ORIGINAL BLISS

A Simple Spark of Joy

A much needed spark of joy and inspiration awaited me on my kitchen counter when I arrived home from work at 4 a.m.

The new Somerset Studio's Art Journaling magazine has hit the stands! While my feature and article will not be published until January 2011, three of my pages and several of my hints and answers to questions are published in this issue.

Yay!

I was so happy to see one of my favorite journal artists from Flickr, Erin Kenepp, published in this issue! I also discovered an artist I had not run across before, Christine Mason Miller. Her spread "Where is God?" was my favorite in the whole magazine!

Namaste,

C H E Z

Begin Within.

So lost. 

Soft clay pots on the wheel, we have lost our center.

We have deformed.

We are degenerating.

We are beginning to disintegrate and the shrapnel is flung hither and yon making an enormous mess of everything. Every day brings with it another one or two WTF? events brought on by, ours truly, humanity. 

How do you stop a single environmental disaster?

How do you stop global warming?

How do you stop people from harming and murdering others?

How do you stop war?

How do you stop hate, once seeded, from rooting, and growing, and reproducing.

How do you stop the greed?

Does any of it ever stop?

Does it even wane?

Are we supposed to just get used to it?

Will it only get worse?

It appears to me ~ the chaos will only deepen and spread. Like a breached oil well, its tar-black darkness will continue to invade and threaten the pure and crystalline waters of our peace, joy and happiness. We are trapped birds in a mire of situations that are beyond our control. Our wings are rendered useless.

But there is a way out.

The way out is within.

We are more than the mere clay vessels of our flesh and bones. Something fills us. Something beyond time and space. Something beyond limitation. Buried deep under impenetrable layers of distraction and delusions - something eternal and holy. 

We are given a choice. We can live our life denying the existence of our true essence, 

or 

we can recognize it. 

Once we recognize we are something more, we have yet another choice. 

We can ignore and neglect this aspect of ourselves - know that it is there but make it secondary to the distractions and delusions of our physical reality and ego, 

or 

we can cultivate it.

We must drop all the disguises; our character traits, job titles, income, gender, sexual preferences, political party, obligations, thoughts, and beliefs, and get real.

Set aside 5 measly minutes at the beginning of your day, to acknowledge, connect and center your being around that still, small point of Infinite Light. 

Put yourself into that space, that inner connection with God... the One... the Tao... the Universe... the Nameless Creator... and what follows is wisdom and right purpose in your actions and speech. Your shift into that space, creates permission for others to shift into that space.

Cultivating our infinite self tethers us to the Truth. Denying or ignoring it, leaves us floundering in the flotsum.

It is our first and last and only resort. It is the only thing that separates oil from water, the wheat from the chaff.

Namaste,

C H E Z

The Faint Fragrance

 "All day I think about it, 

then at night I say it.

Where did I come from, 

and what am I supposed to be doing?

My soul is from elsewhere,

I am sure of that,

and I intend to end up there.

This drunkenness began in some other tavern.

When I get back to that place,

I'll be completely sober.

Meanwhile,

I am like a bird from another continent,

sitting in this aviary.

The day is coming when I fly off,

but who is it now in my ear,

who hears my voice?

Who says words with my mouth?

Who looks out with my eyes?

What is the soul?

I cannot stop asking.

If I could taste one sip of an answer, 

I could break out of this prison for drunks.

I didn't come here of my own accord,

and I can't leave that way.

Whoever brought me here,

will have to take me home."

R U M I

This is how the divine speaks:

When I journal, I never have a plan. 

Usually, I am pent up and frustrated when I approach my journal. I have something to say ~ to myself and to the world ~ but words and ideas are knotted within me.

With these pages I started with some leftover pink, gift tissue. It was sitting there on the table. I was sick of looking at it, but didn't want to find a place to put it away. So I ripped it and pasted it to the page. 

Then I squirted some gesso on it and smeared it with my fingers.

After it dried, I felt an urge to write.

I was remembering a dream I had not very long ago, where I went off on a boat into the universe and spoke with a presence I have known from the beginning of time. I didn't want to leave, but the presence made me, telling me that the perfect connection and balance and love I was experiencing in that moment... I had to bring it back into the world with me. 

I wept.

The boat left again, without me, and I woke up.

I have wanted that experience back.

On the pages I wrote to that presence. 

"Where are you?"

"You told me to be that love in the world, but I don't know how."

"Once you were gone, I felt empty."

I wrote them in soft pink, so they couldn't really be read by anybody, lest they think me mad.

Then I was stuck and frustrated again. I didn't know what next to do with the page.

So I went for a walk.

It was just before sunset. The heat of the day had cooled. There was laughter and splashing water in the park. There was a breeze. There was the faint fragrance of that presence laced softly upon that breeze. I felt embraced. A country songbird fluttered along beside me. 

Yes! A bird! A bird goes on that page!

I walked home and finished the page.

I take my photos of the page, upload them to the computer, open up TypePad, and think, "What do I say about this? How do I convey this message?"

Again, I do not even know where to begin.

Something moved me to my book of Rumi. I opened the book right to the page with this poem on it.

And that was exactly what I was trying to say all along!

Namaste,

C H E Z

For The Sake of What?

 

This was a question posed to me during this week of training with Smart Soul Academy.

I was asked to contemplate and share my "why". Why did I chose to be on this path?

"For the sake of.............what?"

I ponder.

I contemplate.

I sit in the blank.

I search.

I wait for my answer.

For the sake of happiness. For the sake of NOW. For the sake of the necessary. For the sake of YES! For the sake of purpose. For the sake of my soul.

Every answer a cliche, trite, not quite true or authentic.

Can this question be answered with just one choice? Can I change my choice tomorrow or in the next moment?

Or is it a multiple choice answer where the only truth can be ALL OF THE ABOVE?

Any journey I have ever embarked upon, always had an answer, an answer as to why I was heading a particular direction.

For the sake of my children. For the sake of my relationship. For the sake of a retirement and medical insurance. 

I always had a goal, a destination... but when I arrived I found that I never ended up where I had envisioned.

When I began participating in the Smart Soul Academy, my intuition opened wide and said "Yes!". When I began my Holistic Theology degree program, my soul opened even wider and rejoiced. This is a path I have always dreamed of walking, but every time I considered it my mind would not give me permission.

I followed the permission of my soul this time, finally stepping onto the path of my heart's desire. It was like jumping from an airplane without a parachute. I am in an exhilarating free fall. I don't really know where the landing zone is and my mind is screaming, "YOU ARE GOING TO SPLAT DOWN IN THE MIDDLE OF NOWHERE!!!!!"

 

I may not know where this is leading. I only know, with loud clarity, that it was time to leave where I was and move in this direction. 

The parachute of my rational mind was never really necessary. It can stop screaming and shut up now, because it will not keep my soul from flying this time. 

Namaste,

C H E Z

Circus Freaks and Wonders

 

I handcrafted some journals-a-la-Teesha-Moore a while back with some left over watercolor paper and they have been sitting ever since.

Last night, I was desperate to journal but both my Moleskine and altered yearbook left me uninspired.

I haven't done any art journaling for 2 weeks! It was so so SO HARD to get started last night. It was such a struggle that I gave myself a massive headache from the effort.

It got me to thinking. 

Creating our art is very similar to working out. If you don't do it regularly, you seize up! I definitely lost some of my flexibility and endurance over the last couple of creatively stagnant weeks. I am sure once I get going on a regular basis, just like working out, I'll require a daily dose to feel complete in myself.

I am inspired now. I have been wanting to do a whole "Circus" themed journal and this 8-page booklet is perfect for a one-theme journal. Check out Teesha's free video tutorial on how to make your own. And for inspiration check our her FABULOUS journal pages! She is seriously one of the best!

Namaste, 

C H E Z

It's Time.

 

I have taken some steps through so many new, OPEN doors, these past two weeks. This post should actually be three separate ones!

Something about the moving, being in limbo, between worlds; moving out of a world that is completing a cycle and a into a new one that is healed and free and ready.

First, I started a nutrition plan, lost almost 20 pounds and have had an enormous increase in physical energy. I have been hiding from my body for 3 years, ignoring it, not wanting to feel it because I felt uncomfortable and unwell. It was easier to pretend that it didn't exist.

Shedding - releasing - that 20 pounds, so relatively effortlessly, was like molting. I let it go and stepped out of my shell, back into a being of vitality.

Surely, I gush!

Second, as a mentioned a few posts ago, I was driving home from work one butt crack of dawn, because that is what 3:30 in the morning is, the butt crack of dawn, and I was feeling overwhelmed by the clean slate rising on my horizon. A clean slate, with endless possibility and opportunity is a frightening thing! I have had them many times before, only to muddy them up with "fillers" that weren't really my soul's desire.

I had a whisper of an idea from my commuting angel to turn on AM 1530. Really???? Who listens to AM anymore - all talk and static and hum. But Coast to Coast AM was on and Ian Punnett speaking with Zen DeBrucke, who was talking about our natural intuition, as she calls it, an Internal Guidance System. There were several times during her interview I got a full body opening - every cell in my body, from head to toe, was a-tingle.

I had to explore this further.

So I have been spending the past two weeks, using this technique. Now, I have always had a very strong intuition, but I haven't been very good at directing it, understanding it clearly, or following its signals. This practice has had amazing results. Very quickly, I have been able to tune in and get very clear "yesses" and "nos". 

You can listen to that Coast to Coast Interview here.

SO THEN! I was experimenting with this technique and exploring my IGS about something that has tormented me my whole life. A deep disatisfaction that I am not really on my true path. Yes, I have been a fabulous mother. Yes, I love creating, art journaling, and facilitating others in the exploration of their creativity. But all of that falls shy of that total resonance that only being on PURPOSE can bring.

So I am journaling (writing, rather than art) PAGES and PAGES of my insights, digging for the gold vein that has ALWAYS threaded through my life, where I feel most joy, excitement, peace and rightness. And I FOUND it... but it made me really anxious and afraid.

The next day, I opened up my SPAM box on my email. There were 30 of them in there: "Your account is expiring - send us all your passwords so we can save your account." "You are the benificiary of 33 million dollars"... you know what I am talking about....

I don't even know why I opened it rather than just hit "empty". But I did. And in the list of shit, one email caught my eye. I opened it and found an invitation to a seminary program - exactly what I had written in my journal the night before. And then very clear it came to me. 

"It's time."

Namaste, 

C H E Z

For Love, Everything!

"Lover's don't finally meet somewhere. 

They're in each other all along." 

Rumi

So today, we began packing our belongings.

The clutter of moving is already strewn about - which sets my Obsessive Compulsive side on edge.

It seems that every year around my birthday, our life gets a little (or a lot) tossed. The complete paradigm shifting event near my 40th, Jeff getting laid off near my 41st, and packing to move on my 42nd. I thought my 20's were a wild sea of change... but my 40's are turning out even more tumultuous!

But each and every event and shift, though devastating in appearance, has only brought ABUNDANT blessings!

If it weren't for The Salinas Incident, I would have never started Soul Journaling again. I would have never started a blog. I would have never started teaching workshops. I would never have been published in magazines (3 times). I would have never begun publishing my own books. I would have never started living my passion and having it provide for me in return. As horrid as that period of time was, and all that it spawned that we still are recuperating from today, it provided me a fertile soil that has grown this magnificent, fruitful, live-giving and soul-saving tree.

Last year, Jeff was laid off. Part of the spawn of Salinas was that he could no longer secure employment in his profession of Code Enforcement. After serious assessment of his true self and gifts, he is re-training in a profession that is more in line with the truth of who he is, a compassionate, caring, and completely giving individual. Being realigned with something that resonates with his core has created a positive flow of more abundance and things are falling into place with miraculous ease.

Now this.

The move. 

Again, we fought and cajoled, trying to find ways of clinging to what we thought were our dreams of growing old in this house, holding hands and drinking wine on our porch. To no avail. But in the letting go, again, the Universe, God, the Angels, The Great Whatever, has moved mountains to support us! It manifested our new space, literally right before my eyes, with so little effort. And every other need that arises, has its answer following right behind. It can only be "meant to be" - because otherwise, none of it makes sense.

So I am EXTREMELY GRATEFUL for the blessings surrounding me. And I am definitely assured a happy 42nd birthday!

Namaste,

C H E Z

What Inspires You Today?

 

Today is a lovely, stormy day.

It's cold. It's wet. It's perfect for treasure hunting for inspiration.

Here is my small list for today:

Agnes Pages  - A delightful blog... simple and poetic about a daily life.

Santa Monica Spin #4 - I had a dream a year ago where I was alone in an amusement park and took a ride into the Universe and had a chat with God. This image looks exactly like the amusement park in my dreams, and reminds me of that dream experience.

Mad Hatter - A GORGEOUS rendering! 

These pages I posted today, use a technique I learned from LK Ludwig in her Point and Shoot Journaling Online Workshop using my own photographs, white gift wrap tissue and walnut ink. Her classes are full of information, very reasonably priced and INSPIRING!

What is Inspiring you today?

Namaste,

C H E Z 

Trust Under My Feet & BIG Hope in My Pocket

What ever happened to dreams?

I don't mean the visions we have when we get into a good sleep.

I mean the BIG DREAM WISHES!?  The ones that Best Actress Oscar winners tell us we can achieve?  The "you can have it all" dreams that you actually believe could really happen.

Where have all our big dreams gone?

We live in a time where you hear a lot of "just be thankful".  "Just be thankful you still have a job."  "Just be thankful you have a good, loving family."  "Just be thankful that at least you have your health."

"Just" is a puny, little thing.  It's a minimizer.  A settler for less.

We all keep trying to get by with a just little hope in our pocket.  A very little, dingy lint of hope, carried around deep in our jean pocket.  If you dig in there, you can scrape a bit out with a fingernail.

The "times" have shrunk us.  We are afraid to be large and dream big. 

  

We need to take our power back.  We need to fully own our powers of manifesting miracles.

Allow yourself to fully open and fall into trust.   Realize completely how FULLY you are taken care of and start dreaming BIG BIG BIG dreams again!

Namaste,

C H E Z

Making It Real. Making It Happen.

Jeez.... where have I been??? I feel all pent up from not blogging for several days.

Funny. I didn't realize how much of an outlet it had become until I couldn't get to it this week.

There has been so much energy and activity around. I am a little spun!

The "Wishes, Rants and Stillness" workshop happens on Sunday! So I have been fingerpainting and collaging pages ahead of time, creating examples to share with the artists. I am really excited.

I found out I will be a featured artist in an upcoming Somerset Studio Art Journaling magazine. How thrilling, right?

But... that means writing an article that sounds intelligent and inspires.

The blank page is always intimidating.... so many ideas fogging my brain! Art is my ministry. Passing on the passion - a quest! How do I convey all that passion and inspiration into a concise 700 words! Fingerpainting it would be soooooo much easier!

But the Muse will come.

She will whisper the seed that I need that everything can grow from.

She is very reliable that way.

Namaste,

C H E Z