July 15, 2023

‘Last’ in quotes because Heart-Art never ends, and, with all the courage in the world, neither do our heart spaces. I didn’t have that courage in the last two weeks - a familiar kind of quitting on myself - but I do have courage today.

I turned 55 on July 5th, and I was struck with how easy it is to create the lives we don’t want. Conversely, it’s just as easy to create the lives we do want, if I drop the resistance. This birthday came and went and I saw clearly what choices I have not been making, but also how I am getting closer to what I do want, the big one being I have time and freedom and silence to listen to my heart all day …

But there is something I have been doing the last 6 months - sharpening my inner space, and staying there more than 5 minutes a day. The third eye space that produces ideas, but isn’t something I can put on my resume. Every resume year I learn how to feel that heart space, MORE. (Someday I’m going to write my real resume, the one that comes from my heart, not the one we write for our Egos.)

I do know that if I manage to get to this inner space for 5 minutes a day, the whole day feels better. This must be what the concept of Alignment feels like.

One of those ethereal moments - which feel crazy to speak about - I realized that I will step into my power now. Even now as I write, the sense is not as strong as it was the day I felt it, but I do remember realizing that I have a lot of gifts and I’m going to use them all. There is no one way to do this, and yet there is so much advice out there …

That was my biggest birthday gift. The spiritual lesson is to feel things from the inside out, I’ve known that intellectually, but I finally felt it. My big tiny opening.

I love this idea of showing up in the world as a way to send out signals. Rumi said, “What you seek, is seeking you.” I have to use my words and art as smoke signals. You won’t know that you are in search of me until you find me, and I won’t know I am in search of you until we meet. Whatever the thing, whoever the people, it hasn’t been formed yet.

So here is another Paper Dress I’m preparing.

Cutting out paper dresses and wall art is a slow meditative and feels so old-fashioned. Illustrator and Photograph are my paint brushes, tools and canvas … I do enough work in Adobe, so I want to take as much of my art into making with my hands ... Digital art doesn’t have scissors or tape! It takes all day to print and cut and tape, totally inefficient, which is the way our hearts work. It’s that slow-is-faster idea …

I like my artistic method now, but it’s taken me a decade to make peace with it - to completely destroy the first beautiful piece of art and build it back up again, into something else, a new stage … And most important, see how I feel about it, no thinking.

And finally, as I rebuild my 12 year old self up, I LOVE that this scarf that I knitted happens to match this artwork. The only purpose is JOY …

(Randomly adding a string of paper hearts which I’m hanging in our hallway that was a birthday present! 😍😍😍)

I want the way the colors of my art, the dress, the scarf unify and blend to somehow help us understand that we all love each other … If we could only stop the inner resistance.

🩵💚💜🩵💚💜🩵💚💜

Love,

Anne

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