Ra Avis from Rarasaur came up with Blog Bingo for August. I’ve only posted when I was inspired to write, and/or the universe pried open or carved out time for me to eke out some content. But, besides being such a wonderfully potent writer, Rara’s inspired me with gentle ideas like “blog bingo.” I applaud the simplicity and brilliance of such a possibly achievable idea.

I’m devastated by a lot of things that are happening, one of which is the fires 🔥 that are burning up North California. Beautiful places where my husband and I lived and enjoyed our weekend adventures are currently under evacuation. The old growth forests are threatened.

Basically what I’m saying, is that I need the intensity dial turned way down on the atrocities of the world right now. And basically, I’m interested in cultivating my tiny bubble of ease and comfort. I want to expand and propagate “ease” and “satisfaction” with where it’s doable.

So, where am I at? I’ve blogged 3 times in August, but haven’t been playing to “win.” We are in the last week of August. Since it’s Virgo season and a little bit more “time” is leftover at the tail end of “a month included in the outrageous 2020 year,” I thought maybe I’d assess my current bingo card and attempt to at least try to connect some space: strategize.

Three posts would be 3 spaces, theoretically. We have the serious and expressively (and vulnerable-revealing) post “Committing to the Moment. We have “Recipe for Freedom” and then (because all month long and lately I’ve been so focused on food) the surprisingly named poem about food/poetry, “Ah hah”. Interesting fact is I named the last poem with my “gut,” by using sounds. Sounds are so important in many healing modalities for processing, healing, and moving through pain.

I didn’t explain that all before (and I still haven’t done anything but point to it) because there’s always so much to explain and discuss but such little time to do so. I digress.

Today’s post can be “photo” space. I’ve got “recipe” and “poem.” As you can see, this isn’t gonna cut it for Bingo! So I will have to think about it. I can only use one space per blog post, so I can’t use this blog post as “unfinished.”

I also wrote about “sound” with “poem” as you can see my explanation above, but I know it won’t count for both…

Any ideas? Anyone want to help me?

I need poetry. Fresh.
no time to heat it
in the kitchen,

poetry.
right now.

from the refrigerator,
juicy. Now. Poetry ~
so my teeth can sink in
as the juices flow into
a messy moustache
around my mouth.

poetry is consumed
and used for fuel
burned in my middle jiao 🔥
powering the lights
behind my eyes,
the lights that go on when my
eyes close.

Poetry.

that changes me,
adds weight,
fills my stomach
and then sits with a glass of wine
with dynamic flavors

poetry on my fork,
as dessert, and several servings
of annotations.

Focus on acceptance, love, & forgiveness

Develop compassion for the self.
keep filling the empty cups until they
spill over,

sickness: fill
loneliness: fill
darkness: fill
fear: fill
doubt: fill
jealousy: fill
confusion: fill
disagreement: fill

if facing a downward spiral: first step aside, and then step up, and out.

look for a conveyer belt up, follow someone’s smile after really watching them animate and glitter

💖

and then, be sure to add more love and patience to your own cups.

in fact, don’t stop filling your cup with presence, awareness, commitment

We are going through the most challenging times, collectively.

Not in my lifetime have I seen the need to pull together more than ever.

I told Susan I could commit to “right now,” on day 1 of 40 days of abundance journey. You can follow the journey here. I’m curious if I will show up for more.

What you see written here is the guiding thought Susan provides at the link above, a daily guiding thought for 40 days. What is underneath that (thinking in layer) is my reflection on the guiding thought, which led me to want to express through these paints that I am experimenting with.

They are a new medium for me and I wanted to give them a brief “test drive.” I don’t have the proper paper, but this was just an exercise to loosen up and introduce myself to the medium.

You might remember from my previous posts:

Here and here where I work with 5 minutes at a time: art and meditation.

Susan’s dedication and commitment (Day 1, today) asked us what we could commit to, and I did approx 5 min of expressing and reflecting from the guiding principle. My desire was to bring some color to my page in a way that didn’t take me too much time and was also part of a deeper process: All is Good.

You might recall that I talk about not having a lot of time, that’s remains the same, and even less time with my little kiddo.

Why the Toucan? I’ve been working diligently on my apprenticeship with my Medicine Woman 8th ray magic: Rite of the 12 celestial regents. See this about the program, with its goal of “purpose good.” This toucan appeared to me as one of the guides I am working closely with for the month based closely on the moon’s phases. For some of my readers might recall that I am a shamanic practitioner having studied for over 5 years in an official way, with this teacher, and many many others, before that I was “self-taught” and practiced independently.

With Susan’s guided thoughts in the Journey of Abundance, there’s really no distinctions being drawn about teaching or self-teaching. There’s this inner commitment and the path of the true self, the divine one of all. I’m fortunate to have so much support in my art and spiritual pursuits. I have spent so much of my life on some type of “journey” in a spiritual way. Next week I will be 40 years old.

I can thank Janet from here, for her inspiration during her virtual trip to Wales. See the link to join the trip! Because of Janet, I did a couple of sketches of my daughter (toddler) a couple of weeks ago and keep slowly doing little bits of art here and there when I can carve out the time. She also inspired to get the type of supplies that I am now experimenting with here in this photo: gouache and tombow pens. Yes! This is exactly what I need to squeeze into my days!

~ 💗~

My beloved grandmother passed away last week. I’ve been grieving and celebrating her presence in my life. We had tough months where family couldn’t visit her due to Covid lockdown at nursing homes for 3 months. She’s lives across the country from me. She had dementia and was 99 years old. She survived pelvic and femur surgery last year in 2019 after a fall, but she and her sincere strength–so blessed as she is–was ready to move on. Family was able to visit hospice at the end, and it was a long process. I was able to see her on FaceTime and project my voice so she could hear me, though she was unable to talk in her final weeks.

A big artistic inspiration is her family homeland in Italy, where she grew up, and where I visited for the first time in 2016. I hope whenever I have time I can go back and use those pictures as “jumping off points” for future artwork. Also, I was so in love with the village of Crickadoon in Janet’s Wale’s trip, I want to circle back there and take up my supplies and use those for inspiration. For now I have spent all day catching up on a myriad of other things that I am far behind on. Already this post is well beyond the 5 mins I was trying to keep to minimum.

I am grateful to have been able to do shamanic journeying for my grandmother, and to be part of her process, for responding to her needs and listening in to her requests at a time when she couldn’t talk. Also grateful for being such a close companion to her as a child, which she remarked about continuously throughout the years. “She was good company,” referring to me.

May she Rest In Peace. So loved.