The air is heavy with moisture that beads on my studio window just before dawn.
I was born into a journey
that had signposts.
I made maps with my steps,
and told the stories that helped
others find their way home.
— DMP
Yesterday, I did something daring. I trusted my intuition and just painted.
No pre-drawing.
No obsessing over detail.
No chasing some ever-moving standard of perfection.
No parsing of the latest Instagram content trends.
I sat at my desk and bravely primed a little wood panel, creating blank space with nothing but the margin for possibility.
Whispers of what could be.
Where margins become the center.
I sponged on and blended the early layers watching as mist and form and color and light mingled and emerged from the fog.
Gentle. Steel. Fragile. Strength.
Then, I took a palette knife and used it as a spatula to dab on color and texture and magic and whimsy, and the fading rays of daylight in the evening sky.
The dance of fuschia petals flung at sky blues and violet hues receding into the quiet of a Payne’s grey night.
Then I dabbed on starlight.
And marveled at what came forth when I let go.
Sometimes our creativity is just waiting to unleash beauty beyond imagining.
But we hold it captive to proper technique and detailed plans and all the right ways to paint a flower field.
Beloved, there is something stunning on the inside of you waiting for you to give it permission to come forth.
Make no mistake, beauty is an act of generosity in a world that feels stuck in sorrow and agitation.
This morning it feels like life is filled with more unknowns than usual right now.
Media feeds serve 7-course meals with anxiety baked in.
Perhaps it seems counterintuitive to embrace more uncertainty in our creating. To welcome more of the unknown in our making.
But here’s the deal.
This is not an uncertainty thrust upon us.
This is an unknown we get to choose. And one we can walk away from any time we want.
This is an unknown with purpose.
There is power in that. There is hope in that.
There is beauty brimming and spilling out around the edges there.
We get to choose the stories we tell ourselves and one another.
The stories we tell ourselves are the stories that shape history.
And beloved, we can tell each other a better story.
It is possible. Wildly.
This week remember above all else…
You are loved.
Oh! This is lovely. The idea of creation is always where I want to focus.
I’m grateful to hear about the world stuff from trusted sources, not on my carefully curated feed.
Thank you for this beautiful message. It was exactly what I needed this morning.