Sacred Pause

It’s been a bit of a whirlwind around here the last few days.

The girls visited in preparation for a sooner-than-expected return to Oklahoma – I think the Colorado experience has been good for them, but they miss home.  I know how that can be having lived in Louisiana for about two years when I was just a little younger than they are now.  While they were here, they happily pitched in on the Wreck This Journal project (more on that next Friday)…

I worked on MANY school assignments, including an oh-so-fun observation of 5-year-old Lauren – we drew pictures, played with play dough and discovered the difference between boys and girls… in case you’re interested, “girls like to play Barbies and boys like to play dinosaurs” – so simple!!

I also did a TON of art – it’s Megan’s influence entirely (my kiddo positively exudes art!!) – my homework might have suffered a little, but it felt so good to wake up with paint and glitter on my hands!  As a matter of fact, I finished (yes, that’s right, FINISHED my 100 Days of Sacred Art project).

#98 – Create:  took the “You Inspire Me” canvass from this post up to the next level…

#99 – Happy Summer Card:  created for an upcoming Shoebox Swap…

#100 – Sacred Summer:  used the  “mess” on my desk to create this final project (possibly my all-time favorite)…

Click here to view the entire set of 100 projects!!

We had a violent rainstorm Saturday night – so no fireworks for us, but it cooled things off considerably and I enjoyed (immensely) sitting on the patio to study most of the day.  I have a few more pages of reading to do and a final bit of observation (watching 3-5 year-olds play and finding out what boys think about the difference between boys and girls), then I should be back on track.  The girls have gone home to Colorado for a week to close last minute business before coming back to hit the ground running in the job search.  Since they left this morning, it has been… Very.  Quiet.  But it’s feeling a bit like a golden pause – a sacred moment before life resumes… one I intend to cherish carefully.

Click here for more Sacred Sunday!

All That Glitters

I’m calling this “glitter week” in the WTJ arena because nearly every page ended up with some form of glitter or shine.  I suspect that’s just part of the evolutionary process WTJ inspires – I’ve gone from careful poetry, to all out wreckage, and now seem to be settling somewhere in between.

This is the “deface a photo of yourself” page and let me just say I had noooooo problem with this one – I MUCH prefer to be behind the camera vs. in front of it.  This is a page I actually did awhile back when I was singing with Spiritful Voices – it was taken at a performance and somehow it just begged to be covered with glitter …

This is the “make a mess and clean it up” page – dribbled paint, squished and smeared it, added more paint, then added glitter and sequins and a scrap of fiber while the paint was still wet (FUN!)…

Though, I still need to clean up the mess (yikes )…

This is the “draw with glue page” and who can resist sprinkling glitter all over fresh glue – right? …

And, finally, the “sample substances” page – not much glitter here, but I did find some pretty good color… upper left sort of purple color was a pink rose petal from my birthday bouquet; the oranges are french dressing, chili powder and pepper sauce; the pink and dark purple on the right are strawberry and blackberry.  I sampled a WIDE variety of things (warning, this is kind of gross), including a fly (upper right) who expressed a lingering interest and ended up squished; he’s covered with a piece of tape to reduce the “yuck” factor…

The fly is evidence of the in-between stage I’ve reached – I put some “pretty” into the book this week, but still didn’t stray to far from “wreckage.”  The biggest thing I’m finding with this project is that it’s making me braver with my art!  Instead of worrying about how something will come out or what people will think, I’m getting into the habit of just GOING FOR IT!  It’s fun and freeing and I think I’m loosening up!  I know I’m having more fun with my art – I’ll share a couple of examples tomorrow.

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Now for the Giveaway Winner!! Last week, I promised to give the little “You Inspire Me” canvass below away to one WTJer who has been inspired by another Wrecker.  Thanks to everyone for their comments – I had so much fun looking at all your wreckage and searching for the wreckage that inspired YOU!!

And the winner is #13…

Barbara Martin (@Reptitude)

Barbara – please email me (kjw2play@hotmail.com) with your snail-mail address and I’ll get the canvass in the mail!!

Happy Wrecking!!

The Human Factor

I was leading a conference call yesterday and during the call I could barely hear one of the participants telling someone nearby that she didn’t feel well.  I sensed something was wrong.  My intuition urged me to stop and find out what was going on, but I didn’t listen.  Instead I let the “needs of the business” prevail.

I just learned she had a stroke. She was having a stroke while I pushed ahead to solve a stupid business problem.

When did “needs of the business” become more important than human life?  I rage about my company forgetting to care for its people – then I do it too!  There was a time in my career when people mattered more – when the “human factor” was something more than “head count” near the bottom of an accounting ledger.

We… I have to get back to that.

Sacred “Not So Blazing Hot” Front

The weather man called it a “cold front” – I’m calling it a “not so blazing hot” front because it still hit 92, which is technically pretty hot – though not “blazing” (like the pushing 110 temps we had LAST week).

I got up early Sunday morning for a two-hour yoga stretch, followed by studying on the patio (where I closed my eyes for just a second and almost got caught on film by Hubby – luckily I woke up just in the nick of time ).  Megan’s here for a visit and we spent most of the rest of the day playing in the art studio, where I finally got Rowena, Kate and Snap’s cards in the mail to them AND finished my bliss journal (shown below – you can view some of the other pages here and here and here)…

(The design for this journal came from Suze Perot – one of the ultra talented artists/teachers from Paper Crown in Oklahoma City).

While Meg and I played with glitter and paint, Steph got all of our bikes back in road-worthy order and we went riding after supper.  Somehow I forget from one ride to the next just how much fun it is to zoom down a hill or race through the sprinklers or chase the sunlight til the very end of a summer day – sigh…

Inspired

After week one, school is already kicking my proverbial rear – I spent hours and hours and hours on my homework, then in class last night, I couldn’t seem to remember ANYTHING I’d read; I realized my eyes aren’t what they used to be (I needed my night-driving glasses to read the blackboard, but couldn’t read my notes with the glasses on), and this morning I feel like I’ve run a marathon – I’m just exhausted!! I’m feeling every last one of my soon-to-be 46 years (July 2).  That slippery slide to 50 is picking up speed!!

But I’m loving every second of this new learning adventure I’m on and last night sort of reinforced the direction my Wreck This Journal has taken this week.  I’ve thought alot about Keri Smith’s intention statement at the beginning of the book, “to create is to destroy” – Jamie’s comments this morning made me realize this may be different for each of us, but for me, it means destroying the old, comfortable, complacent parts of myself so that something new and maybe more authentic can be realized.  In order to create that something new (or uncover it) I have to take chances, push limits, think the unthinkable, end one thing to begin something new (see the new “Soul Food” I’ve added in the side bar)!  That’s what school is going to do for me and the WTJ can be my sounding board, the place where I can test the limits, rage about them, grow new ones, or, heck, transcend the limits.  Who needs limits anyway!

This is my “write one word over and over” page – have you seen those ads where they use words to draw pictures?  That was my inspiration for this page… oh, and my word is “fearless” (not because I am but because I want to be)…

This page was soooooo much fun.  I started with the wrapper (upper right) from my vitamin pack one morning and then just kept thinking of white (and off-white) things to add.  It was just a blast!

Notice on the tag, I stamped/embossed (in white) -  “to create is to destroy” …

Here’s the page where I dug into what “create to destroy” really means to me – I scrubbed the page with heavy-duty sandpaper (notice the blue painters tape on the left – that’s where I ripped the page in my enthusiasm).  The result was a little boring so I cut up a Sonic bag from my lunch and glued that on.  Still boring, so I added more stuff (random stuff from a “love this” box I keep on my desk), then words, then paint, then I scrubbed a little more.  I think this might be my favorite page at the moment …

Last was the “document time passing” page – that process sounded incredibly boring so, when I ran across a sweet little meme (here), I decided to do that instead (you can click the picture to enlarge if you want to read what I wrote).  Notice the tiny picture lower right…

The little photo is of a 4×4 “You Inspire Me” canvas that I made at a My Heart’s Fancy class last Thursday night (taught by the extremely fun and talented Lisa Bruno)…

I’ve been so inspired by all of the WTJers out there that I want to give this to somebody!  And let me just say that I LOVE this little canvas soooo much that it will be hard to part with – so it’s sort of in keeping with the whole WTJ theme.  If you like it, leave me a comment about something another WTJer has done to inspire you to do in your WTJ (that way we can all be inspired).  I’ll use a random number generator to draw the winner!

Happy Destruction!!

Dream Big Dreams

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From The Official White House Photostream

The President’s signature on the wall of a Wisconsin High School where he recently visited for a town hall meeting.

Also kind of cool that the White House has its own photostream on Flickr!

Sacred Studiousity

This is what I did this weekend…

• At the coffee shop
• In the art room
• At the book store
• On the patio

I’ve had moments that ranged from “hey, this isn’t so bad” to “oh my god, I’m never gonna be able to do this!” – but overall, I’m feeling pretty good.  It’s going to be a LOT of work, it isn’t going to be easy, but I’ve been telling myself it’s time to step out of my comfort zone…  b-bye Comfort Zone!!

Click here for more Sacred Life Sunday.

Letting Go

I think one of the things I’m loving the most about the Wreck this Journal project is the pure letting go it allows.

I was brought up to honor books.  I wouldn’t have dreamed of writing in a book, much less wreaking havoc to a book.  I’ve gentled some over the years, but am still basically someone who takes very good care of her books.

I was also brought up with a very strict set of rules – good grades, neat appearance, no talking back, no cussing, chores done…  nothing any other kid of my generation didn’t have to do, but I might have taken it to heart a little more than most.  Following the “letter of the law” became my way of gaining favor in the world.  To this day, it’s hard for me not to follow the rules – I’m always the first one to arrive, the first to turn something in (picture perfect), I don’t speed… I generally try to avoid doing anything that will be a bother or a burden to anybody.  But sometimes?  Sometimes the rules get a lit-tle boring.

I share all this just to say that wrecking this journal feels sort of like a release to me.  I’m not supposed to get food on the pages of my book or, heaven forbid, dirt and grass stains; I’m not supposed to write on the cover or rip pages out or staple/sew/glue stuff inside; I’m not supposed to sleep with, get wet, or throw my precious books.

But I am.

And the sky hasn’t fallen.  The book police haven’t come to take me away.  My mother hasn’t been disappointed in me (well, technically I suppose she doesn’t know that I’m systematically destroying this book, but I don’t think she’d mind if she did know).

Here’s some of this week’s wreckage…

I’m planning to make shrinky-dink copies of this page for the “find a way to wear the journal” prompt…

This one was fun – I dripped ink randomly, then smooshed the pages together.  I smooshed a little too enthusiastically and it stuck; so further wreckage was inflicted when I peeled the pages apart…

I loved this one – I picked up little pieces of dirt at first and rubbed them sort of gently.  When that didn’t make enough of a mess, I turned the book over and rubbed it in the dirt.  That was so much fun I ended up rubbing it in the grass and all over the place.  I think there’s a little kid inside me just dying to get dirty …

This is actually the back cover – I took the page that you were supposed to tear out and wrap something with and wrote a sort of love note to myself, then I folded it and wrapped it with pieces of tissue and ribbon I had laying out on my desk from another project and glued it to the back cover.  I like the idea of opening this book one day a long time from now and, not remembering what’s inside, ripping the tiny package open for a loving surprise…

The last page I worked on was the “make a sudden, destructive, unpredictable movement with the journal.”  I threw the journal around the house for a bit (got the giggles), then remembered the disc golf basket in the back yard!!  Didn’t do much damage (I may be to the point where damage will be less noticeable), but it sure was fun…

I understand some of the folks who are hesitant about breaking the golden rules of book ownership – it’s rebellious, it’s violent, it’s a tiny bit of anarchy in our own homes!!  And you know what?  It all feels pretty good to me!  Maybe a little bit of anarchy is good for us!

What Matters in the End

In the end
these things matter most:
How well did you love?
How fully did you live?
How deeply did you let go?”

~ Siddhārtha Gautama

School Daze

Tonight is the big night!  After 9 years, I’m returning to college to work on my Bachelor’s degree.

I’ll be working on a Bachelor of Science in Family Studies and Gerontology at Southern Nazarene University.  I have to say I don’t really know where I’m headed with this degree, but my intuition tells me it’s the path I should take, so I’m putting my faith in that for now.