December 29, 2015 – Patience and practice – my wish and intention

Listen to this post:

A year ago, at the end of my last post of the year, I wrote this:

“Tomorrow is the last day of 2014. Though it’s rather arbitrary, the calendar is a structure that we live around. As such, we look at endings and beginnings. I’ve been shying away from New Year’s resolutions for several years. I’m so susceptible to the “bright-shiny”-ness of the hope for a “whole new me.” Though it’s still useful to reflect and envision. Looking back on this year [2014], much of what I was so eager and hopeful for at the start, has not come to be. But what I do see, is a profound deepening of my understanding and appreciation, for who I am and what I’m here to do and offer…

…Looking into 2015, with a tender heart, I wish for Life in Full Color to expand, to find its way to bring life, light, color, inspiration to other hearts that resonate with it. I wish for whatever is needed in me, for me to understand, that Life in Full Color is so much more than me, and that bringing it more fully into being, will take much more than me. And I trust that at the end of December 2015, I will look back and see, that something has moved and changed and grown. It’s the nature of the universe.”

Reading this and reflecting on where I was when I wrote it, I feel the tenderness of my heart and the hopes and dreams it held for the coming year. There is a daring in sharing these hopes. We have no idea what will unfold – or how. Things did change and expand and grow this year. I reviewed much of what happened in a post at the end of September, marking a year of writing every week. Right after that was the Pilgrimage to Paris – an enormous expansion! And, the “team” that makes Life in Full Color happen, is no longer just me. Since sometime in the spring, Shonna Hirney with Heart and Soul Virtual Assistance – a lovely, lively and capable woman near Calgary, Alberta, Canada, takes my words and images, and creates these posts – here on my site and on Facebook – and sends the emails, so that I can get back to painting.

On a deeper level, as compared to a year ago, I have a visceral experience of both how resilient I am, and how precious and valuable what I have to share is. It’s not that I’m really any more resilient or that it’s more valuable or precious than a year ago, it’s that I now see it, I know it, I have it in my bones in a way I did not. I also have more clarity about what is possible through making art a major part of our lives. We wake up and become more conscious and present – to who we are as people – and to life. This all provides another place for me to stand, at the edge of a new year. But looking back, I see that the growth I’d hoped for was bigger than this. I know I’m not alone in my hope for change to happen really quickly.

I keep forgetting this, but my endeavors, my business, Life in Full Color, is my creation just as any of my watercolors – only on a larger scale. All that I observe and learn about the art-making process – in myself and the artists who paint with me – applies to creating my business as well. In a wonderful book on making art called, “Art and Fear”, I read this: “The artist’s life is frustrating, not because the passage [of bringing our imagination to life] is slow, but because he imagines [emphasis mine] it to be fast.”

In the same book, there is a story of a pianist, who laments to his master that he can hear the music so much better in his head, than he can get it out of his fingers. The master asks him “what makes you think that ever changes?” It’s the distance, the mismatch between what we envision and the reality of our work, and life that keeps us working towards our vision. It is a really good thing that our hopes leap out ahead of our lives.

I have no idea where it has come from, but I’ve been ambitious about my endeavors as an artist from the start. I found these synonyms to the various meanings of “ambition”: aspiration, yearning, longing, goal, aim, drive, force. There is a forward motion in these words. They seem to move from one to the next – almost accelerating. Ambition is the force that brings our work out of us. But ambition must be also be balanced – there’s the cautionary term “blind ambition” for a reason. The purpose of my work as a creator, is to be in service to those who are there to receive it. My work must be done in relationship with the world, with life – my partners in evolution. If I’m blind to what the world has to show me, I can’t include it in my work.

To the impatient parts of us, a year seems like a long enough time to have all we dream of in our endeavors to come to be, but it’s hardly any time at all. It takes lived experiences to reveal things to us, that we couldn’t have thought of. The clarity and specificity that is required isn’t there… until it is!

What I’m wishing for, for the New Year is patience. I will faithfully hold my hopes and dreams for expansion, and I will endeavor to remind myself, to trust that all things come in their own time. I will also faithfully do the work. There is no substitute for sitting my butt down and doing what is mine to do. There will be emails to send to let you know what I’m offering, another Pilgrimage to Paris, maybe a watercolor retreat on Kauai, maybe another in the wine country, a calendar for 2017, and of course my regular groups to lead and my paintings to paint.

I don’t have a regular spiritual practice, and I’ve been told so many times (including by myself) that I really need to. It has occurred to me, that my painting is my devotion – and in that, it is my spiritual practice. But, there are many, many days that get by me – like the past two weeks or so – when I don’t paint at all! I know! With that same tender heart, I set this intention for 2016: I will paint every day. I’m saying here, that I’ll paint for at least a half an hour – but 5 minutes will do. Every day. Off-to-the-airport-travel-days, staying-in-a-hotel-room-days, not-feeling-so-well-days – I will put brush to paint to paper – every day.

It’s scary to share this publicly. But, I’ve shown myself that I can keep to a practice with these posts. And doing so, has me hold myself differently. Now, I’m upping the ante. It will take arranging my life (like bringing art supplies with me wherever I go) so that I can keep the commitment. And I’m guessing that doing this will shift my relationship with my art-making. I look forward to the post at the end of 2016, when I’ll get to share with you how!

For 2015, I thank you for your faithful following of my journey each week. Knowing you are there is what has me corral myself to get writing every Tuesday morning. And for 2016, I wish for you what you wish for yourself (thanks, Lynda Wise) – in its own time and way.

Love,

Cara