P for Valentine

Head over to my art blog and see some of the reasons I've been too busy to post here. I also had two projects approved so I will have less time for the fun stuff. On the other hand, I get to pay my bills. One day, soon, I will pay my bills with money made from the fun stuff.

P for Valentine. Because I will most likely spend that day in my Pajamas. With a Pen, Pencil, or Paintbrush making magic over Paper. Or absorbed in the Pages of a book.

P could also mean Pride, Prejudice, and Pemberley. But such things happening to me will take a bit more magic than I have on hand, even if it is going to be my birthday. Still, it would not hurt to wish.

pre-birthday project : a life map

It just struck me this morning. And then I found myself mapping my life. Greatly inspired by Joseph Campbell's Pathways To Bliss.

At the core of the map is heeding Campbell's call to follow my bliss. Then I break it out into four key aspects: Body, Mind, Heart, Spirit. In each aspect I identify my influences and inspirations, and how my life actually manifests in these areas. I am now able to see where I need more nurturing, where I need more growth. I suddenly see why my work (i.e. dayjob) has been causing me so much ache and discomfort (it does not fit into the patterns of my life at all, and it desperately needs integration and the injection of soul.)

I see my priorities, I see my values. I will now be better equipped when I read about the spectacular events that seem to be happening to my friends in Facebook every single day. It is very easy for me to think and feel, "I want to do that do." or "I want to have that too." But that is their journey, that is their path. I have my own and it is no less important or spectacular. When I am being distracted or depressed i will go back to this map and remind myself. This is what matters. My own timing is not the same as other people's. I unfold in my own perfect time.

The map reveals to me my outmoded behaviors and habits, what I need to let go of, what I need to do more of. I discover that I need to awaken my Warrior Self.

I realize how many wise teachers have been sent to me and have been with me through all these years. I discover and understand why there are things that I keep going back to, or why some things never fail to bring me the deepest joy.

I realize that it will be my birthday soon and that is why I find myself mapping my life. What will my new year bring to me? What will I bring to myself? Where will I take myself?

"You enter the forest at the darkest point,

where there is no path.

Where there's a way or path,

it is someone else's path;

each human being is a unique phenomenon.

The idea is to find your own pathway to bliss."

- Joseph Campbell

colors

I am in a drawing-painting mood today. Since yesterday actually. 

I even got inspired to paint my nails and was drawn to these when I was in the supermarket.

When I got home I found myself gravitating towards paper, pencil, and paint.

Today my hand is itching to make more.

out from the dark tunnel

So much better now. Playing catch up with everything.

From days of these,

to this.

Yesterday I got around to cooking myself a proper meal.

A delicious invented pasta recipe of ham, garlic, mushrooms.

In the evening I had roast chicken and made myself a salad.

A lot of things to fix, a desk to clear, matters to update. 

Taking things slowly but surely.

Would not want a relapse, oh no.

That was what happened that was why I was sick for so long.

Stressed myself so much so soon that I fell sick again.

So I am more careful and sensible this time.

Everything at my own good pace,

in my own good time,

listening to my gut-feel and the ever-true urgings of my good heart.

Here's something that flowed out last night.

Something inspired and influenced by the novel I am writing.

Here is a stationery idea for my little business.

I want to inject more art and creativity into my work.

Or else it is in danger of atrophy and a slow bitter death.

How are YOU doing lately?

popping in quick

I'm still alive.

Although right now I am down with fever (again), colds (again), a headache that refuses to let me stay up for more than half an hour straight. The backs of my eyes ache and feel hot. My very skin is sore. My throat is sore. I could barely breathe when I sleep.

I am also stuck on a work document that I could not finish because I know it's not my best output. I could make it "passable" but it will haunt me afterwards. Hence I am poking at it until it's closer to the perfect I have in mind.

I haven't been able to update my 365 project but the pictures are all in my notebooks waiting to be photographed and uploaded. Be patient. They will all come out in a big batch soon.

I am consoled by reading, especially by Miss Austen. Halfway through Sense And Sensibility. I need to be more like Elinor Dashwood.

I have discovered Melissa Marr's Wicked Lovely series. Quick entertaining reads. The only way I can tolerate the angst and fussiness of teenagers is if they involve supernatural beings. I am in search of similar themed novels with older adults, like maybe in their late twenties or early thirties or even older. And I mean adults with the same sense of wonder and delight and courage. Or is it because older adults cease to be candidates for the magical at some point?

I have to go back to bed now. I could barely see the screen with my eyes watery and my head throbbing like doom. I hope you're in much better shape than I am.

look up

See there among the tabs, one that is titled 365 for 2013. Yes it's my own personal 365 project. It's a humble project, and I designed it to be easy. A picture a day, with a lot of leeway on what kind of a picture it could be. I was inspired by Lisa Congdon's 365 Days Of Handlettering from last year and she even got a book deal out of it before the year ended. Well, I don't think my little project will be book-worthy yet but at the very least it should help establish me as an artist in some distinct and solid way. One of the pictures has already been claimed by a cousin. She offered to buy it but I insisted on giving it as a gift instead. Generosity, especially within the early stages of an endeavor, will go a long way. Good karma always pays.

Meanwhile I am motivated to meet this challenge I set for myself this year. I am still in the early stages so it is easy to get into it but the real test to my commitment will be when work starts to pour in again. I still have my writing to make time for as well as for reading all those books lined up by my bedside table and in my Kindle.

The drawing and the painting soothe me in similar ways as writing does. It is in that momentary transportation into another plane of existence where anything is possible and everything makes sense. Where whatever comes out of the pen or the pencil is real and alive. Where colors speak their hidden names and words reveal their secret powers. Worlds are born. When I am creating stories or images I find peace. I feel a calmness that I could never fully achieve with doing anything else. Writing and making art center me, ground me, keep me tethered to life and just enough sanity to distinguish between this world and the other worlds I travel through when my hand wraps around a pen or a brush or when my fingers start flying over the keys.

Writing and making art are the refuge of my heart when it is besieged by doubt and fear. How I wish and hope that I will one day sustain my physical life with my creations! To get up in the morning eager to work because work would be walking into my studio to add products for my popular art shop or to prepare for a small exhibit or sitting in front of a half-finished book for which an advance has already been received. Blissful indeed.

What dreams are you dreaming this year?

sunshine within the storm

I am being thrown about by financial tornados and heart tsunamis. I crawl my way into the eye of the storm and anchor myself with a paintbrush, a pencil, and a pen.

Colds and cough kept me at home today, with not much to do because sudden movements made my head hurt and make me want to throw up. A low fever flits in and out, undecided whether to camp for the weekend or just treat me as a pitstop.

Things certainly look more dreary when you're sick. I surrounded myself with the comfort of my books and made myself busy with art-making. I slept when my eyes started to hurt or when my skin started to burn again.

Watercolor and charcoal is fast becoming my favorite combination. Here I recreated a set of lucky fish that used to hang from my ceiling. I got rid of the fishes when they got torn and too dirty. I don't know if it was coincidence but the money-making projects dried up after that. So I recreated them by hand and will hang them in my home again. Just to be on the safe side of universal rules and schemes and energy flows. Just in case.

This one is a bit of a play with words and ideas and feelings. 

I did not get to do much work-related tasks today. My head hurt when I tried to steer my mind towards serious thoughts that required strategy and rationalization and very careful crafting. After a few failed attempts I decided to put off the work tasks for when I am feeling much better and when my head is more cooperative.

2013: The Year Of True Paths

I woke up very late today because I got home at almost four in the morning. My sister and I spent the first couple of hours of the new year watching Sense And Sensibility and taking good lessons from Jane Austen.

When I got home I was still very much awake and had to read myself to sleep, which meant that it must have been almost five in the morning. In keeping with one of the themes I intend to embrace this new year, I progressed through The Jane Austen Guide To Happily Ever After.

I changed my curtains into a sunshiny polka-dotted piece in the hopes of attracting money energies. At this point, every little bit will help, as far as I am concerned.

In the evening, I dared to spend a little bit of cash to treat my family out to dinner. It has been a long while since we could afford to celebrate by eating out in a nice restaurant. But I figured, it is the new year, and the energies are fresh and hopes are recharged. We went to a place we have not tried but which promised delicious celebratory comfort food. We had traditional dishes of crispy pata and kare-kare with steamed rice. We were served a complimentary basket of crispy delicious cracklings while we waited for the meal to be served.

Before leaving the house for dinner though, I finished a piece that was inspired by a private joke and secret among myself, my sister, and a common girl friend.

When I got home after dinner, I did one last journal page and admired my own handiwork. Love will be taken seriously this year, in all its forms and expressions. I will not be embarrassed by it, nor will I treat it like an afterthought.

2013 will be a Year of True Paths. After the rebirths of the previous year, it is now the time to nurture what have been reborn and rediscovered. To let these, by their nature, invite the right kind of people, opportunities, events, and experiences. The true ones that will nurture my own spirit and happiness. True friends, true loves, true passions. There will certainly be a lot of walking, aching feet, occasionally getting delayed by either hunger or exhaustion, maybe sometimes putting off the forward march by a day (but never more than a day). There may even be some doubling back, because of something forgotten or something missed. A loose end slipping out that must be cut clean. But always, always, it will all end with moving forward, even if it means leaving things and even people behind (like when they don't wish to walk with you nor catch up with you nor carry their own weight in the journey.) 

In moving forward I hope to see new places, meet new people (even if it is seeing the same old people in a new light that will forge deeper relationships), gain beautiful new experiences that will bring new lessons (or new ways of learning old ones). I hope to learn new things, to discover side journeys that will help me grow, and also I hope to be something new and something true to other people. I hope to be a true friend, and when the Universe says it is time, a true love. 

What true path will you be walking this year?