I did not mind tying on all these leaves after our family art and intention time drawing around the table together.
I don’t mind tying on all these leaves after setting intentions in our circular art way started years ago when we first did Kids Moon Club, and after getting an intuitive reading about my picture from Rowan.
People will pay him for these readings one day. That kid is wise. He says, “I don’t know how I know those things. I just do.”
I say something about staying in trust with his gifts and intuition while remaining humble.
As I write this, I want him to know how important it is to celebrate yourself, too.
The balance of seeing and owning ourselves fully, turning up who we are instead of tuning down to fit in or not be seen as a braggart or some other external perception not ours to control. While culturing devotion and humility.
I thank him from the bottom of my heart for the spot-on reading, where I learned some things and teared up with how much I’ve missed my friends and let myself feel the excitement of the unknown and the proximity to whatever this next beginning brings.
So, as I write this, I’m still not done tying on the leaves. But I’m happy to do it. I love this tedious kind of work, even if I do stop to go write about it.
I love making art. And in saying so, there’s a reclamation. I’m an artist. I’ve always been an artist. Whether it’s words, travel, craft, mothering, homemaking, learning, singing, doing it scared, sculpting a life well lived. It’s not perfect. It’s my kind of art, ever shifting & evolving.
(Spoiler alert: You’re an artist too. Our lives are our masterpiece. We are the vessel through which our art sings and takes flight. This is why my offerings have much to do with tuning the vessel of ourselves.)
But you see, as soon as I say I love making art, there’s a little part of me that feels shy to say such a thing, because some mean external voice remembered says, It’s not really art at all. Rip it out.
That’s the broken-hearted symbol for my most critical inner voice, a voice which I’ve given permission to speak aloud and within on occasion enough during my most sacred moments of vulnerability.
The short backstory here, which some of you know—ya know, it being an overarching life symbol and all—is me showing my cross-stitch canvas of shapes and symbols to my dying mama as she received me from the throne of her navy blue recliner in a joyless, dark brown wood-paneled-wall living room. (Gawd, y’all, color matters. Joy matters.)
She made me show my dad. I didn’t want to. My body tied up in knots to. Broken-hearted himself and never taught the skills of allowing or riding emotion, he got mad about the broken heart on the canvas and told me, What do you have to be broken-hearted about? Fill it in or rip it out.
I ripped it out and stopped cross stitch.
The voice is so buried, subtle, and ignored, its undercurrent floods. Lately, I’m tending to the recipient of that critique that she be fully received, heard, honored, and allowed to simply be. It’s a lineage being healed—backward and forward—beyond blame, shame, imprisonment.
I love this little girl, and I’m giving her everything she needs as I bring her into my being all the way. Instead of shunning her and her needs and pretending she isn’t there. Cuz. Jeez, you guys, How mean?
I often don’t claim things, because I am still trying to hide my interest and hide myself. The subconscious programming here is that if we act disinterested, we’re less likely to get hurt when someone or a circumstance gaslights us to fill it in or rip it out: Don’t feel how you feel or be who you are.
As if the universe (and my closest friends) don’t already know.
So, I’m holding this dear girl close, so my children hold their own inner children close.
And, yeah, I love doing crafty things, making art. I gotta laugh at my knitting sizing sometimes. But the journey to get to that laugh was so worth it. Touching every centimeter of that luscious wooly yarn and hearing the click click of those needles all the way, sitting with my loved ones all together super cozy listening to stories by the fire. That kind of cozy seriously happens sometimes! I mean, how could I not just fully love my life and my family?
The movements of a day in a life are their own masterpiece. It’s the simple little things, the details and their savoring, that accentuate the canvas. Family intentions drawing all together at the table, lovemaking, leaf tying, writing and listening to music while the kids watch a show downstairs, just Serkan and me together tending to our art, while he bakes baklava in the kitchen beside me and I gaze into the screen and type and sip my lavender chamomile tea. (You know the one.)
The truth is, I’m so excited to learn what’s going to happen next.
We’re moving to California. And it feels so right.
I’ve not let myself feel that rightness of it all, instead feeding on doubt—when in reality, I followed my heart, followed my gut, listened to the signs, and made the logical, intuitive best next step.
When I think of all the beauty and love that awaits us there (and in whatever we do), I just can’t fathom how I could have even resisted my inner knowing so much.
Dang, this Virgo lagna/ascendant has a strong will for some things, like going against herself. So now that the Virgo lagna is outta the bag, it is probably all coming together in even more sense: The art making, sensuality, leaf tying, and art from nature.
I have a knack for finding beautiful sticks, pine cones, acorn caps, leaves, feathers, flowers, rocks, shells, vines, seeds. (I’m happy to save the insects, worms, and caterpillary things for the kids.)
I have nature garlands all over the house. That’s me. I would have loved to have grown up with practical woodland fairies. But in the end, I love my origin family, too. They have always given me everything I needed, even when I didn’t like it. Still are.
The truth is I’m excited. I haven’t owned this. And I’m claiming it now.
Life is so fun. There’s always a new adventure. The adventure doesn’t need to require moving every time. But this time couldn’t be more right.
I’m claiming my joy.
And in that reclamation, the shine.
And in that shine, compassion.
Compassion born of self-acceptance—all the parts of that brilliant self.
This is the only way compassion dawns. It is no mistake my middle name is Dawn.
Time to rise.
Also. My goodness. Thank you for being here. Thank you for seeing me. Thank you for allowing yourself to be seen.
What are you claiming and reclaiming during this eclipse portal, during the rebirth of this moment?
Love,
Heather