AT THE DOOR: METAPHOR FOR SEEING YOUR BEING, YOUR STORY

WAITING AT THE DOOR

Why do you stay inside, when the door is so wide open? --Rumi

A DOOR FOR US. (All art by Hallelujah Truth)

The breeze at dawn has secrets to tell you.

Don't go back to sleep.

You must ask for what you really want.

Don't go back to sleep.

People are going back and forth across the doorsill

where the two worlds touch.

The door is round and open.

Don't go back to sleep.

From Essential Rumi

by Coleman Barks

Hallellujah for doorways, for crossing thresholds and uttering prayers of gratitude for passages--for BEING in one's life! 


Mark Nepo writes in The Book of Awakening, " I find I must not suppress my full nature, or my life doesn't emerge." He urges us to open up as we tend the stories of our lives. If we want to experience the MYSTERY, we need to BE OPEN! For me, I visualize Mark Nepo's "open" as a door--a useful metaphor to understand transitions from one state of BEING to another.

 I'M GOING THROUGH THE DOOR

How wonderful that we go through doors every day many times! For now, each time I cross a threshold, I practice BEING OPEN. BEING PRESENT. I figure that day by day, week by week, and month by month, that I will know more about the MYSTERY OF BEING OPEN.

SEEING THE DOOR OPEN

YES! To walk through the door PILGRIMS, we don't have to be perfect or leave everything behind. Instead, snakelike, I can shed a skin and slither through! Or jump, crawl, dance...whatever way I move, I move towards BEING more AWAKE to MYSELF. May the same be for you!

HALLELUJAH! A DOOR FOR US! Join me and we shall go through the door, leaving what we can behind!

ACKNOWLEDGMENT: I lovingly acknowledge Edna Shipp for the inspiration that her "Door" series provided me in the drawing of one of my very own doors. Thank you Miss Shipp for the mystery in your door images! (Visit her blog (Shipp on Art) to see what I mean!)

PILGRIMAGE: WADING INTO THE WAITING

WADING INTO THE WAITING. (Art by Hallelujah Truth)

Greetings SPIRITUAL ART PILGRIMS! The JOURNEY, at times, appears to have stopped! This "stop-ness" is an illusion. Instead, our lives are in constant flux. This image represents my "Wading into the Waiting." 


"Wading into Waiting" was drawn in July 2009 as part of my daily practice of drawing but was not completed until yesterday morning. I discovered it among a group of incomplete images, and it spoke to me! Yes! I have been continuously "wading" into MY LIFE! On the back of this image, the words I had written in 2009 are the following:

SUNBIRD

FINDING
DISCOVERING
PILGRIMAGE
NATURE ONE
WAVE BIRD
SUN BIRD
HEAL BIRD
JOURNEY...
WADING INTO THE WAITING...

WAVEBIRD

HAPPY INDEPENDENCE DAY: BLASTING OFF TO YOUR OWN TRUTHINESS!

HAPPY FOURTH OF JULY 2012 BLAST OFF.  Celebrate your independence from oppressive self-criticism. Let each July Fourth be a renewal of your commitment to be your AUTHENTIC SELF. National patriotism can only become with self-patriotism! I love myself first, then my family and community, and then my nation. A healthy nation is made up of healthy citizens! (This art is by me, Hallelujah Truth. I made it to honor and remember my "blast off" to authenticity in July 2009)

Hallelujah PILGRIMS! Happy Independence Day! In addition to celebrating the United States declaration of independence from an oppressive ruler, let's happily celebrate our liberation from those psychological saboteurs that prevent us from expressing the TRUTH OF OUR HEARTS!

THE GASP OF SELF AUTHENTICITY!

DECLARE YOUR TRUTH! Let each gasp that you utter tonight while watching fireworks be a declaration of your SELF APPRECIATION! Think these thoughts with each burst of red, white, and blue:


I AM AMAZING!


HOW WONDERFUL TO BE ME!

EWWWWWWWW....AHHHHHHHHH

IN MY FULL ME-NESS, I GIVE TO MY FAMILY, COMMUNITY, and COUNTRY!


I AM HONORED.


I AM RESPECTED.


HALLELUJAH!


HAPPY FOURTH OF JULY 2012!

LISTENING TO ONESELF. In the middle of all the noise is your OWN VOICE! Enlarge your capacity to hear what you are saying. CELEBRATE your VOICE!

CREATIVE SOULS!!! FLAME YOUR CREATIVE SPARK AND REVITALIZE YOUR COMMUNITIES

MYRTLE THE TURTLE AT SAN SALVADOR, BAHAMAS. This image of Myrtle the sea turtle, was one of the first images I drew during my 15 minutes of creativity every day. The process of discovering how to illustrate Ron Shaklee's children story, "The Misadventures of Maria the Hutia," was an adventure into myself. I learned to listen to myself each morning and experimented with ideas that I wanted to see manifested. As it turned out, this image is not a part of the completed book. Myrtle and the rest of the characters in "The Misadventures of Maria the Hutia" do not go to San Salvador. (Art by Hallelujah Truth, aka Ruth Schowalter)

Hallelujah for CREATIVE SOULS seeking the realm of their individual creativity! PILGRIMS--everyone of one of us is CREATIVE. We have powerful IMAGINATION that celebrates and rewards us and our entire community when we ACTUALIZE it! Hallelujah!

If you haven’t read The Dolphin: Story of a Dreamer by Sergio Bambaren, you might take a look at how Daniel the dolphin’s love of surfing and pursuit to find the “perfect” wave revitalizes his pod of dolphins. Their routine and fear of leaving their cove, restricts every dolphin, including Daniel, until he embraces and honors his need to JOURNEY away from his pod and cove. After a turbulent and exciting ADVENTURE and discovery of the “perfect” wave, he returns home and impacts his fellow dolphins positively. If Daniel has left the physical and cultural boundaries of their pod, and in doing so become more alive, so can they! PILGRIMS, our communities grow stale if individuals do not SEEK the fulfillment of their dreams and EXPRESS what is UNIQUELY theirs!

I implore all of us to PRACTICE CREATIVITY every day! I am passionate about my CREATIVITY and the potentiality of others’! I believe that when we are all accessing the MAGIC within ourselves, that our neighborhoods, schools, and political arenas are awakened and electrified (Thank you Daniel Dolphin)!

This past week, I was talking with a CREATIVE SOUL who reminded me of an unplanted seed ready to be sowed, a Daniel dolphin waiting to go in search of the “perfect” wave. I have talked with her in the past, here and there in our walking community of Decatur, Georgia. My Chiboogamoo and I run into her and her Chiboogamoo at the Gazebo next to the Decatur courthouse, at the little French restaurant, and near the Brick Store Pub, etc…. This time it was at a celebration of Decatur authors, a pre-event to the Decatur Book Festival. Like a moth, I am always drawn to her CREATIVE FLAME.

Yet, this CREATIVE FLAME seems to be the pilot light and not the ignited flame or the seed and not the plant, the dolphin waiting to go in search of her dream! PILGRIMS, I become evangelical at this point and repeat one of Goethe’s couplets:

Whatever you can do, or dream you can, begin it.

Boldness has genius, power, and magic in it.

THE BLACK MADONNA OF HALLELUJAH TRUTH. This image of the Black Madonna was painted in my old style,  pre-drawing every day. Instead, I held an image in my heart and mind's eye and began painting it by standing in front of the "canvas"--in this case, a piece of plywood, and using my fingers to outline the image and establish the base of the composition. Once that was done, I completed the image with a paintbrush. This image of Black Madonna brings together several themes for me: 1) Medusa (symbol of fertile transformation. 2) Black Madonna (symbol of the Great Mother. 3) Bird tracks (introduction of Chiboogamoo in my life and his ichnological interests. 4) Sun and Moon (symbol of balance between all things). Although I was in touch with my creativity in 2001, I lacked consistency of production and clarity of intent and execution. (Art by Hallelujah Truth 2001)

So dear friend (you know who you are), I encourage you to listen to your HEART and to respond to its needs. What action do you need to take today to move closer to your SOUL’s DREAMS? Here is a quotation from W.H. Murray (from The Scottish Himalayan Expedition) that we read to one another at every Artist Conference Network meeting:

Until one is committed there is hesitancy, the chance to draw back, always ineffectiveness. Concerning all acts of initiative (and creation), there is one elementary truth, the ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans:

That the moment one definitely commits oneself, then Providence moves too. All sorts of things occur to help one that would never otherwise have occurred. A whole stream of events issues from the decision, raising in one’s favor all manner of unforeseen incidents and meetings and material assistance, which no man [woman] could have dreamt would have come his [her] way.

My blog, Coffee with Hallelujah, is about this commitment to my CREATIVITY. I know that if I ask myself to CREATE 15 minutes a day, that I engage the assistance of  “Providence.” Daniel dolphin also was assisted by the Greater Power in his sea adventure to find the perfect. You will discover this MAGIC too dear fellow SOJOURNERS!

SOUL BLOG with me at Coffee with Hallelujah and tell me your dreams. What is the “perfect” wave you are seeking? Join me in my CREATIVE PASSION and enrich those around you. We all need you to be YOU!

DEDICATION: This blog entry is dedicated to the unlit SOULS waiting to BURST into passionate FLAME! 


REVISITING the beginning! Here is a link to my very first blog and the reason why I started my daily Coffee with Hallelujah!


At the Center of the Star

MOTHER AND ME: MAKING FRIENDS WITH MY INNER NURTURER

MOTHER AND ME (Art by Hallelujah Truth)

Hallelujah PILGRIMS! Hallelujah for LOVE, LIFE, and NURTURANCE! On my journey, I have discovered that I must develop a resourceful inner self, one that addresses and heals wounds acquired while  traveling in the UNKNOWN. 


Over the years, I have created a collection of "MOTHER AND ME" drawings, some of which I have shared on this blog. These are images near and dear to my heart, as they are a visual language of my cultivation of an internalized CARETAKER, a psychological mother, one who is gentle, affectionate, and wise.


The mother I have given birth to has stars for hair and always wears pink nightgowns. Often her nightgowns have supportive statements proclaiming the love she has for her daughter. 


The image I have created today is a result of several ambitions: 


1) To execute my daily practice of drawing


2) To honor a desire to begin a new book, a Hallelujah Truth generated one (possibly one called "Mother and Me")


3) To remember and honor lessons learned about life.


LESSON LEARNED ABOUT LIFE
When you get hurt, experience the hurt. Really hurt! Jump up and down and say, "ouch." Feel the ouch, and validate your sense of being hurt. By saying and feeling the OUCH,  you can begin to heal and leave the hurt behind! Resistance to feeling may keep the hurt around and hurt you more. Suffer joyously, dancing the ouch and then let go! Weeeeeeeee.............


Blog Dedication to Judith Barber
Thanks Judith for seeing the light and sharing your culminated joy with me! Weeeeeeeeeeeeee......


That's Coffee with Hallelujah! Soul Blog with me about your internalized mother and how you nurture yourself and get over hurts! Do you say, "Ouch"?

ENLARGING ONE'S BEING THROUGH THE ACT OF CREATING: THE MAP OF MARIA THE HUTIA'S MISADVENTURE

Hallelujah for the CREATIVE PROCESS and the empowerment that accompanies the JOURNEY we call LIFE. Whenever we are authentically engaged in expressing the TRUTH within ourselves, we are enlarged. And our LARGESSE impacts others positively! Today, I am celebrating my own ENLARGEMENT resulting from my 15 minutes of creativity every day! 

ENLARGEMENT. EMPOWERMENT. A MAGNIFICENT WAY OF BEING. In this photo, I am holding an enlargement of my map of Maria's journey that I created for the children's book, "The Misadventures of Maria the Hutia," by Ron Shaklee.  The original map is 14" x 15" and this blueprint enlargement is 36" x 40".  This enlargement expresses my elation at completing the illustrations for this project with Ron and excitement at seeing the book go to press!

As the book, "The Misadventures of Maria the Hutia," goes to press, I have succeeded in completing a four year project! Ron Shaklee, Maria's author, musician, professor, geographer, has worked long hours getting the manuscript-- with 30 plus illustrations of mine--ready to be published. We are ready to give birth! And yours truly, Hallelujah Truth, is manifesting 4 years of plunging into morning creativity!

Thanks to a fellow ACNer, Elise Helfer, I learned about Kinko's blueprint enlarger! I am happily blown away by the way my black-and-white pen and ink image looks on this large scale. Last night, I brought this ENLARGEMENT to the quarter completion meeting of the Artist Conference Network. I answered a series of questions about my work, investigating my own authority on the matter. This is what I proclaimed:

The Maria the Hutia project helped me break down barriers between my everyday life of being an ESL teacher at Georgia Tech and the world of imagination. These two realms are not separate for me any more. The duration of this project and the creative practice I ensued succeeded in establishing a magnificent continuous flow of being. My life is not divided now. I am what I am--A SPIRITUAL ART PILGRIM in all aspects of my life. I seek TRUTH and AUTHENTICITY.

Celebrate with me today my fellow SOJOURNERS! Howl your TRUTH, and please have some of my AUTHENTICITY! Life is a PARTY with many tasty morsels and large decorated cakes! Clowns and giraffes too, as well as conga dancing and tango! HURRAY for LIFE'S CELEBRATIONS!

That's a party for Coffee with Hallelujah! Soul Blog with me and share your celebrations!

IN MEMORY OF BEVERLY CASSELL

At the Artist Conference Network (ACN) completion meeting last night, we remembered Beverly Cassell, founder of ACN, who died on June 10, 2012. It was the first completion meeting of ours since she died, and we grieve for the loss of such a great generous spirit who has impacted so many creative lives. Her work will continue to generate imagination and joy. Thank you Beverly. Rest in Peace.

HAPPY SUMMER SOLSTICE FROM MY MOTHER: WHO REVERES ALL THINGS, INCLUDING ME