we: begin something new, make promises to ourselves, commit, announce, present ourselves, show up, make plans, select events, make decisions, rise to the challenge, make an effort, change, mature, take on greater challenges, travel at a faster pace, feel restless, feel pressured by deadlines and a buildup of emotions, experience a crisis and feel excited.


On July 11 move into the proactive realm of a vision. Actively connect to the emotion that can propel you forward. During this new cycle be Artist/Explorer. Let everything be new. A consciously chosen fresh view makes the relationship with your creative work, and all of life, take on a richer, dynamic and inspired hue. Go for the stretch in this July 11-August 8 Growth/Trust moon cycle.

The 'Luna See' e-newsletter can be delivered to your mailbox each month on the new moon...subscribe button here.

~May you sing the days~