The way that you all define and experience WILD has brought me to tears again and again. I can feel my own hairs standing up on my arms when I read the words of hair flying tangled in the wind and of juicy colors and rolling down hills, of sitting still and listening to the wind and that quiet truth. I love the circular nature of inspiration, it never ends-it just feeds itself, totally nourished by the movement back to the wild, into the deeper places, far less frightening when you know there are women standing on mountaintops and diving down into the waters, just as you are. Perfectly sustainable momentum is wildness. Instinct. Ferocity to identify with everything and the beautiful emptiness of it, all at once. You women are killing me. Softly ;)
Winners are:
ROSE-for the Rabbit Bundle.
BRANDI MARIE-for the print of Go Wild Believing.
NOELLE: for the Deck of postcards.
I wish I were sending something to every one of you!!! Giveaways hurt a bit because I want everyone to win. Which means I'll have to cook up another one...*winkety wink* I just thought of one.
Tomorrow I'm heading to the coast for a couple of days of solitude to write a book proposal for a love affair that will no longer be quiet. I was reminded of a story I wanted to share with you when I saw the above painting across from me.
About five years and a few months ago, I attended a gathering of about ten women in a blogger's home in which we all sat in circle and talked about possibility and our dreams. I've loved watching the lives unfold of everyone who was there. It fascinates me to witness the big shifts that take place when women do what they've done for millenia: sit, nosh, share stories, chew the proverbial fat, and name those places waiting for them out in the not-so-distant future. I'm loving expanding my range this year by doing some teaching (here and here) and bringing that energy to some of you whom I've never met, some who've shared that you've never sat in circle and can't wait any longer.
When I met with those women, Miles was about three months old. His Daddy brought him to me throughout the day to nurse and have Mama time while I communed with my kind and then I joined them for bedtime each night. I was the first of that group to have a baby, but was behind a bit on establishing my voice in the art and writing marketplace. And kind of had my hands too full of new baby buns to do much about it. (Funny how we compare and judge our journeys when we *know* inside that we're always right where we're supposed to be.)
Just before we went, Brandon helped even more than ususal with Miles one afternoon, while I cranked out two small paintings in our travel trailer- which we were living in while our house was being built. It was such a mess! I had glue and paint everywhere, but I was like...on fire with creative energy. I didn't know if it was because I'd just become a mom, or if I was spurred on by a sort of healthy competition with these women, and I wanted to have something to share...all I knew that day was that I felt ALIVE, in several dimensions-creative in every way possible. I felt proud of my work, one of which is the piece you see above, entitled Paradox.
My Wild was already busting through cages, and seeking meaning outside all of the boxes. I got brave enough to share my work at one point and one woman sat next to me, someone who I considered to be quite successful and deeply admired- and literally, like...the first blogger there ever was. At one point, after a long silence and looking at me....looking at my work, and back again, she asked, thoughtfully,
"So............ It can be done?"
And of course I was thinking, what in the hell is this madwoman talking about? YES, two paintings can be done, woman, you who have created countless paintings, drawings, ads, websites, books...what is fascinating to you, of all people, about this? (But I kept that to myself.)
"Art. And.....life. Parenting. The two can co-exist?"
She was asking me? Oh shit. I felt no authority to comment in that moment. However, later it made me realize that not only can it exist, that for me, it MUST exist. My art and my life were inseparable. My creativity would not peel away from my life. It would not be quiet. It would not lie down and let me be mom only. It would not cooperate. Of course, she went on to write a dozen books in the span of several years and have a baby or two, and prove it to herself in a big way.
Lesson learned: When we feel the drive to make a creative life-to open up and get our hands messy, and name it as such- the Universe helps to coordinate the logistics, right? This is what I trust. And one manifestion has a way of unfolding into another and another, and the worst I felt I could do for myself was not to name it. To hold back. To stay inside of what Amelia Earhart referred to as "even an attractive cage".
The cage, however, from where I sit, was never motherhood. It was never the town I lived in. It was not the day job I had to take when Miles was eighteen months old. It was not my age, or the fact that I didn't finish art school. The box was nothing more than the way I thought of myself and my creativity in relation to the world. It was nothing more than fear of letting my soul out to play on the wild wind so many of you spoke of. Fear that it wouldn't want to come back...
I never sold that painting. It sits on top of the bookshelf that faces me, Coyote peering out of her profile, reminding me as she exits Stage Left, that before I knew....I knew. I knew that what I considered to be impossible would show me otherwise. That what I feared would not come true, but appeared as a real obstacle, instead of the cardboard figure it really was. Because that's how Coyote operates. I could play small all I wanted, it wasn't going to work. She was already up ahead frolicking in the daisies, waiting for me to catch up and take a ride on her bristly back, so she could tell me she'd told me so back when.
