5 Things I’ve Learned About Creativity
Happy Imbolc!Imbolc (pronounced em-bolk) is a pagan holiday associated with the goddess Brigit and marks the halfway point between the winter solstice and the spring equinox. Yay, we are half way there! Buds have formed on the clematis bush outside my kitchen window and it looks to be a bumper crop year for its fragrant white blossoms. Meanwhile, it’s a wintery 27 degrees out there, which is super cold for us west coasters. The good thing about this weather is that I spend more time inside working on my essays or down in the studio creating art.
It was on a wilderness vision quest in 2005 when I found the courage to claim the title of “artist” for myself. Read more...
Happy New Year! In preparing to write this year-end note to you, I looked back over 2022 at everything we created together – all the beauty we added to the world over this past year. And I was surprised to learn that we gathered for twenty-one workshops, seventeen here in The Down to Earth Studio, and four offsite (the Art Department Supply Store, Newport Paper and Book Arts Festival, Breitenbush, and the Alton Collins Retreat Center). With an average of eight people in each workshop, that’s a total of 168 (probably more like over 200 when you consider that people often make more than one thing at a gathering) paintings, collages, SoulCollage® cards, shrines, goddess banners, eco-dyed pieces, and Kintsugi bowls.
Lately I’ve been thinking about a quote from Thich Nhat Hanh (Thay), spiritual leader and peace activitist: “It is possible the next Buddha will not take the form of an individual. The next Buddha may take the form of a community, a community practicing understanding and lovingkindness, a community practicing mindful living.”
Have you met the Hindu Goddess, Akhilandeshvari? Akhilandeshvari (Ahh-kee-lawn-dish-vari…fun to say, once you get the hang of it) is a goddess who embodies the ability to come together and fall apart, again and again. “Ishvari” in Sanskrit means “goddess” or “female power,” and the “Akhilanda” means essentially “never not broken.” In other words, The Always Broken Goddess.
I found a dead patch-nosed snake last fall while hiking near Cochiti Lake, New Mexico, and created an art piece with it. I know snakes are creepy to some people, but I love them; I always have. Here is an excerpt about snakes from my memoir titled, Solitude in Wild Nature: My Journey to Wholeness Through Wilderness Questing, which will be published in September 2023.
This summer I am feeling so grateful for the beauty that helps distract me from all the heartbreaking social, political and environmental news. I just completed my annual wilderness quest in the Inyo National Forest with the hundreds of years old junipers, pines, and aspen groves. I named my questing place at Johnny Meadows “The Big Quiet.” Being there was like time out of time. Long, lazy, warm days and a shimmering full moon at night. I was even visited by a coyote that sauntered by my campsite one evening. Time alone in nature makes me feel like everything is right with the world. Read more 
One of my sisters called me the other day and asked, “What have you been doing up there in Oregon besides breaking dishes?” It took me a moment to realize she was talking about the Kintsugi breaking and mending ceremony photos I’ve been posting on Facebook and Instagram. I laughed and said, “Well, not much; mostly just breaking dishes.” 
