'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

                                                                            Dreamboat #1, Drozda 2002

                                                                                                                36x36 inches

                                                                                                            Acrylic on panel

It's the Full Phase of the current moon cycle ... a fine time, each month/moon to reflect and review. Take the three day full phase, to realize that you are half way around the circle for this moon.

I'm investing in something very new this cycle: Blog Triage. I wanted to be able to look over my shoulder throughout the year ahead and see that I took a step toward learning something new and stretchy as part of my Art Life. It's been so fine. My little sweetpea brain is being challenged (hugely) and I love that... but the additional gift is the friendships with the group of  artists participating; a nurturing, stimulating bonus. Thank you Alyson and Cynthia.

How do you follow your dream of being the artist that you know yourself to be? It's a timeless question. One we come to ask in our own way... in our own time. I've reached a certain point in my life where I'm asking the question anew. I made a decision to consciously open a new door. Stepping through I began to look out ahead, to the decade before me, and ask, "What Next? What Now? What Matters?

Since 1989, after returning from an 18 week solitary retreat on a little island off the coast of North Carolina, I've engaged in reading time in a gentler cyclical pattern by following the moon. With the turning of the cycles and the seasons life takes on a gentle kinder rhythm.

The idea of becoming more intimate with the way time moves appeals to me.

While living on the island I invested my days in writing, painting and wandering. I moved easily from working in the studio to meandering through the marshes. In the early morning light I often followed deer tracks. Their soft hoof marks creating a  narrow path through the high grasses...their path stopping at the tideline. All my life I've followed deer paths. Something mysterious resonates when I see those heart shaped impressions in the earth. Yet here, at water's edge, these imprints seemed more mystical...as if these harmless creatures had strolled through the silence of the night marsh under the moonlight to come here to gaze out to sea.

In the Lakota tradition Deer represents Gentle Medicine. Deer is a totem for healing in my Art Life.

What powers and strengths assist you to be whole and centered in your Art Life?

Recovering from any type of trauma/drama requires a deep and gentle care.

There is no way to push the the healing river. Floating, rather than swimming against the current, brings repair with lasting results. Eventually it becomes possible to climb aboard a craft of our own making. I like to travel in a metaphoric mandorla boat. I have discovered that it is actually wiser, for me, to spend a good amount of time floating gently down the stream. I practice allowing my Art Life vehicle to rest in the moment as it prepares to lead me merrily to the opening of the path that lies ahead.

Did I Dream This? Drozda 2003

20x24 inches

Acrylic/found wood

A workshop presenter broke apart the lyrics for the popular Row Row Row Your Boat song. She pointed out that there are three rows and four merrilys. That is clearly the instruction to row gently down the stream. How about we stop struggling against nature. It's an exhausting up stream fight against the current.

I prefer the merrily down the stream approach... whenever possible.

~Sing the Day...merrily.

What's in a Name

Flotilla, Drozda 2001

18x24 inches

mixed on recycled wood

Several days ago Alyson asking me to address my blog name Merci 33.
Here's what has come to share.

Once upon a time 3 miscreants set me up in an entrapment situation, traumatized me severely and left me for dead. You can connect with the storyline where I created a graphic memoir last summer and posted it here on the blog from June through August. A post can be found here. You can imagine how physically, emotionally and psychically bereft the experience left me. One aspect of my recovery involved working diligently for 16 years to move beyond debilitating Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome. I lived in relative solitude for much of that time and devoted every day to inner repair working in studio and garden. It took time to learn to trust that life wouldn't brutally harm me again. I learned, and continue to enlist, unbroken focus; taking active measures to reclaim and rebirth myself, to walk in balance.

Alyson was curious and interested to know where the name Merci33 comes from and if I had ever explained that to my readers. In a follow-up email she went further and suggested that I tell the story of Donna Iona Drozda.

I'll be brief.

I love how the words we use and the way we communicate sends energy out into the world. Pain/pleasure, gain/loss, praise/blame, fame/disgrace. The list goes on and on. Some words help us feel hopeful and uplifted other words suck our lifeforce away and break our spirit.

Since 1991 the Lifecycle department of my studio outreach has been devoted to assisting us in walking in creative balance. The mantra for Lifecycle is paraphrased from Thoreau and states 'To affect the quality of the day is the highest of arts.' For Lifecycle I enlist a variety of well developed tools. I have a love affair with the work of walking through the world in a state of balance.

Merci 33: of course Merci means thank you. Thank you for every blessed moment. And 33 is an auspicious number that relates to 'All is Well'.
Therefore Merci 33 is a code for my life that reminds me 'Thank you. All is well.'

my plates remind me daily

My given name is Donna Jean Drozda. When I was violently attacked I could have been lost to myself for all time. However very quickly an artist/mentor came into my life and her lifestyle served as an example and helped me to immerse in the study of first Raja yoga and when my mind was able to calm a bit Hatha yoga. I was simultaneoulsy introduced to the Tao Te Ching. I have studied these daily for decades.

As part of the ongoing healing process I opened my studio to monthly 'Creativity Salons'. The monthly Salons were like protected circles, a gathering of artists who also shared like-minded souls. A core group of twelve of us engaged in a kind of 'collective creating' using the phases of the moon to circumnavigate the year. For more than five years we invested in the Salon environment where we were free to creatively invent ourselves anew.

We were a very playful group and one of the first things we did was give ourselves permission to choose a 'name for the day'. Instinctively I knew I needed my true  'Artist Name'...my own soul name. A name that belonged to me. What came is Iona. As in I own a Drozda...I own myself. Iona. No one anywhere, under any circumstance, has the power to take me from me. Not ever. It's been tested. It's been proven.

The Fields of Dewachen, Drozda 2001

30x30 inches

Acrylic on canvas

I feel very fortunate that circumstances came together to form a scar tissue that has made me stronger and more flexible as a result of what I have endured. I am a bona fide member of the 'Scar Clan' as outlined in the magnificent book Women Who Run with the Wolves by Clarissa Pinkola Estes.

I am well aware that we are each stronger than we can ever possibly imagine. Often it is not until, or unless, we find ourselves faced with a true test of our inner strengths and resources that we discover just how Merci 33 life truly is.

So there you have it Alyson, in short form.

 Thank you so much for stopping by... may you always in all ways:

~Sing the day

Moon Day at the Wren

Tara's Moon , Drozda 2010

8x10"

White ink, prismacolor on black illustration board

I open the week by relating to the moon, after all it's Moonday. La Luna helps me to create and live in harmony with the phases and the cycles of nature. I love to live my life and make art in tandem with what I affectionately refer to as 'Luna See'.

There is a completely different pace when you begin truly noticing the patterns of the moon. Living by the phases is a wonderful way of relaxing time in all areas but particularly in the studio. If you visualize your kitchen wall calendar you see the days stretching out in a linear fashion that implies the need to 'Get there!' That's a Solar (masculine) way of tracking time. Obviously we need this way of moving through the world. But a glimpse at a lunar calendar page acclimates us to the mysterious (feminine) unfolding of phases and breaks the use of time into three day segments. In creating with and living with the cycles of the moon since 1989 I've come to see the balance of these two ways of moving through time. I see the moon phases as stretching time so as to allow breathing space. There are approximately 29.6 days in a lunar month and that divides into 8 phases, as was outlined here on the New Moon, April 14 post.

Currently we're in the Crescent phase of this moon cycle so the opportunity is ripe for researching whatever your creative goal is for this month/moon.

My current studio goal is to learn new techno-communication skills. To help me I've signed on for Blog Triage with Alyson Stanfield and Cynthia Morris. The behind the scenes learning, along with the sense of community, is truly inspired. The class is pushing us all in a very positively assertive and enthusiastic direction...if I might jump in and give my humble take (for all involved)... it really feels like we're learning plus having a whole lotta fun.

The assignment/research for this phase is to design a different look for our blog. One point of entry is our use of fonts and color. We're being asked to 'think gallery'. we're being asked to sync up website and blog so they are 'of a piece'.

The first action I took(reluctantly), after listening to the lesson, was to eliminate the dark gray background and white font. Personally I loved that look, however I had heard from several sets of eyes that white type on a dark ground is not easy to read from a computer screen. Alyson provided an amazing wealth of information including seven pages of lesson plan on this topic, so it will be an ongoing opportunity to change things out. For now, I've clarified my look by using white ground with black type. Simple. This is the way I started my blog and I admit I didn't feel comfortable with the 'step back' yet just a short time into the change I'm feeling more at home again. I'll continue to research fonts and link colors and over all design of the page. I am a happy learner.

2010 Treasure Map, Drozda

18x24"

collage, drawing red poster board

This is a synchronistic moment for a fresh start, a new sense of creative passion and an infusion of enthusiasm because this is the Aries moon cycle. Each year the Aries moon signals a new beginning (as nature demonstrates).  This makes for a prime time for mapping out studio goals for the whole walk around this year's Wheel of Life. Pictured here is my current Treasure Map. It helps me stay focused upon the energy and information I'm open to experiencing in the year ahead. I also keep a studio goal journal and have belonged to a weekly 'Master Mind' support group since 1984. A confidential {artist's} support group is a great, time honored way to keep track and prioritize the work.

What is your self-expressive goal for this new year's first moon cycle? And what are you creatively reaching for throughout this year? Whatever you're yearning to express and share you may enjoy the investment in doing your own version of a treasure map or mind map during the coming week.

In three days it will be time to take a specific action in relation to one of your creative goals. If you've read this far and would enjoy a gift of a 'Luna See Recipe' card let me know and I'll make that available to you.

Until next time keep in mind: when following the moon there's no reason to rush...ahhhhhhhhhh....

~Sing the Day

Celebrating the Day

I am so happy to be able to celebrate this day. Fourteen years ago, on April 7, I packed up the van with the 2 dogs, 2 cats and 2 birds and began a caravan with my partner driving the moving truck and a dear friend bringing all the house plants as we relocated from Ohio to Virginia.... moving from the glacial moraine to the edge of the continent.
Many of you have probably moved more times than you can count. Others may be like me, I'd lived in the same geographic area for more than 40 years. I traveled a good bit and felt a sense of expansiveness to life because of that but picking up and leaving it all behind was BIG. HUGE. With the move...everything changed.

                                                                  'In You Go' Drozda  Acrylic on Wood

    I'm so happy that it did. It's been a good shake up and I've loved coming to a new place to explore.

The Cypress swamp where I walk

 So every April 7 I take the day to wander and to wonder and to open to what will be coming around the next turn in the trail.

I've met the most wonderful people since relocating, and I knew the greatest folks before I moved, but one of the celebrations that is on my mind today is the amazingly rich and endless community of artists who I can visit through this medium of blogging. I love what you create and what you share. I so enjoy learning from you and being inspired by you. I'm new to it and I'm green but I am enthralled and entranced. I feel so fortunate to be in a community where beauty and wonder are so willingly shared by so many exceptionally gifted and talented beings.

I'm celebrating something else today. Every ninety days I set a goal. That takes me around the wheel of the year from Equinox to Solstice to Equinox to Solstice and round I go spiraling year after year. This quarter's goal is to improve my techno-communication skills. I felt that one way that could happen is through this wonderful art of blogging. To assist me I signed on for Blog Triage: Maintaining a Healthy Artist's Blog with Cynthia Morris and Alyson Stanfield. Today is the first day of a one month tune-up and I am rather thrilled to imagine the world of discovery that awaits me. I hope that you'll pop over and follow along throughout the next four weeks perhaps gleaning some tips that you can use....and of course, if you are here, I hope that you will comment (hint hint :-) sharing your wealth of knowledge with me too...this is exciting and I feel like such a happy learner!

At my monthly women's art group a call has gone out for books that have helped us, as artists, when we feel that the creative stream has been diverted or is drying up. What are some of your favorites? What books are beside your bed? What books do you reach for when you feel the need for sustanence? I have so many titles that uplift me but I wanted to share three today. Creating by Robert Fritz, Man and his Symbols by Carl Jung and I'd Rather Be In the Studio by Alyson B Stanfield. These are three very different books each with its own way of bringing up enthusiasm and courage for moving forward with what is. I am so appreciative that over the years the philosophy put forth in each has helped to bring me back into a feeling of strong yet gentle creative flow. I'm an Elder now. I'm considering the 'birdseed trail' that I might spread across the earth. I'm not interested in pushing any rivers but I am so jazzed by what there is to discover and share through our many mediums and their countless messages.

As I celebrate the fourteenth anniversary of my move I am also celebrating these vital foundation builders and all of you who inspire me so deeply and so wonderfully by sharing your world view with such passion and generosity of soul. Thank you so much.

~Sing the day