how do you make sense of a crazy world?

hello everyone!

My journal entry from

November 29th, 2016:

*****

I just came back from a beautiful walk.

The sun was shining and as I walked,

it started snowing at the same time.

Part of the sky was dark and cloudy,

ant the other part was blue sky.

So pretty.

The snowflakes falling

looked like little sparkles

or sprinkles in the sky.

It's moments like these

that feel blessed to me.

And i hesitate to say blessed

because it implies there is someone

or something

doing the blessing,

and that's just not what I believe.

It's just that whenever I see something like that,

or hear beautiful music -

even just a single note sometimes,

I feel like my insides turn to mush

and I am somehow weaved in

with the note or the snowflake

or the singing bird and for a moment -

we become one.

I know it sounds corny,

but whenever these moments happen for me,

everything makes sense.

It is no doubt what Eckhart Tolle calls

being in the moment.

It's not that everything makes sense, really,

but more like nothing else exists

outside of my tiny moment

with the snowflakes.

Like the rest of the world comes to a stop

and my moment happens in slow motion -

to make sure i grasp the significance.

It is during times like these

that I am grateful

for my artist heart.

*****

So it's been a rough past few months
for many of us
and as much as I am still saddened
by everything happening in the world,
specifically the hatred
I am reminded every day
that there are still small miracles
all around me and that
I am still the same person.
Only maybe more resilient now.
Maybe more determined
to speak out when it's time
for my voice to be heard.
I still love books.
I still love painting.
And writing.
I love my family
and my friends.
I love connecting with others
around the world (like you!).
These things will never change,
regardless of what is happening
around me.
I hope you are finding 
some sort of peace with it all too.
Especially my American friends.
Regardless of who you voted for,
let's face it,
there's a lot of uncertainty
for a lot of people right now.
Sometimes, having the world around us
shift in strange and unpleasant ways
makes us even more determined
to take our place in it.

On another note,
I did some cards with my acrylic paintings
and ordered them from Vistaprint
during their Black Friday sale (60% off!)
and I got them yesterday.
So exciting!

I like sending a little something extra
to those who buy from my ETSY shop,
so I'm pretty happy with these.

I'll be sending some
in Christmas cards this year as well...

I love the combination of
art and words.
Both are equally important to me.

Big love to every one of you.
xx

girl in box

Another few pages for the Sketchbook challenge.

A girl in a box, acrylic on paper.

Not much of a process to show today, since i haven't finished it yet.

I'll have to do something about those curly pages before i send it off.

By the way, i loved reading your comments yesterday about when or how you all became artists. 

It's funny how one thing leads us to another in life, isn't it?

Neither of my parents were artists - my father was a carpenter & my mother a caregiver (this doesn't mean they weren't creative!) - but I remember always having crayons & paper in the house. I also remember my mother saving the egg cartons, which usually turned into colourful little bells, or flowers. Or dad bringing home scrap pieces of wood for me to draw on or carve. When i was 12 or 13, we had a snow sculpture contest at school and my friend and i won first place for our snow sculpture of Snoopy the dog - the Charles Schultz creation - not Snoop Dog :-). All of these little things lead me to continue being creative, one way or another.

In high school, (in Alberta), I was fortunate enough to have a great art teacher who encouraged me to push myself (thanks, Mr. Muzzo). He even told me I was a really good artist - that's all it took. At the end of the school year, we were moving back east, 3000 miles away and as a gift, Mr. Muzzo gave me a brand new set of oil pastels to encourage me to keep drawing. Teachers sometimes don't realize how much of an affect they have on kids and how ONE kind gesture can perhaps change the course of a life. I used those pastels till they were nothing but little bits of colour in the box. 

It's not really important how or when we became artists. I believe we're all naturally creative beings at birth, but that's another story. :-) It's only important to honour the creativity once we recognize it in ourselves, whether it be with cooking or singing or dancing or drawing.

Otherwise, we're not whole, or true to ourselves, are we?

happy Thursday everyone. Thank you again so much for sharing your comments with me.
:-)