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?

REVERB15 (Day 17): Purple crayon blessing

GROWING PEACE FOR 2016. Using a purple watercolor crayon and pencil, I began growing peace for 2016 through my drawing and painting. Peace is something I would love to CREATE for us all in 2016. (Art by Hallelujah Truth)

Hallelujah for the BLESSINGS that our IMAGINATIONS bring! What does the color purple stimulate in your imagination? What would you CREATE for 2016 with the swoosh of a purple crayon as Kat McNally's prompt below invites us to do?

REVERB15 (Day 17) Prompt: "One of my daughter’s favourite books is the American classic Harold and the Purple Crayon. If you haven't had the good fortune to come across it, it’s about a little lad called Harold, whose magical purple crayon enables him to create the world around him. Whenever I read it to her as a bedtime story, I spend the rest of the evening pondering what I would create if I had a magical purple crayon of my own. Imagine one such crayon would be bestowed upon you on New Year’s Eve 2015: what would you draw to ensure 2016 had everything you need?" --Kat McNally

As 2016 looms in front of me, I hunger for PEACE. Personal peace. Spousal peace. Familial peace. Peace in my local community of Decatur, Georgia. Peace expanding out to the entire state of Georgia, the southeast, and all of the United States of America. Can my purple crayon draw WORLD PEACE? 

PEACE IN PROGRESS. I wonder if we all began to imagine peace, sing peace, draw peace, and dance peace. If we could CREATE more of it in 2016? The act of creating is a valid and worthwhile act, enough in and of itself.

When I think of the BLESSINGS of the IMAGINATION and the opportunity this REVERB15 prompts give me to create, my HEART goes immediately to this topic:

CREATIVITY 2016
A "Purple Crayon Blessing" for creativity in my life and that of everyone in 2016 is the word ENOUGH. What and who you are is ENOUGH. Therefore, what you CREATE is ENOUGH. 

The very ACT of CREATING is ENOUGH.

What you CREATE does NOT need to meet any of the following outcomes:

BE GOOD. According to your or anyone's else sense of aesthetic, the work you create does not have to be named "worthy." It has merit because you made it, and you are ENOUGH.

BECOME A PRODUCT. Your ACT of CREATING something is something to be celebrated. I invite you to celebrate BEING PRESENT in your life with the dance of your bodyspirt. Please accept the permission to let CREATING BE CREATING. The ACT does not have to result into a product that you submit to a show or journal or sell. 

BE COMPLETE. Your CREATIVE ACT does not need to be finished. EVER. What you make in the MOMENT is ENOUGH.

PEACE IN PROGRESS.

Yes! In addition to PEACE and CREATIVE ACTS BEING ENOUGH, I yearn for other purple crayon blessings:

One hundred percent health
Meaningful relationships
Meaningful work that brings an abundance of wealth
Getting paid to play

That's Coffee with Hallelujah. SOUL BLOG with me. I appreciate your support of my purple crayon imaginings and want to know about yours.

REACHING FOR PEACE. I will post this work in progress. As I am called out into the day, I wish you "purple crayon blessings." May you CREATE today a little more easefully and joyfully than if you had not visited me here at "Coffee with Hallelujah." (Art by Hallelujah Truth)