it’s all ours, it’s the art of self-creation,

Perhaps the hardest thing about the path is that it’s

entirely up to us how far we go, how deep we go,

how authentic we become. No one else can do it

for us—it’s all ours, it’s the art of self-creation, it’s

adult responsibility.  It’s such a private decision we

come back to time and again—Am I willing to do

the work to find and to live my path? Do I have the

faith, courage and persistence I need to keep getting

back up off the ground when things go awry? How

badly do I want an authentic life?  What price am I

willing to pay to create one?   Jeff Brown

 

Am I a willing to do what it takes? Paying the price sometimes feels to high, for the price seems to be my sanity, my voice, my creativity!  For the past year I have been my Mother’s caregiver, not a position I apply for but one that seems to have been dropped in my path. It is my challenge to find the way through what seems darkness of financial, government and state administrations that are riddle of, do this, go here, now go there, fill this out, did you see this person or that, have you appeared for the Doctor, Lawyer, etc?

In the mean time I pull myself into distractions, food via sugar, Facebook via photography sites, which are rewarding and educational creating a time-lapse of heightened senses . A Tumblr account that started out as a porn page but has “evolved” into a more sophisticated high-end on-line pictorial magazine with Art, fashion,  food, coffee, decor, etc. Scattered around is still porn!

Yes I still get out each day to photograph while walking the dogs, each moment a bit of letting go, allowing nature to sooth my wounded darkened soul. I still continue to seek forms of expression with the photography. Joining the Black and White Street Photography.com page has been an eye opening experience. One is which I am challenged each day to “see” differently.

 

it’s all ours, it’s the art of self-creation, it’s

adult responsibility.  It’s such a private decision we

come back to time and again…

Is it? Is the art of self-creation over and over and over again an “adult responsibility”? Right now the art of self creation looks like chaos, feels like a big heaping mess, one that is being trudged through to get to the other side. I have never really been responsible for someone else life. Not for one who can’t make their own choices,  for one who, remembers somethings and forgets most other daily activities. Nothing about feels “authentic” it feels forced.

Am I willing to do

the work to find and to live my path? 

 

For some reason yes I am willing to do the work to live and keep on the path while in the process of caregiving. That is why blogging is so important. It is my voice being shared, it is an expression of who I am at the moment.  Even though the path seems so dark and lonely at times, there are great moments of light, great moments of happiness, I was thinking joy but I believe joy is something else. The work I do to stay on the path is my creativity, making photographs, promoting those photographs, with whatever energy I have. Sometimes I feel like the drunk at the bar who is always talking big and grand about the places and things he is going to do, yet never gets off the bar stool.  Talking dreams, clouds in the sky, imaging this or that, yet the end is the same, talking. Let me tell you that is not the case. The Exhibitions, the artist dates, the promotion may not be as steady as it once was. It still trickles, it still flows.

Each day of endless questions and repeated answers, it’s still filled with beauty all around.

 Do I have the

faith, courage and persistence I need to keep getting

back up off the ground when things go awry?

It seems that I do have the faith, courage and persistence to get back off the ground. Or you wouldn’t being seeing this blog, I wouldn’t be part of a group exhibition that is now hanging at the Galleria in Deptford NJ. I have a photograph at Cafe 12 as part of that group show for the Photographic Society of Philadelphia.  One of my photographs taken a few years ago was just featured in a group on Redbubble.com.

Caregiving, maintenance  of finance and a house with yard didn’t seem to be part of my path yet they are that which informs me of who I am right now. Much of that I struggle with that struggle helps peel the layers of unknowing away.

it’s

entirely up to us how far we go, how deep we go,

how authentic we become.

Soul Journey

The quotes here are quotes I have collected over the past year or so, they have been selected to express the experience of the last few months. My own words at this time will not convey that which has been in process. These words resonate, inspire, enlighten, and shine life light on the journey past, present, and into the future.

“We must remember that REAL change takes time. Growers are inchworms. Lasting transformation is an incremental process, one “soulstep” at a time. We can have all the peak experiences we want but the real work happens between the peaks, while laying down and integrating on the valley floor. This may frustrate us, but it is the only way to craft an awareness that is authentic and sustainable. Divine perspiration…” Jeff Brown

 

 

“Although the journey home is often difficult, its also wondrous. On the materialistic treasure hunt, satisfactions are fleeting. On the inner treasure hunt, your satisfaction builds. It’s so beautiful to touch a new plateau of awareness, to view your self with a broadened lens, to shape your self with your own two hands. Every time I unravel a piece of my karmic thread, I feel the God-self come a little bit closer.. ” Jeff Brown

“The art form of the Soulshaping journey is knowing when to assert, & when to surrender. There are times when utilizing our will is perfect in order to excavate our path from the deep within, but there are also times when glimpses of path float to the surface only when we’re in a receptive state. Some shaping happens through our own efforts, some happens when we lay back & let the universe do the shaping for us.” Jeff Brown

 

“With respect to path, I feel the primary goal is to identify our unique soul-scriptures, to walk in our own two shoes & no one else’s. Not to say that every moment will be blissful-we still have to deal with the world etc- but to reach the stage where we know that we are where we are supposed to be on our Soulshaping journeys. Not where someone else told us to be, but our own true-path. This is what I wish for us.” Jeff Brown

 

“When you walk through the gateway of your sacred purpose, you walk into yourself. Blessingly buffered from the madness of the world, your purpose filters out those relationships and energies that undermine your expansion. Infused with vitality and a clarified focus, new pathways of possibility appear where before there were obstacles. Life still has its challenges, but you interface with them differently, coated in an authenticity of purpose that sees through the veils to what really matters. The rivers of essence rise up to meet you, carrying you from one wave of expansion to another…” (Soulshaping) Jeff Brown

 

“Going with the flow” means listening to your inner guidance ~ not sitting back, waiting and doing nothing. In order for us to get in touch with our inner guidance we need to spend time in meditation stilling the mind. When the mind is overactive, it is impossible to receive clarity. 15 minutes of stillness ~ everyday ~ will open up the tubes and channels to your higher self and open up the “flow” of communication from your higher wisdom. In order to go with the flow, you must first be in the flow.” ~ Sabrina

 

“God, the supreme artist, uses our life for the creation of art. We are the instruments through which the force of life expresses itself. We express our art in everything we say, everything we feel, and everything we do. The creation is ongoing, it is endless, it is happening in every moment.” ~ Don Miguel Ruiz

The journey is always full, it is our perspective that gives in life, shares its meaning. I am grateful for the journey, I am grateful for my friends and followers who kept silent while still asking… I am Love!

Comfortably Numb or a Firework

Push hard to get better, become smarter, grow your devotion to the truth, fuel you commitment to beauty, refine your emotional intelligence, hone you dreams, negotiate with your shadow, cure your ignorance, shed your pettiness, heighten your drive to (love) look  for the best in people, and soften your heart – even as you always accept yourself for exactly who  you are with all your so-called imperfections. Rob Brezsny

commitment to beauty

This may become a book report, or maybe just an observation on where my life is today and where I wish it to go? The above quote is from Pronoia is the antidote for paranoia: How the whole world is conspiring to shower you with blessings. This the full title more or less for this amazingly sometimes irreverent but always joyous, passionate language and guide to following your bliss, traveling through the maze of everyday muck into a joyful blissful experience of life. Which something I desire to do and be.

I became aware of Rob Brezeny some years ago when one the men at Easton Mt Retreat center suggested his astrology site to me. Free Will Astrology  I would read the weekly report, and this is not your Mother astrology reading, these are off the wall, sometimes vague, yet always entertaining and informative. (if you’re looking for a new take on your astrology) .

My friend posted  Comfortably Numb  this morning on Facebook, and I resonated with the song immediately for that is what I have been experiencing in my life, now there is a negotiation with shadow, to admit such a state of being! Just going through process but not really feeling one way or another. Sometimes I say to myself, I am just being present. Is being present the lack of emotion or feeling? I always seem to have more questions than answers, one must precede the other, I think?

Light shine through the forrest !

So the admittance of this fact of numbness is a place of surrender, a place of knowledge,  and the reason for Pronoia to show up in my life more fully. I was at Barnes and Noble to meet a friend, I needed some human contact and a person I could communicate with, yet the day was an odd day, one in which I felt shifts of energy, low vibrations in another space, and even with my friend I didn’t feel completely connected as I usually do. So once she left I went to look for Jeff Brown’s Soulshaping which they did not have in stock but I had seen Pronoia on the shelf and if felt that was the sign to purchase and dive into this material. For a few day before I was reading astrology newsletter and had used a quote on my Facebook page which got some notice. “Evil is boring. Cynicism is idiotic. Fear is a bad habit. Despair is lazy. Joy is fascinating. Love is an act of heroic genius. Pleasure is your birthright. Receptivity is a superpower.”  It was in the energy of those words that I reached out, that I began to search for more, I began to desire to have this language that is positive and wildly blissful be part of my life experience.  So there you have it, in order not to be so darn serious, I have chosen to be heroic to experience pleasure, listen more intently to the message.  No one can change me but my choice to do so, as my friend Laurie,  Holistic practitioner  uses as her motto or guide suggest “Follow your heart”. Wise advise.

sweet fragrance

So I leave you with another song one that I hear in my mind very often. Katy Parry’s Firework: “there is a spark in you, ignite your light … your a firework !

Growth Question: Are you comfortable numb or are you lighting up the sky like a firework?