Bowl of the Year

I've been reading Sue Bender's Everyday Sacred. The cover image is a simple bowl and since Bender is a potter, the bowl is a central theme in her book. Bender thoughtfully reflects on the monk's beggar bowl, with which he asks for his daily nourishment.

It occured to me that a year is like a bowl - circular, complete, repeating from one year to the next, with an arbitrary beginning / ending point. And yet each year, unique.

What has filled your 2009 bowl? What did you ask for? What came to your bowl unbidden? Perhaps your bowl was filled with ease, perhaps challenge or hardship, certainly it was filled with change.

No matter what your year bowl contains, I imagine it is rich and savory. Yet you may want to spice it up a bit, or perhaps add an accompaniment to cool it down.

Bring your year bowl into your heart space and feel deep appreciation for a year of nourishment, for the gift and blessings of the year. Feel gratitude as well for the challenges, which may take some time to reveal their lessons or blessings.

Lastly, carefully cleanse your bowl and prepare it for a new year of offerings.

May your new year bring you peace.

The Importance of Appreciation

"If there is a sin against life, it consists not so much in despairing of life as in hoping for another life and in eluding the implacable grandeur of this life." Albert Camus

How often do you find yourself wishing 'if only...' If only I could sing. If only I had more imagination. If only I were taller, shorter, smarter, funnier. Oh, the list goes on.

How much of our life we waste by failing to acknowledge and appreciate our own gifts. As we pine away for a different talent or gift, the world suffers the loss of our own 'grandeur'.

As we approach a new year, I ask you to take a hard look at yourself. Do you minimize your creativity, humor, writing ability, or perhaps capacity to care for others? The world is not served by your denial of your gifts and strengths.

I would like to challenge you to embrace your strengths and talents and find a way to share them. Not only will other beings on the planet benefit, YOU will also find greater inner peace and joy in your life.

Happy Holidays to all.

photograph by Danilo Rizzuti on FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Freedom from Self Improvement

Jennifer Louden, the Comfort Queen, has declared this week the freedom from self improvement week, and I've signed up!


This does NOT mean that we get to let ourselves go hog wild and do everything we normally do to keep our urges under control (Ice cream!!!!!) but that we give ourselves the grace of accepting ourselves as we are. Knowing that we are already good and wonderful and amazing. Our job is to let ourselves see this. Beyond see, experience!


So I realized this morning that I could NOT spend another day at my computer trying to knock out more writing or other parts of my developing creativity coaching biz. I gathered up some acrylic paint, a big sketchbook, some fabric and my folding chair and headed down route 7 to this lovely spot. Here I planned to free myself from responsibility to work with some freeing no expectation art making.

I sat on a huge flat rock by the St. Vrain Creek. I practiced my qi gong, Cosmic Freedom Qigong, no less :-). I was intrigued by the patterns on the beech tree next to the rock and this made its way into my painting.


And of course, I have a compulsion to use every last bit of paint left on my palette. This is where I work with wild abandon, as I dipped the muslin I brought in the creek to wet it, then made monoprints with the leftover paint.

Topped by an iced chai latte, this was the perfect day for celebrating my self, complete as I am, loving and enjoying what I love to do.

What does your perfect day of celebrating you look like?