how did i get so damned blessed?

i truely live in a beautiful place

and everyday i count the blessings of the green around me and the coast and the feeling of being amoung the luckiest inhabitants of this planet - not only because of my health and my family and my abundance but because of where we live...

Te Tai Tokerau in Aotearoa New Zealand is a remarkable collection of beauty, soul and spirit.

The trees talk.

The rivers sing.

The ocean chants again and again.

And they are the sounds that resonate with my heartbeat.

Here is where i went yesterday... Matapouri Beach and Whale bay .. a walk through the coastal bush, over cliffs... past the scene of my first kiss, in sight of the place where my mother disowned me, in the presence of the place where i first felt seen.

This is my home.

trying new things and being still

(my first journal page background courtesy of art journal love letter's tutorial with Connie)

i am 45

i guess that makes me an old dog

but i am proud to say i am still trying new tricks

with Connie at DirtyFootprints Studios i am exploring more BIG painting - we are looking at balance in painting - and then exploring balance in work.....

i am also part of her ArtJournal Love Letters

With Connie and her open heart, and the members of "the tribe", i am constantly trying new things - some of them grab my heart, some of them slide right by....

I want to honour that by opening myself up in this way, i am still learning, not barricading myself up in the fort of what i already "know".

This keeps me alive.

In Big we are looking this week at space... having been so sick and feeling so weak has meant i have had to look my busy-ness in the eye...

i didn't like what i saw.

mostly i was busy scurrying around doing things for other purposes.

the driving force i have to create and learn and experiment was being elbowed to the side by duty and shoulds.

I know with my deepest wisdom that in order for me to create something truely soulshifting i need to be quiet.

i need to be in nature.

i need to relax.

and instead, all i do is bustle-bustle-bustle......

mostly to show that as a "nonworking" mother, i am still valuable.

so i say to that busy-ness "This no longer serves me".

i am committing to quiet, to creation, to honouring what is deeply moving me.

after all (and i found this quote this morning)

It is because of its emptiness that the cup is useful....