Laughing Alligator: Dancing on the Heart

DANCING ON THE HEART

Yes! Yes to LAUGHTER! And why not in the form of an alligator? The imagination is free from rules! 

The night renews me. And in my daily creative practice, I am greeted by this alligator dancing on my heart. Hallelujah for the imagination! Hurray for creativity! And an affirmative to the dance of life.

LAUGHING ALLIGATOR DANCING ON MY HEART. (Art by Hallelujah Truth)

THREE THINGS TO REMEMBER

As long as you're dancing, you can
break the rules.
Sometimes breaking the rules is just
extending the rules.
Sometimes there are no rules.

-Mary Oliver

LISTENING TO THE STUFF OF DREAMS AND PRAYERS

I remain open to the stuff of dreams. At predawn, I dance my prayers not knowing where they go or what they do. My musings, my pencil lines, my cats, all colliding with the coffee and my husband eating cereal with almond milk.

This I do know, the practice of GRATITUDE - reflecting on the good in my life - waters me like I'm a flower. Hope drizzles on me like this morning's precipitation. Tao, our cat has refused to stay outside on such a wet dark morning.  My husband has kissed me good-bye before the sunlight touches our front door. 

Yet, I am here dancing with my Laughing Alligator and the Mother of Mystery. I am savoring the pizza dinner we had with Dottie last night and the workshop for the Atlanta Science Festival we are creating through our collaboration. I am remembering the text I received from a Korean graduate student in London after she gave her presentation. I am thankful for connection with my soul, with all of the people in my life, and with you if you have taken the time to read my blog and look at my images.

Thank you for joining me in this dance of creating grace from the mundane to the mysterious. Have a beautiful day!

That's Coffee with Hallelujah! Soul blog with me. Let me know what you are dancing!

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?

RELEASE--Two Hands Dancing

RELEASE. (Art by Hallelujah Truth)

Hallelujah for moving and creating grace from the mundane to the mysterious! Our creativity can be found in movement in going to that deeper fuller place in ourselves. In this movement, this act of making something from breath and from one hand (or two hands) moving, comes RELEASE.

This morning, I woke to my daily creative practice to express the outcome from my participation during last night’s online dance chapel with Cynthnia Winton-Henry.

Dancing with my hands….

One hand moves jerky, slow, fingers tense—contorted. This is my chaos, my gargoyle (thanks Cynthia for the word “gargoyle”).

The other hand, like a bird, fingers lax, smoothly rides the currents above, hovering a witness to my chaos. This is my grace.

Two externalized emotions experienced through the physicality of two hands moving—dancing.

At the core of these two hands is my breath and beating heart. They are the music for this dance.

WITNESS

My hands are witnessed by all of me, eyes, mind, heart, and gut…. I observe a shift in feeling. My hands court one another, like birds in a mating ritual. Breathe in. Breathe out (infinite X’s).

RELEASE.

HANDS STOP.

BUT THE DANCE CONTINUES....

That’s Coffee With Hallelujah! Soul Blog with me! What dance will you create for yourself today? Let’s create grace for ourselves and others from the mundane to the mysterious.

FELINE WITNESS

GRATITUDE: It is with deep appreciation that I acknowledge Cynthia Winton-Henry’s Monday night Dance Chapel. Last night, we played with the dance of chaos and release—one hand dances jerky and smoothe…play with chaos. We found ways through movement together (yes online) to open the space to feel the chaos—a deeper place, which allowed our bodies to have fullness.