An Insight From Being Sick (and making art)

Slowly coming back to life over here, after a week and a half of the flu taking over our house and bodies.

Operating at about 65% energy now, still with a crackly voice and cough, I managed to slowly do some things in the studio today... like taking this picture of a page I made while passing the hours in flu-la-la land.

Being knocked down with a sickness has such a funny way of pointing things out to you that you need to see or feel (to remember).

For instance, I made a few art journal pages while sick this past week. Very simple, slow pages. Not much to them at all, really, but a few moments of expression, of just being grateful for the meditation when everything else is just too much... and yet, I realized that even though I was rotten sick, it was still more paint-moving than I've done in one week in Way Too Long.

Painting-play, that is. Not for teaching or commission or some mission. Just for my well-being and spirit.

At least it feels that way - that it's been too little for too long, and it's time to revive and refresh my devotion... and that was important to feel. The ache, the hunger, the missing, the longing for that sacred mysterious process I didn't exactly ask for in life, but that was given to me as a way to feel right and thriving in my soul.

It's not that I haven't been making 'enough' - it's just that it's time, again, for the internal agreement I've been keeping (or breaking) with my process to transform, so that I can continue to feel alive in my skin as an artist.

That was one observation/revelation this past week of several... so, there will be more painting in this new year.

More listening, more seeing, more color moving me into Life.

(By the way, IN THE STARS 'officially' started this past week, as well. If you are interested in learning about the symbolism of your astrological birth chart and exploring its messages in your creative practice, then come join us!)