Posted by Cliodhna
people with candles where their hearts should be, or stars, shining out to show our true selves past who we think we are
my victim self pulling my real self behind her on a cart, the power self is tied up, unable to move or act because the victim is running my life for me,
morning face… the face i have on in the morning before my first cup of coffee to wake me up
a wave of the sun destroying the earth, like in that film presagio, I had a dream about it where I was trying to hide in cow shit to protect myself. Meaning of dream? I think I was afraid of the suns power and being swallowed up by its flames and so I hide in cow shit. Cow shit= waste from a domesticated animal who gives and gives and gives, or rather we take and take and take. I realised a few days later that the sun will only burn the pysical selfs, that which is not light and my essence would be left. We are all light anyway pretending to be humans.
the picture I drew in Cancun of a male figure standing beside the sea perspiring because of the heat, the sun blazes in the top left hand corner, maybe i will put a fish in each drop of persperation. Water… emotions…. the mind…
Posted by Cliodhna
My latest embroidery of the greenwitch. I have been finishing off and tidying up my work recently, putting borders and names and backs on things that have been sitting half finished. When I go back to ireland they shall be ready to be presented hopefully to galleries to look for an exhibition.
Posted by Cliodhna
I have painted many women with stars over the years. This one is the painting I described here. She stands proud upon the earth but still she has her connection to the stars.
I have started painting on large paper. Good watercolour paper and masking taping the edges so when the painting is finished I still have those wonderful edges. easier to transport too.
Posted by Cliodhna
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First came the in-breath, the gasp from nothingness, the awakening the awareness of being. Nothing still was, just pure awareness and stillness, waiting for the impulse to move.
Then came first pondering; A simple ?. No words as yet just pure question, a wondering of the awareness.
Next came second pondering, an awareness of ‘self’ as something different to ‘other’. In the vastness and wideness of the beginning of the world ‘self’ looked round and thought ‘I’ and ‘you’
The vastness and wideness of the beginning of the world did not say anything back, did not look back, just was, in its awareness there was no difference between ‘I’ and ‘you’
The self began to name things; self needed some landmarks to make the vastness smaller and easier to live in. Tree (big green fluffy), grass (green soft), mother (love),
The world began to turn and the stars began to move and the self was frightened. Self asked the world “Why are you so big and all? And do not pay me any attention?”
The world did not answer.
Self asked again “Why do you not do what I say?”
The world did not answer
“You do not love me” said Self sadly
Then he heard a voice inside him “You are loved little self, you exist because you are loved, there is no difference between you and me, we are, look around you at the vastness and wideness of the beginning of the world and stop putting names on things to make it seem smaller”
“Who is speaking” cried Self
“I/You are speaking” replied the voice and suddenly Self understood, the world had begun and everything, self included, was part of it. Everything was on the journey and self was there to witness and be a traveler on the voyage. Self smiled.
The stars twinkled, “Hello stars”
The rain started to fall from the clouds “Hello clouds, hello rain”
Self looked in a puddle at the reflection “Hello Self”
Posted by Cliodhna
So I have come to a place where I cannot move past with my mind. My mind stops, comes to a halt and says ‘hold on there, where do you think you are going? This ain’t possible and you know it’ and suddenly I do know I and I am stuck again right back in the mind. Like a flying dream when you suddenly remember you can’t fly.
Looking back I have done this a lot in my life. Got to a certain point and then got scared of the unknowingness past the mind and pulled back from the brink of stepping over. My mind controls how I live my life, it puts meaning and certainty and boundaries on reality and is the police of my understanding and expansion. Even when trying to release it I have realized the mind has stayed in control and given me tricks to make me think I was going somewhere but in reality I was making it happy.
Also, avoidance. Avoidance of my doubts and fears, keeping moving, keep doing, keep practicing, keep judging and I am in a maze of no exit that twists and changes every turn I make. There is no way out of the maze, it is a maze of mirrors and illusion that only exists because I make it real and feed it. Don’t see who I really am because I might not like her but keep feeding the mirrors and I will spend a whole lifetime looking at endless reflections.
The thing is which brings me to a full stop is that I have no idea how to get past this. The mind has no idea of what else could be past it so it is no help. What is on the other side of doing? Well, I suppose I wrote about it in my last post, putting up the reiki posters and then realizing I didn’t have to worry about anything or do anything, the universe would look after all that.
I don’t think I ever quite saw so clearly though just how much my mind has been telling me what to do and think and work its way past problems and I am at a loss as to what to do. I simply don’t know. This is a good thing, I tell myself. It is exactly what I would tell anyone else who posed this dilemma to me so I say to myself that this is a good thing, when the mind is stuck then the rest of me can start emerging. I am not my mind, I am much more than that and the mind has no clue about any of it.
Posted by Cliodhna
On my recent trip into self-discovery/oh my, I can’t believe I have been carrying this all this time and I made a realization (No. 22356) that I have been carrying failure all my life. That I expect failure and prepare myself for it. I want success but expect failure… and guess what comes to me?
All the times when I was little and I (thought I had) failed and one of the fears about letting go the attachment to the failures was that maybe they were right. I wasn’t good enough.
Anyway, I learnt a lot from having ‘failed’ in doing what it was I wanted to do, I learnt about this attachment and I learnt that my mind was getting in the way, wanting to control and not letting go when it meets something past its comprehension. When I would be better served not knowing it wants to know and would rather keep me here in control than let me not know and be happy.
So, I remember a time a few years ago in Guanajuato when I decided I would offer Reiki. I had done Reiki level two and I figured I would face my reluctance to do it on people (in case it didn´t work, judgment, all that kinda stuff) and I would put up the posters and just go for it and see what happened. So, I put up the posters, had a space kind of organized, looking back now I think I wasn’t prepared at all. But the most amazing thing happened when I put up the posters, I was wondering about whether I was ready to give Reiki or do healing on people when it hit me that I didn’t have to worry about any of that stuff, that who-ever needed what I had to give would arrive to me and I would have exactly what they needed. It was out of my hands and the feeling was so freeing and very happy and I wandered around in a mini state of bliss for a few days.
Nobody did arrive so in one sense I failed but in another sense I was the one who got healed by making a leap of faith and putting up the posters, it didn’t matter that no-one came.
Posted by Cliodhna
How do you explain to a fish what water is?
You take him out if the water and show him the air. Then he will understand better than a thousand words what water is.
How do you explain to a person what life is and what we have surrounded ourselves with?
You take them out of it and let them see eternity. Then they will understand what life is better than a thousand words.
Perspective. A very little used tool in our army of rationality. In fact most of the time it is ignored, abused, shoved under the bed into the far corner where dust balls come to rest and forgotten about. We lose the perspective on our lives in a thousand moments every day. We don’t take the time and space we need for ourselves and we surround ourselves with things and responsibilities, and deadlines and bills to pay and all important things that make us think we HAVE to keep going and going and going like a hamster on his wheel.
If we don’t take the time we need who will give it to us? If we don’t give ourselves the space we need who will provide it for us? We get ratty with partners and people we love because we don’t look after ourselves. Nobody else can do this for us, we have to do this for ourselves. We have to give ourselves the love and healing we deserve and not wait for someone else to do it for us, not wait to be looked after and then get annoyed when it doesn’t arrive.
I get annoyed and frustrated and cranky when I feel I am not being looked after, but when I honestly look at my life it is because there was something I wanted that I didn’t do/ask for/ go and get because I was waiting for someone else to do it for me. It is an ego battle too, I WANT the world to pay attention to ME! My spoilt controlling child self takes over the reins because she reckons the grown up me isn’t cutting it, I am not giving myself what I want/deserve so she steps in to get it for me.
Perspective is about standing back from your life and your emotions that rule you and breathing fresh air for a minute. Away from the drama of the minutiae of daily life. Away from the soap opera that hooks us in, feeds us its never-ending looping circles of storylines, keeps us caught on what is going to happen next. It doesn’t want to let us go, we have to escape from it ourselves. It wants us to stay caught in its current, because we give it energy, without our energy it dies, cut of its head by taking away our attention and it dies.
Our life is our own responsibility. We shape our lives as we want to, and this includes knowing when we are being dependant on others and also knowing when it is time to ask for help, when we can’t do something on our own. Balance and perspective.
Posted by Cliodhna
mmm.. the two go together so well.
I have been having fun recently doing a watercolour sketch a day. It has to relate to my mood or what ever is happening in that moment and watercolour is so perfect for the moment. Something quick that I don’t think about, just do. I was reminded about this from a blog called Creative every day. I think its easy to get stuck in wanting to do everything perfectly and I forget the simple fun of seeing what happens.
I have run out of good paper, have to go buy some more! It is a really good exercise to do for all us artists and indeed even if you don’t consider yourself an artist do something, anything, creative everyday, something simple to let free the inner muse and get it all flowing. It can be art or words or music or dancing or cooking, anything!
and also, check this little guy out! all new in the world. he is my nephew and the first grandchild for my parents so they are very excited!
Posted by Cliodhna
So, birds are messengers between ourselves and the other world. i am sending my wish to the universe and it flies outward to bring it to the heart of all, the source. The earth supports me in this, she looks on happily sending me inspiration so I can find the exact right words I need in order to frame my wish. She holds the sun within herself and the moon in her hand through all its phases of waxing and waning.
I have finished these and are already planning the next two. Getting to grips once more with oil paints and I am having ideas I want to try out…. such fun!
