TOUCHING THE DIVINE: Finding Holiness in Continuity of Practice

TOUCHING THE DIVINE. Oh yes, there it is! Something more! Something I didn't know was PRESENT until I reached out for the pencil and drew and colored. I touch the SOUL through action not understanding. (Art by Hallelujah Truth)

It is a practice - this creating grace from the mundane to the mysterious. It is a daily creative practice to rise in the morning, brew my coffee, tend to the cats' needs, light a candle, burn incense and to move into the dance of the spirit through my artwork. 

My "Coffee with Hallelujah" art making is directed towards touching the Divine with pencil, paper, eraser, and watercolors. I celebrate the Mystery through my crudely rendered drawings. 

This moderately cool morning I am up before 5:00 AM and opening a window after walking my male cat Tao out in the darkness of predawn. The birds have started singing, and I want to hear them as I do my meditative drawing. I take pleasure in the fact that my dear husband Tony is still resting in bed upstairs and our female cat, Sapelo, is running up and down the stairs uniting us through her feline visits.

This daily creative practice is "hit and miss," messy, and almost always unfinished. Yet, I succeed in grabbing hold of the intangible by the sheer act of embracing and filtering it into a drawing. It is in these productive moments that I experience positive emotions. I pick up different colored pencils and scratch my marks onto the watercolor paper. Joy! The bright red pencil thrills me. Then my violet pencil marks run into the green and the yellow rises like the sun as the paper absorbs the water. Peace.

The paper dries. I have refilled my coffee cup. I like how the steam rises above its rim. I observe the results of my soul work - my 15 minutes (plus) of creativity. Albeit, the positive emotions I experience are perpetually balanced with negative ones. Judgment rushes in once again! How is it that I found the process to be an "act of grace," and yet I am dissatisfied with the physical outcome? I repeat the mantra: Not Good. Not Bad. Just Is.

Life is messy and unfinished. Why should I ask my soul work to be anything more or less? There is satisfaction staying in process, exercising the discipline to create. Continuous acts of creativity whether they are experienced inwardly or outwardly define and expand me. I grow older and a bit riper.

"Older now, you find holiness
in anything that continues."

 - Naomi Shihab Nye

FINDING HOLINESS IN CONTINUITY.  This watercolor pencil image was created this morning (February 18th, 2018) and felt connected to the above image, "Touching the Divine," which is still a work in progress beginning as a mono print months ago and then used as a drawing surface this past week. In this image, I am expressing "self care" or "soul care" for myself. Yet, I am also encompassing the universe. By caring for ME, I AM caring for the world. I am better prepared to love and accept you after I have forgiven myself and taken time to rest. In the continuity of my renewal, I renew you - or at least I would like to think that I do. (Art by Hallelujah Truth)

That's Coffee with Hallelujah! Soul blog with me. I would like to know if you are maintaining your daily practice? And are you practicing creating grace from the mundane to the mysterious?