A New Year- A New Moon- A New Artful Adventure!

Dear Perusers:
Effy Wild  in her BOD 2014 class, posted a poem by John Donahue titled  'For A New Beginning'  - how apt to start off this post of 2014 with its wisdom:

For A New Beginning
By John O’Donahue

In out of the way places of the heart
Where your thoughts never think to wander
This beginning has been quietly forming
Waiting until you were ready to emerge.
For a long time it has watched your desire
Feeling the emptiness grow inside you
Noticing how you willed yourself on
Still unable to leave what you had outgrown.
It watched you play with the seduction of safety
And the grey promises that sameness whispered
Heard the waves of turmoil rise and relent
Wondered would you always live like this.
Then the delight, when your courage kindled,
And out you stepped onto new ground,
Your eyes young again with energy and dream
A path of plenitude opening before you.
Though your destination is not clear
You can trust the promise of this opening;
Unfurl yourself into the grace of beginning
That is one with your life’s desire.
Awaken your spirit to adventure
Hold nothing back, learn to find ease in risk
Soon you will be home in a new rhythm
For your soul senses the world that awaits you.

*

Part of my Inner Work this year is to pay attention more often to the Muse (even if she does poke me in the side with her sharp pencil at 2am!). One of the things I did to keep her quiet (or mumbling less) was to download the ebook: No Excuses Art Journaling  by Gina Armfield, from which a very intelligent bit of wisdom was gleaned - take just five minutes at least before anything else in the day happens to do your art in your dayplanner. This means, no email, no f/b, no twitter. Nope, that tablet is only tuned to an internet radio station that plays lovely Gregorian chant or Chorale.And of course, this means (as one guest writer wrote) DOING IT IN BED! Yahoo! My art supplies now occupy a soft sided carryon case,which by reaching down, can be grabbed and plunked up beside me, as I lie there and contemplate the Day. It was part of this exercise, that led me to making my Book Of Days (Effy Wild's 12 week course) in a Dayplanner, and using up all those pesky brown envelopes (which we seem to get a ton of at this time of the year) as holders for my weekly 5x8 artpiece.

I have just finished doing Week 1: Your Word for the Year and when I read these words from Mr Donahue's poem, the word EMERGE leaped out at me. That was IT! My Word.

 This beginning has been quietly forming 

Waiting until you were ready to emerge.

Along with that poem, another one came to mind and I wondered if they would be close enough in feeling so that I could essentially make one poem using their first four lines.

Here is the other poem: The Restlessness of Being a Seed by John Soos 

To be of the Earth is to know

the restlessness of being a seed

the darkness of being planted 

the struggle toward the light 

*

My artpiece now displays a new way of looking at the poems  -
*

In out of the way places of the heart

- To be of the Earth is to Know- 
 the Restlessness of being a Seed

Where your thoughts never think to wander

-- the Darkness of being Planted
Waiting until you were ready to emerge.

This beginning has been quietly forming

-the Struggle toward the Light 

*

And O Dear, I am obsessed with collecting washi tape of all kinds and descriptions - I think I may have to 'go to a meeting', the kind where you bring your washi tape and leave it at the door in an unmarked box and walk away. I haven't yet plucked up the courage to do that.:)

Blessings to all those BODacious babes out there (you know who you are) who are trying to follow along with Effy on this 12 Week Wild Ride of hers!