Intuitive Feast

OCTOPUS WOMAN. (Art by Hallelujah Truth)

Tracking the spirit requires tools! One of the most powerful tools for me is intuition. I lean in body, heart, mind, and listen really hard...

And I listen...

I am listening now....

As I move into 2018, I am focusing on the word FEAST. To find and experience the feast in my life, I am calling in all of the intuition practices I have. Of course, drawing and painting is one of those practices.

Here is a new image, the "Octopus Woman," that began emerging in 2017. She entered my life as friend, mentor and co-founder of InterPlay, Cynthia Winton-Henry became interested in the symbolism of the octopus and established the Octopus Guild on Facebook. There, members post images and videos of octopi that cross their paths in the course of daily life.

If you google "symbolism of the octopus," you will find that this beguiling 8-legged animal in the sea offers us a variety of human qualities to contemplate--creativity, flexibility, expansion, and intelligence, to name a few.

INTRODUCING OCTOPUS WOMAN. The title of this image is "Intuitive." In 2017, I discovered Octopus Woman while contemplating the symbolic meaning of the octopus. Since the immaterial world of the spirit is a difficult one to "track," I use tools to engage with my spirit. A daily creative practice of drawing and painting combined with intuition are powerful mechanisms for eliciting this elusive part of our lives. (Art by Hallelujah Truth)

I have decided to expand the visual symbolic "Cosmos of Hallelujah Truth" in 2018, and Octopus Woman is the first symbol to manifest. As I expand my cosmos, I envision a "feasting table" with all my characters gathering around it bringing their gifts.

COSMOS OF HALLELUJAH TRUTH. I know that the FEAST I am conducting in 2018 will expand this form Cosmos of Hallelujah Truth. I'm excited!  

That's Coffee with Hallelujah. As I expand my creative universe and develop my 2018 word FEAST, what symbols might you engage with? How will they move you forward? Although I don't know what "Octopus Woman" is going to bring to my table, I am leaning in to listen. 

Will you join me? Soul blog with me and let me know what you are thinking.

REVERB15 (Day 9): Speaking in image as recipe for self

Je ne sais quoi. (Art by Hallelujah Truth, aka Ruth Schowalter)

Hallelujah for knowing when to draw and paint instead of speak! Hallelujah for other ways to communicate and to give oneself permission to do just that! My response to today's REVERB15 was to create the above image.

REVERB15 (Day 9) Prompt: What if you had to give someone a recipe for how to make a YOU? What major ingredients are required? What method do you recommend? How would your je ne sais quoi be recreated?

That's Coffee with Hallelujah! SOUL BLOG with me. I invite you to write a recipe using words for me. If you want to create an image, dance, poem, or song, please post on my Facebook group, The Daily Creative Practice.

I'm also interested in your self recipe. What is it?

BURYING AND PLANTING: Growing my purpose in the rich soil of my soul

BURYING AND PLANTING...SIMULTANEOUSLY (art by Hallelujah Truth)

The culmination of 

one love, 

one dream, 

one self, 

is the anonymous seed 

of the next.  

--Mark Nepo

Hallelujah for creativity! Hallelujah for change! Hallelujah to putting to rest that which has lived its course. Hallelujah to burying seeds in the rich soil of our souls to see what might grow. 

One of my favorite inspirational writers is Mark Nepo, and I have gained so much soul nourishment from The Book of Awakening: Having the Life You Want by Being Present to the Life You Have. In his entry, titled "Burying and Planting," he writes:

"There is always grief for what is lost and always surprise at what is to be born. But much of our pain in living comes from wearing a dead and useless skin, refusing to put it to rest, or from burying such things with the intent of hiding them rather then relinquishing them."

As a 56-year-old artist, blogger, InterPlayer, fluency instructor, in the prime of my life, and in the second year of having left my secure position as an ESL instructor at the Georgia Tech Language Institute, I ask myself, these questions:

What am I holding onto from my career with the Language Institute that is no longer serving me in the new roles I have crafted for myself? 

What do I need to release, peel off, shed, and bury from this former life? 

What seeds remain in my present BEING waiting to be sown, watered, and fertilized?

I feel a hunger for finding, naming, and living my PURPOSE. Cynthia Winton-Henry in her role as the curator of "Mystic Tech," has helped me understand the distinction between a "calling" and a life "purpose." However, that is something that I will discuss in another blog entry. 

For now, I will honor this moment in my life. I am burying and planting a part of myself in order to grow my purpose in the rich soil of my soul. Will you join me?
 
"We live, 
we embrace, 
and put to rest our dearest things, 
including how we see ourselves, 
so we can resurrect our lives anew." 
--Mark Nepo

That's Coffee with Hallelujah! SOUL BLOG with me. What are you burying and planting today so that you may continue to grow? 



 

ENGAGING WITH THE ORDINARY: Drawing to draw and being to be

ORDINARY EYES (art by Hallelujah Truth)

Hallelujah for engaging with the ORDINARY in my life! Right now more than ever before, the ORDINARY is an extraORDINARY visitor of mine, and I am engaged with making this ORDINARYness a regular member of my household.

AMEN TO MASCULINE ENERGY (art by Hallelujah Truth)

Good-bye to fear, hesitation, doubt, and any other saboteurs that make me question the nature or ORDINARYness of Ruth (aka Hallelujah Truth) and my image-making endeavors. I am who I am. I can be no one else. The images that you see here are ORDINARY for me. They are my language.

However, I must admit that what is ORDINARY to me, may be new or foreign to you. My ART PILGRIMAGE has taken me into the territory of expressing parts of my psyche in images which have developed collectively into "The Cosmos of Hallelujah."

For more than the past five years, I have dedicated myself to drawing every day. This blog, Coffee with Hallelujah, celebrates me and my dedicated ART PILGRIMAGE. In all of its ORDINARYness.

COMFORTED BY THE MYSTERY (art by Hallelujah Truth)

Through the ORDINARY practice of trusting my heart, I have invited people who I love into my life.  Through  the ORDINARY practice of being, I am engaged in activities that enliven and give me joy. I have become a pleasure seeker through the act of drawing ORDINARILY and being ORDINARY.

ENTERTAINING THE ORDINARYness OF MY SOUL (art by Hallelujah Truth)

That's Coffee with Hallelujah. SOUL BLOG with me and tell me how you have accepted the ORDINARYness of your journey. Many thanks to Callahan Pope McDonough for sharing the link to Ronna Detrick's blog entry on the topic of "ordinary" after our morning walk on the Atlanta Beltline this morning.