Meet Your Artist Within ~ CFCC Layer 1

So here we go…this is what I have been doing the past month (in addition to painting, OT’ing & mum’ing)…I have been ‘playning’ (play learning)…all about my left and right brain and balancing the two to bring about change, freedom, creativity and joy! (Please see my previous post here, to read about the prelude to this post and my news announcement).

To kick off ‘Meeting Our Artist Within’ in the Creativity Coaching course that I am participating in; we were given a sacred symbol. Mine was the Triple Spiral which of course, was totally serendipitous; given that I had been painting this symbol (unknowingly ~ a friend pointed it out to me) in my paintings for the past year or so. I had looked into the symbology and history of the Triple Spiral which totally fascinated me! I was required to get to know my symbol by drawing and painting it and hanging my pieces around my house.

We all tend to be so left brain dominant with the written word, fear/worry and logic, that we are often overlooking the imagery and symbols that we subconsciously respond to and have done for thousands of years. Pictures and symbols were used to communicate, well before the written word was developed. And symbols have a powerful ability to convey and share information, feelings and knowings. They can guide us and create profound shifts.

One of the biggest things I connected with in working with my symbol came about by my experience and struggle in always drawing one spiral ‘wonky’. Upon asking myself what that might mean; my right brain knowing, told me I was out of balance in ‘body’. I fully tend and nurture, my mind and spirit; however I have let the self care and physical side of self nurturing get left behind. A wonderful insight don’t you think? All just from drawing and painting a symbol!

Another thing I connected with is this… If indeed, the triple spirals also represent, the 3 main phases of a woman’s life…child, mother, crone; I recognise that I have always resisted and had emotional stuckness over moving into the next phase of my life. I was initially fearful of the responsibilities of motherhood, yet I yearned for it. In fact I experienced quite a cathartic and profound inner world shift at the moment of conception of my first child (that’s a whole other blog post!). I now also, feel daunted by the fact that the possibility of my child bearing days are now over and I will be moving into my next phase of life…hot flushes and all, lol! 🙂 So, I definitely derived a whole lot of insight, just from creating one symbol…I was excited! Here is my symbol on my journal cover, mixed in with some new stamps I wanted to try out…

 

The next lesson was to cover a page with colour and scribble like-marks, to help us get out of the judgement of the left brain and our ego’s need to ‘produce’ a masterpiece and instead, allow the joy and freedom of the right brain to lead us into child-like imaginative play…

 

The next lesson was to do a spontaneous, quick scribble drawings and see what images our inner knowing could ‘see’, and then roughly draw them in. In addition, to jot down any words that surfaced in our mind associated with the seen images. This was our right brain, intuitive knowing, speaking to us through imagery and symbols. As you can see (if you tilt your head to the left), I saw a chicken-like bird and another one looking down on it from above. I added the words ‘spread your wings’ and ‘birds = freedom’. I have just now as I type this, seen a few figure 8’s. I will have to find out what this number is symbolic of in numerology…interesting! I also decided to do an over flattering self portrait of me holding my arms out in a flying motion of exultation and freedom as I release the bird from my hand. Hopefully, I will come back to this journal page at a later date and work this spread into completion. But it might stay this way too, which is totes fine too. That’s what I have fallen in love with about this journal…it’s just for me…

 

I must add too, that I did do some other scribble drawings as well and although I couldn’t pick out too much imagery (except a dove-like bird), I jotted down the following words next to my scribbles…’focus, to create, lost, you, need, will get there, intersecting, where am I going? on one scribble page and ‘escape, create by the moonlight, don’t let go, be free, grasp hold, claim freedom’ on the other scribble drawing. Amazing huh!? I think my fear-based left brain and my infinite-possibility right brain were having it out with each other, lol! 🙂

The next two lessons involved collaging with ripped out images from old magazines. I totally resisted doing these lessons for a couple of days. I think it was because my left brain was saying ‘well that’s not very productive and that’s not ‘art’ etc etc; but I have to say that they ended up being the two activities that gave me, THE, most joy and lightheartedness of being and peace! Who would have thought, hey!?

So this first pic is of my ‘Dream Collage’ or ‘Vision Board/Page’. We were to just rip out anything that caught our eye, that we felt drawn to, or that we thought was ‘yummy’ in some way. I was surprised how much I enjoyed the ‘no brain’ rip, rip, ripping of paper…so satisfying! A bit like bashing the crap out of mosaic tiles with a hammer…liberating therapy in action, lol! 🙂

 

I am so surprised by how much I love this Dream Collage spread of mine. I can see that it kind of represents my now, my past and what I hope to have in the future. I LOVE that it reflects to me, my need for beauty in my surroundings. I think when I surround myself with beauty…I become beauty and I then give out beauty to those around me. Again, I have had an ‘ah-ha!’ as I type this. for the past 4 years, I haven’t been able to quite work out why I seem to gravitate towards putting so much pink into my paintings. I have never been a girly girl. No. Wait! Cross that out <. I have always called myself a bit of a tomboy growing up and more of late, I didn’t feel terribly feminine. I feel like from when I was a child, I wanted, needed or thought, that I had to be more boy-like to somehow succeed in life. Even in my work role, forging a career as a ‘health professional’. It was all very left brained and masculine, do, achieve…be logical, responsible. Not much play in there. But I think what I just connected with is that; it was my inner child, my inner feminine, needing to be expressed through my right brain creative side ~ yee-har!! 🙂 So, I love how much pink there is…of flowers blossoming and flourishing, I love that I have money coming out of my head and I dressed in money abundance and I am passing the coins out of my hands and sharing it with others…LOVE, LOVE! The pretty tea cups and pot, musical notes, paintbrushes, well-being and soul and love messages, workshops, retreats, journal, the word ‘psychic’ appearing twice, two lots of arms thrown up into the sky in joyful liberation, butterflies, a luxurious wineglass and a gorgeous sofa, a puppy dog (golden retriever like I had as a child) a map of Rottnest (my childhood and teenage playground), a man fishing from a boat (my husband), a kangaroo, healthy smoothies, the Michaelangelo anatomical drawing/symbol for health and balance and the words, paint, solitude and peace! WOW! I could not have intentionally created this spread if I tried! My intuition, my spirit, my soul and my inner knowing converged and expressed my inner artist and creator of my world…my life; through the opened conduit of my right brain. PROFOUND appreciation for this experience and I can tell you this >> Like I have felt for the past 4 years ever since I started Intuitive, expressive painting. When I feel this much joy, I have an OVERWHELMING urge to share it. I want ALL women to experience this joy and freedom too! So I KNOW, that I am on the right path…in the right place (sorry for all the shouting capital letters but its the only way to express the emotion and excitement I feel from doing this Creativity Coaching Programme!) And. It’s only the first month of it! Yay! SO excited!!

Ok. Calming myself down to try and finish this post! 🙂

Here is my final journal spread of my ‘Face Collage’. A little like the Dream Collage but with stream of consciousness writing with some words jotted down, as I pasted the images into a stylised self portrait of my face and body…

I just adore this! the Champagne bottle makes me laugh that it managed to get a mention, lol! 🙂 My friends will find this amusing 🙂 I tried to use the bottle as an eyebrow, so it was pouring out to others from my head (I think it represented to me that my intention is always good, but my bluntness can get misunderstood). It felt like it was me sharing my abundance and insights into our creative possibility and giving that gift to all of you out there. But it didn’t sit right, to place it there. I moved it around and it fit snuggly and comfortably into my hand. Probably because most weeks I have one in my hand and am filling people’s champagne glasses…even at the odd Soul Liberation Workshop too, lol! 🙂 Again, surrounded by beauty and pinks. A golden retriever is obviously in my future as he has appeared again. I love that the fascinator~headpiece~water~vessel, balances at the front of my head/brain. It tilts enough to remain full, but enough to drip down and sustain my freed birds and gift of a bloom I offer; held in my hand (along with the Champagne bottle!) and then the drips morph into my childhood doodle of a squiggly petal/tear drop and falls down to water the flowers and fill my dogs bowl. How cool is that!? Again…if I had set out to create this with my left brain; there is no way I could have deliberately created it. My ego would have gotten in the way and been too limiting. I love that there are tree roots coming out from the middle of my head towards my vision. I’ll take that! That means there is more growth and awakening in my future…thank you! Ooh…and I almost forgot! I love that I turned some butterfly wings into wings on my back. No doubt, each time I open my journal, I will see and intuit new inner knowings from this creation. I used to keep heaps of written, locked journals as a young girl. This time, I have symbology and images that only I can glean the meaning for me from…my little souls secrets! 🙂

To finish this rather long and excited blog post; I just want to say how unexpected the gift of working in a journal and gaining some momentum in journaling has been. I have been a bit clunky, sporadic and stuck with journaling. Mainly because I felt time poor and thought that if I was creating, I had to create a finished piece of artwork. Well…not anymore. I am totally going to keep gifting myself the time to journal. Just for me. The pearls of wisdom, insights, joy and gifts are just too beautiful to pass up!

Join me, again soon; when I share with you what we have covered next in becoming creatively fit and coaching our artist within to express itself more fully; in the knowledge that ‘everything is working out perfectly’ and celebrating the undeniable truth…that ‘I am Self Love’.

I can’t wait to share with you some more about this new soul song line/chapter, in my creative journey; as well as offerings from Soul Song Creating.

Feel free to ask me more about the course if you are feeling led to do so…that will be YOUR artist within, hearing the call and nudging you to answer her/him.

Soul Songingly Yours,

x Tanya

Hear more about how we function and experience life through our left and right brain >>>  http://www.ted.com/talks/jill_bolte_taylor_s_powerful_stroke_of_insight

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http://whitneyfreya.com/cmd.php?af=1629965    Alternatively, you can use the contact tab with any inquiries. I would love to talk to you!