Life moved on and we welcomed our beautiful granddaughter home and into the arms of our family. By this time I had become so enamored with wandering the enchanting cemetery in the early morning hours that I began taking my dog there for morning walks. The more time that I spent wandering the rows and markers the more curious I became about the lives of those who had come to rest in the cemetery. I began noting dates on the tombstones and would on occasion find myself commenting when passing by. Saying such things as “It’s your birthday tomorrow, Henry. I wonder how you passed your birthdays when you were here walking among us.” As we were solidly in the second year of a pandemic, quietly wandering through the cemetery as the sun rose on another day and contemplating the nature of life and death seemed natural and somehow necessary.

Time continued to pass and so did the daily reminders that for all living things life includes death. They are inextricably linked. The numbers of those lost to this pandemic continued to climb. The sweet canine who I had first walked with among these rows closed his eyes upon his last day; as did another sweet familial companion who had gifted all whom she encountered with important reminders and lessons of love, vulnerability and indomitable spirit. I continued using sharp razors to extricate the images of skeletons from paper and reinsert them into new scenes of life. 

Underneath our clothing, the color of our skin, our gender, our familial ties, our lived experiences, and all the other myriad of ways in which we claim and establish our identities lie our bones. Bones that seemed to be pointing us toward our shared humanity and the quintessential way in which we are alike. More than anytime before I found myself aware of how short our time on this earth actually is and how the time we are given is truly our most precious gift. Every atom of calcium in our bones was created inside a star before the earth was born. We began as the dust of exploding stars. How magnificent and precious is a life that begins as the last evolutionary stages of a massive star? The poetry and beauty of the life and world that we have been given make me weep.

The other night as I was about to lay my head on my pillow, I found myself wondering what artists before me had worked with the images of skeletons. I consulted the great internet oracle and quickly discovered the term Memento Mori.(2) In short, a Memento Mori is a Latin phrase meaning ‘remember you must die’ and is an artwork designed to remind the viewer of their mortality and the shortness and fragility of human life. 

What does all of this mean? It is a message about willingness and connection. I no longer want to wait until tomorrow to have the conversations that seem too hard to have today. I have become deeply aware of the gift of someone offering me their time and the gift of my own. We all carry and have individual gifts to offer. I believe that we also carry a unique purpose in contribution and service to our collective story. It is through connection and context with one another that these gifts can be most effectively offered. We need each other. 

I have run out of the vintage bone people images that spurred such curiosity and creativity in me. Now new bones have found their way to me. They are different. They are without clothing and there is no way to discern who they may have been in their individual identities. I do not think of them in the same way. They are not stuck in the past or pieces that have been lost. I am placing these within scenes that tell stories of how we are all connected. They shall remember their dance among the stars. They shall entwine and share stories with nature and mystery. They will be stories of finding our way home and of finding our parts, purpose and each other. ​

In willingness and the spirit of connection,
​Heather

​Did you see the sunrise this morning? Breathtaking. Absolutely breathtaking. Talk about some divine artistry. I am actually sitting here writing at this very moment while glancing through the window and continuing to watch the unfolding. It only lasts for a very few moments every day at very specific time. This photo is what I am seeing in this very moment. I almost cropped the parking lot and cars out of the picture, but then decided that leaving them in told a much fuller and expansive story. Divine sunrises, cracked parking lots, cars (some functioning and some not), buildings, telephone and cable wires cutting across the view: they all serve there own unique purpose and they are all part of my reality. I decided to give them all a 'seat at the table' so to speak. 

A 'seat at the table' and what it means has been a point of reflection and a theme of mine lately. In practice it looks like when I experience something uncomfortable,  instead of dismissing it, barreling past it, distracting myself with some other activity, pretending it does not exist or thinking that I will deal with it later; I invite it to have a seat at the table. I hang out with the awkwardness and uncomfortably. I turn it around and look at it from different angles. 

Not too long ago I discovered that I had a very effective trap door mechanism. There were and are certain experiences, emotions, events that I realized I had not been giving space to. I am a very visual person and when I say I discovered a trap door, it means I could literally see one inside my body. At other points and times in my life this would have become a painting, at this point and time I am practicing painting with my words. 

These undigested pieces of experience and emotions would slip pass and through the trap door which I saw and experienced as being at the base of my neck, and take up residence. They would hide in various locations and sometimes make surprise guest appearances in ways that until recently seemed unexpected or unrelated. I often labeled my ability to keep moving without dwelling on them or their impact and effects as being strong. I got this. I can handle this. There was even a sense of pride related to how much I could take and keep on going. To be honest , kind and fair with myself, there were many ways in which being this way insured my survival, allowed me to work full time, be a single parent, get a masters degree, and the list can go on. 

But here's the thing...those undigested emotions, feelings and experiences, well they don't just go away and the tricks and mechanisms that are needed to sustain them come at a cost. A couple of weeks ago I began experiencing some significant headaches. This is not a typical experience for me. The headaches also came with some very strange occurrences such as eye twitching, teeth grinding, weird ear sensations. The headaches did not go away and so I went to see my doctor. The x-rays she ordered revealed that I have bone spurs and severe degeneration of the disks in my cervical spine - which is right at the base of my neck. Is it a coincidence that this is where I saw the trap door? Maybe and maybe not. I have been seeing the chiropractor twice a week and doing what I need to and the headaches and most of the symptoms have stopped but this is something that I will need to pay attention to and care for the rest of my life. I have also been doing a lot of work on those unmetabolized bits of my own story. I am choosing to embrace all of these experiences as an opportunity.  

As much as possible, I am embracing beauty as it exists in the entire and whole picture. The more I increase my ability to not filter out aspects, bits and pieces, to see how it is all related and connected, the greater my ability is to frame the story in a way that shines light in all of the corners.

Here is this morning's sunrise one more time. Breathtaking.

​Here is a bit more of the story. The building directly in front of the sunrise was salvaged and renovated in the last couple of years since I moved here. It is now a building which houses a community of industrial arts business. There is a large building in the distance which is a shell of its former self. It is the old papermill that once upon a time was central to this town and inhabitants. It currently stands as an echo and at times provides shelter for well...happenings that society does not always like to experience or feel such as homelessness and things people do in dark abandoned buildings. The house that I own was originally built as housing for the mill workers and their families. I believe every house on my street was. The cars in the parking lot, well for me they remind me of my dad. He was a mechanic and I grew up around his garage and cars in various states of repair and disrepair. The mountain you can see is Fall Mountain and it is on the other side of the railroad tracks and the Connecticut River which acts as a boundary between here in Bellows Falls, Vermont and Walpole, New Hampshire. This is the Y or intersection of where the Saxtons River meets the Connecticut River and was a fishing site for the Abenaki peoples. The papermill played a roll in the decline of the fish. Down the river is an archaeological site containing panels of some of the oldest petroglyphs in North America.

These are just a very few and tiny pieces of the story. There is so much more that I could tell you about the stories and what exists in within the frame of this photo. There are layers upon layers upon layers. So...for this morning I decided to leave it all in; completely unedited and unfiltered and all of it kissed by a divine sunrise and light.

I hope your day is blessed with some gorgeous light shining on some of the detailed, complicated and beautiful parts of your story. 

Today is day 97 of Project 365. There are 268 remaining.

​Heather

My morning begins with waking up and going downstairs, getting the hot water for the coffee going, and then feeding the manimals (which is my made up word for the collective of 3 animals that we share our lives and home with). Once the coffee is ready, (which is always Café du Monde coffee with chicory with half and half), I had back up the stairs to the studio. I sit at my writing desk (which used to be my great grandmother's desk), light a candle and begin writing in my journal. Almost every morning I light some sage and pull a card after asking the following question...

What message/information do I need to receive and hold in my consciousness today in order to place my feet on the path of my purpose?

After I have pulled a card, I spend a few moments writing on its meaning and reflecting and its relevance in my life. After this morning ritual, I usually feel ready to sit down at my computer and begin writing the entry for the daily blog. However, it did not work like this today.

When I made the decision and commitment to practice sharing my writing on a daily basis I knew there would be days like this. Days when I get in front of myself and convince myself that I do not know what I want to say or how I want to say it. I was sitting here staring at what was right in front of me. Then I started to really look at what was right in front of me. I would like to share it with you.

There is a slip from a fortune cookie which reads, "You will soon have the opportunity to improve your finances." I have kept this tiny piece of paper for over six years. I opened this fortune the last time that I ever ate with my father at a restaurant. Some part of me understood that this would be my last visit with my father . What I did not know at that time was that his death, and my mother's five months later would be one of the most challenging periods of my life and would also shift my financial situation in a way that had not yet been possible in my life. I still get choked up when I look at that tiny slip of paper, I actually am right now as I am writing this. It is so much more than a tiny slip of paper or a fortune cookie, it is a piece of a larger story.

Next there is another tiny slip of paper from a teabag which reads, "Life is best lived by focusing on your goals and dancing through all other distractions." In my world, this is not a slip of paper but rather a message of great wisdom which was gifted to me by the Great Tea Oracle at a particular moment in time. 

Teabag oracle is followed by a nametag that was made for me when I was the Managing Director of an arts organization and it reads; Heather Geoffrey, Goddess of all She Surveys. It is a reminder of a special moment in time and well, hell yes!

There is a beautiful paper quilled card of a Dragon given to me by one of my dearest and longest friend. This would make it enough for it to land in this board, however it is the last handwritten line on the inside that makes my heart sing and at times has helped me remember the beauty of deep friendships and the importance of connection. "Keep shining brighter and know that you are loved beyond measure."

There is a photo of one of the beings that I have loved most in my life. His name was Eros and I would say that once upon a time he was my dog, but that is not quite accurate or true. Instead I like to think that for a period of time we were fortunate enough to belong to each other. He moved on sixteen years ago and I still dream about him. He taught me much about wildness, beauty, dignity and how there are always parts that should not and cannot be tamed. I know we will meet again.

The words Legend and Genius, well, we all have our aspirations. Insert smiley face here.

Below these words is a card from another friend (who was once the coworker who made the nametag) with an Oscar Wilde quote that I love. "The smallest act of kindness is worth more than the grandest intention." This is something that I strive to remember and live by every day.

To the right of all of this is a tapestry that I purchased while I was in Peru. As with most weavings, this is a much larger and longer story. (Aren't they all?) But for now and for the purposes of this post, I see and think of my mother and her story, of where and how it is connected to my story, of my cousin and her story and a journey we made together to honor my mother, and stories about mothers, daughters and sisters that long to be told. 

To the left of all of this are the following post it notes with reminders that I like to look up, see.

That's my little way of reminding myself to take care of myself and that my health and well being have importance and value.

Truth. Enough said.

My daily reminders for living.

Yup. That is also a daily practice  and requires the development of a muscle.

So...below all of this is a microphone. I am someone who constantly is interpreting and reading signs; divining what is around me in order to create meaning and ensure that I am open to receiving the message that the universe is passing along. So what does all of this tell me...

Keep looking and seeing where the stories are connected. The little details matter. Everything you need is right there in front of you. You are never alone and you cannot do this alone - we need each other and connection. When you see and make the connections it is important to use your voice and share them.

Today is day 88 of the 365 Project.

I hope when you look at what is right in front of you it carries the messages and meaning that you need today.

Heather

I recently decided that I wanted some new glasses. My body, the astrological transits in my chart, signs and messages and my intuition are all telling me that I am in a place of transition. I think the new funky glasses are part of the way I am trying to express the shifts and changes that I am feeling internally on the outside. It is also my way of playing with my identity. This shift I am experiencing feels significant and at times I feel uncertain as to exactly who I am or perhaps more accurately, who I am becoming. So why not play? Why not try and shake up how I am used to seeing myself in order to make room for whatever wants to come forward.

Speaking of whatever wants to come forward...
I was recently posed a question: Am I ready for something new or are there loose ends to resolve? What would be the something new? This is where the Pots de Crème enters the picture. I want to learn more about cooking and baking. I have fantasies about being a contestant on the Great British Baking Show. I also have fantasies about having a large kitchen and house filled with family, friends and fascinating acquaintances for whom I cook the most delicious meals and delicacies. I believe that food can be a most potent medicine. Cooking is also  one of my love languages and I want to shower people in love. Is cooking school in my future? I don't know the answer to that question at this moment. I still have significant student loan debt and being an artist is not always the most secure of incomes (at least not yet). 

So for the moment I have decided that I am going to train like I am a contestant on the Great British Baking Show. This Friday I will be making Honey Vanilla Pots de Crème. This will be my first Pots de Crème and I am so excited. I will be going on an adventure to see if I can find some local honeycomb to place in the top of the tiny pots of goodness. I would like to pair this bit of deliciousness with Lavender Shortbread Cookies. I have ordered some ingredients that I need that I cannot find locally. If they get here on time for Friday (this is when my family comes over for a weekly meal) then I will include them in the line up. If not, they will wait for a couple of weeks because next week I am trying my hand at a bread recipe. This excites me.

Now for the pause. Some days I still wear my old or previous glasses. Some days I know I need to be quiet and alone in a cabin in the woods. Some days I soak in the bath longer than is "necessary". Some days I wander around the cove listening to the geese and eagles flying. In this transition, my rhythms are changing and it feels important for me to incorporate moments of pause and stillness. These moments can feel cocoon like. There are whispers that come through in the stillness. Hints about where I am headed, messages about what remains to be resolved, and guidance in learning about how to be more fully present. Pauses are important, especially in large transitions. 

About yesterday's lack of a post after my announcement to do one daily - It was a busy day and I am still adapting my schedule and routine to include getting this post out. I would say I am sorry but that is one of those behaviors that I am trying to leave in the past. Apologizing for something that there is really no need to apologize for. As a woman, it is one of those things that society has gotten comfortable with us doing. It no longer feels comfortable to me. I am learning and growing. I think some of the magic may lie in waking up the next day, being grateful and picking up where you left off. 

Today is day 87 of the 365 Project.

I hope your day holds some delicious sweetness, playful fun and moments of pause.
Heather

Recently I made the decision that I needed some time alone with my own thoughts so I booked a log cabin in the middle of the woods and spent the weekend with myself. There are moments in life when you know that you are in transition from one way of being to another. This is one of those times for me. The dreams that visit me at night are shifting and changing. Dancing in the Sea of Morpheus takes on a whole new meaning and feel at these times. 

If you were to look up synonyms for the word menopause you would find climacteric, midlife crisis, crossroad, juncture, decisive point, critical stage, and head. I know because I looked it up this morning and I have to say that these words feel like they all apply. I would have liked to have also found a few lighter feeling and less intimidating words such as celebration, new start, next stage, however in my practice of inviting all of my feelings and experiences to the table, I am going to sit with what I have found for the moment. 

Lately I have found myself drawn to, and more curious about abstract and less delineated imagery. Where the clear lines do not necessarily form a distinct or recognizable shape, much like the beauty of the frozen and frosty window panes that greet me early in the mornings of the winter months. The images that are in this post are from a 15 minute period of time as the Sun rose and illuminated the window in my studio this morning. I was captivated as the crystals and light shifted and played across the glass. I also took a moment to think about how the glass itself is liquid sand suspended in place. So many immense and tiny moments and miracles lining up to create the changing beauty of the window that I was watching and looking through.

This sentiment is similar to how I am learning to view and experience my life at this point and time...so many immense and tiny moments and miracles lining up to create the changing beauty of the window that I am watching and looking through. 

A while ago I wrote a little something about how I had set out to reframe how I approached my relationship with myself. Instead of looking for what was wrong with me and what needed to be fixed, I had started wondering what was right with me. This will be an ongoing practice and it really is a practice of rewiring my brain. It also involves being gentle and kind with myself. Being open and vulnerable. As  someone who tattooed the word "warrior" across the top of my shoulders when I was in my 20's, being gentle and kind with myself does not always come easy.

I needed that energy then. I see myself, the world, and my role in it differently now. Both of these versions of me were and are right. Just because I am changing does not mean that who I was before was wrong. I like to think of these versions of myself shaking hands or giving each other a hug. They can call on one another when need be. I say this out loud and write it more as a reminder for myself then an explanation for whomever happens to read this. Growing is not always easy but staying as a past version of yourself is not an easy thing to do either.

As I look over at the window in front of my writing desk it looks very different than it did when I took these pictures early this morning. Very little of the frost crystals remain and the sky has shifted from its dawn colors to an early morning sunrise. I can see more through the window than I could just two hours ago. Or maybe it is that I can see through more. There is a subtle difference in those ways of seeing. 

Welcome to Sunday. I hope your eyes have moments when they land upon immense and magical beauty today. May you be blessed with gentleness and kindness and may some that is offered to you come from within yourself. 

This is day 85 of the 365 Project.
Heather

This year on my birthday I began a project that I call:

It is a project that I have wanted to do for some time now. Today is day 84, which means that there are 281 remaining. I have shared some of the moments from this project on my social media channels and at one point I thought that I would share something on those spaces everyday. However, I have realized that I wanted a place where these moments could be collected, allowing for the creation of a more cohesive story. 

I have a daily practice, part of which includes a prayer in which I ask to be shown the path of my purpose. For a while now (6 years being quite a while) I have continued to receive the message that part of my purpose lies within writing. I write everyday within the pages of my journal and there is writing connected to almost all of the art that I have created.  I believe that I am supposed to be finding different ways in which to share it.

My first language is visual. The video above is a moment from my morning walk yesterday. A moment in which the beauty of this precious and magical world that we have been so blessed to live in and with filled me with reverence, gratitude and awe. These are everyday moments for me and they assist in balancing the more challenging parts and pieces of being a human in this world.

The writing in my journal this morning began with purpose (it often does) and then moved on to thoughts about tension. At 51, I am realizing that I carry a significant amount of tension in my body. Places where I am tightened and braced for impact. There are of course reasons for this, however much of this is old patterning and cellular memory. Even the new experiences and reasons that cause tension, well, I am learning to meet them differently. I am inviting them to have a seat at the table. I am not pushing them away or pushing them down or ignoring them. I am doing my best to be present with them at the moment of their arrival. 

I made the decision today that I would share some of my writing here everyday. That continuing not to share was actually a point of tension. This is a way of honoring the messages that I have continued to receive when asking about my purpose. This is also a way of getting out of my own way and the tendency to say that I am not ready yet. 

It is my hope that those who find their way here will also find messages and clues that assist them on the path of their unique purpose. That perhaps we can all begin to trust that we are more ready than we know.

I will be back tomorrow. Until then, I hope your eyes land on beauty that nourishes your heart and soul.
Heather

​Since my Dream of the Painted Face in 1995, I had understood that my art, studies, purpose and daily life had become a medicine story. This medicine story was the unifying thread of my life and the passion which fueled it.

2016 was the year of my mother and father’s death and included a series of events that challenged my health, heart and understanding of who I was and my place in the world. I found myself exhausted and depleted on physical, emotional and spiritual levels. 

I am not exactly sure when I first began thinking and eventually saying that I was going to take this medicine; what I had learned, the story of how I had lived, who I had become and what I understood my purpose to be, and I was going to put it in a box. Not only was I going to put it in a box, I was going to put it up on a shelf. I no longer knew how to make sense of the story, my relationship to it, or who I was. In this new life that I was living in, I did not mention to anyone that I had been given the responsibilities of a medicine woman and what those were or what they meant. Looking back now, I understand that part of what I was trying to do was ensure the medicine and the story's survival.  I no longer trusted myself to carry it, so I placed it in a box for safe keeping. The dreams faded and so did I.

Life moved on and in 2019, I began designing boxes. What had started out as simple gifts for my beloveds quickly became an obsession. I could not really explain why or how it had started. I could not really explain why I could not stop. This was also the first time in my life as an artist that I did not consider what resulted from my artistic practice as an ongoing conversation with spirit or the source of my existence. Soon there were boxes everywhere and I began to think of these boxes as part of my artistic product or output from the studio.

​The box making went on for almost a year and a half until one morning when I was writing in my journal. I had the dawning of a realization regarding what had been happening. Over and over again, I had been designing and creating boxes in an attempt to take the one that I had closed the lid on and “put on a shelf” back down. In that moment, I understood that my artistic practice and process had continued to be an ongoing conversation with the Divine; I had just been unaware that I was still involved as a participant. 

This understanding was enlivened through ritual and the first Medicine Box danced into being holding my promise to carry the responsibilities and the medicine that had been placed in my hands. Each of the creations that has followed is prayer and part of the greater and ever unfolding conversation. Each box carries Medicine and each is part of the Story. 

Perhaps one will speak to you and the place where our stories touch. I look forward to sharing them with you. 

In Love, Art, Beauty & Spirit,
Heather

Click on the images below to enter the individual galleries.

​As the pandemic continues to reach out and wrap her fingers around all that she can touch, and as the weeks of quarantine and social distancing stretched into months, I found myself becoming more keenly aware of the preciousness of life and the beauty that exists in what may seem like simple everyday moments. These moments have become so precious, and so comforting in a time when there has been so much uncertainty.

Moments filled sitting side by side with my love while reading, sipping coffee, lingering in bed, watching movies.  

Moments filled with the sweet softness of a warm cat curled and purring on my lap while I sip tea and watch as the snow falls outside the window.

Moments filled with the wagging tail of a golden retriever as she bounds down the trail in the woods that follows the river. 

Moments of quiet introspection and reflection as I wander the neighborhood in the small town that I call home.

Moments of cooking meals and feasts to be packaged and left on the porch to be picked up by friends and loved ones who cannot sit down to share a meal. 

All of these beautiful, everyday, seemingly simple moments began to reveal what the Christian mystic Thomas Merton knew, “Life is this simple. We are living in a world that is absolutely transparent and the divine is shining through it all the time. This is not just a nice story or a fable. This is true.”

Nostalgia can be defined as a wistful desire to return in thought or in fact to a former time in one's life, to one's home or homeland, or to one's family and friends; a sentimental yearning for the happiness of a former place or time.

What you cannot see in the painting is perhaps more important than what you can see. On one particular day before COVID settled into our daily lives, my beloved and I drove to the Country Girl Diner in Chester, VT for lunch. I have a love of diners. I have a love for vintage and retro aesthetics and I had not yet visited this particular one. We sat across from each other holding hands, listening to the bustling sound of diner customers and the clinking noises of the preparation of diner food. We people watched as booths filled and emptied. I looked around wondering when I had begun to find vintage and retro imagery so appealing. I was content in that everyday moment. I also had no way of knowing just how much everyday moments would grow in their meaning and in my appreciation. 

As I worked on the painting I thought about how it is understanding and remembering that someone’s hands had built the walls, table, counter and stools in the diner and that somehow this understanding and remembering was what really seemed to be of importance and mattered. I thought about how someone’s hands had filled the salt, pepper and sugar shakers. I thought about how someone’s hands had tended and cut the flowers in the bottle and how someone else’s hands had placed them in the bottle and on the table. I thought about how someone’s hands had turned over the closed sign to open early in the morning hours. I found myself wondering how all of those someone’s were doing in the world. I wondered if they were nostalgic for a life that once had been. I wondered if they too were noticing all of the precious everyday moments. I thought again about how what is not seen in the painting is in many ways more important than what is. 

I do not think we will be able to return to the happiness of a former place and time. The world is changing and I believe we must change with it. I also believe that happiness can and will be found in those most beautiful and sacred of seemingly simple everyday moments. So...I am going to keep looking into them and welcoming the understanding and beauty that is shining through. 

Maybe, just maybe, when the world opens up again and we can safely share spaces I will find myself sitting in a booth in a diner somewhere next to you and, if I have used my time wisely, and I have done my job well enough, I will be able to look and see the divine that is shining through you. 

Until then, I wish you millions of beautiful everyday moments.
Heather

​For the last year I have been fascinated with designing and creating boxes. It has only been in the last couple of months or so that I truly began wondering what creating all of these boxes was really about. My artistic projects and creations have always been seeded and seated within an ongoing dialogue with the source of my existence. Every painting, photograph and creation that I have made has been the result of a moment of the imaged and expressed conversation between myself and God. In my artistic statement I refer to them as “...messages or moments of awareness and contact. They are whispers from the place where the veils between worlds are thin.” 

So how do these boxes with images of pin-up art, various fantasy worlds, retro and vintage images and creatures fit into this same frame of reference? Honestly, when I really began to think about it I was stumped. When I really began thinking about it I found myself wondering how I had not really thought about it before now. I even found myself thinking that maybe it would be best if I stopped making them and returned to my easel and yet I found I could not. Over and over again I found myself sifting through images, delighting in the use of a razor blade to extricate them from where they had previously been bound, and then arranging and rearranging them with other images and the shapes and contours of the boxes, utilizing various painting techniques to prepare the boxes for their arrival upon them. I was and am absolutely enchanted with the entire process. 

Although creating boxes is new for me, a love of boxes is not. I am one of those people who will experience a deep sense of satisfaction at the discovery of a box, whether the discovery be on the shelves of a thrift store, a gift that someone has given me or through a random and joyous act of the universe. This love affair has gone on for quite some time. So in some ways, I guess it is not so surprising, and yet I continued to feel like I was missing something. The something being “the point”.

The point, albeit hazy at first, started coming into focus over the last month or so…

2016 was one of the most challenging years of my life. By the end of 2015, I had undergone months of slow carbon monoxide poisoning in the casita that I was living in in New Mexico. My father would pass away in May of 2016. In August I would end the leases that I had on the 4 properties that I used as my business, empty all of the contents from the houses and studio and load them into a Budget rental truck and begin the journey across country to Maine in order to move to my then boyfriend’s home where we had decided to move for financial reasons and as a way to be closer to my mother following my father’s death.

Looking back now, I know that I could not truly take in that I was actually leaving New Mexico. I began traveling there in 2008 to study and by 2012 I had moved there. She and all that she held had become one of the greatest love stories of my life. As the rental truck moved across the border of New Mexico and into Colorado to begin the trek to New England, I remember feeling so disjointed and unclear as to how or why this moment had come to pass. The 3 years that I lived held within her desert and mesa filled arms remain among the most formative of my life. I had dreamt of those arroyos, mesas and canyons long before placing my feet upon their soil.

​I made the decision to spend the winter in my parents’ home, my childhood home. I spent the days and nights keeping the stove burning and cleaning out their closets, room and life. Everyday I would walk past the urns that held their ashes and think about how one day I would write a book called “My Winter in the House of Ashes”. I was surprised when spring came knocking and just as they had in every year past, blades of grass began pushing up and the days grew warmer. In April, I drove out of the driveway for the last time and headed to the place where I would begin to start again. 

Are you wondering how all of this circles around to the boxes? At some point, I am not really sure when, I began saying that I had put part of myself in a box. I had put it in a box up high on a shelf and I refused to take it down and look at it. There was too much to pull apart, too much to try and reconcile. I did not know how to begin to make sense of who I had become when I was in New Mexico, who I was as an orphan with both of my parents dead. I did not know how to feel like a woman who was not a grieving daughter. Who and how I had known myself to be no longer seemed to apply and neither did my understanding of divinity and God. Those pieces of the story were in the box up high on the shelf in a closet. 

But how do you go on like that when everything in your life has been about cultivating a relationship with your higher power? How do you go on knowing that there is a box that holds the most sacred part of your existence and purpose and you are actively choosing not to open it and look inside? 

​I think for me, the answer is that I began making boxes. Each box being a representation of pieces of myself. If you look at the images that I have selected for the boxes they are not dissimilar to the imagery I use in my paintings. Some of the boxes explore the work of other artists - artists whose shoulders I have been standing on while I have once again begun standing on my own two feet. As soon as I began realizing the role that the boxes were playing and how I actually had been in conversation with the source of my existence the entire time, the boxes began to shift and change. The most recent shadow boxes have become like stories. They still include images of artists who have gone before me, but then “Artist as Keeper of Ancestry & Lineage” has been one of the themes that I have consistently explored. Just today I realized that there is also significance in many of the most recent boxes not having a lid but becoming shadow boxes. 

Whether it is a painting, a photograph, writing, or boxes I believe that the creation of art is medicine.

It feels good to be off the shelf and out of the closet again. It feels good to choose to be open once more. 

​Over the last couple of weeks I have found myself in more than one conversation which has led to reflection and sharing of my experiences and the roles of religion and spirituality within and throughout my life. For me, this has been a winding journey and path of discovery which has led to many forks in the road and many stops and visits in temples, churches, and caves along the way. I believe that in many ways I will always be a traveler on this winding road. I also know that in this human walk I was blessed to find my home very early on. 

Before I ever stepped foot in Catholic school or in church, I grew up wandering the woods, the stretching and waving fields, the thorny thickets and along the edges of lakes, brooks and streams. Fields of milkweeds and stone altars and the delights of oozing mud after a rainstorm, well, these were my first holy places of mystery and awe. Nature was my first experience of ecstasy and remains where I find myself on my knees with tears in my eyes over the beauty and divinity that is the fabric of this world. My artistic and spiritual practices are inextricably linked and both are born of places and lineages that honor the experience of life as a great weaving of time and a layering of multiple worlds.

As your footsteps continue tracing mine along this journey there will be times when the “tense” or “time” seems to slip or move to the past, present, future, and the unknown – if this seems confusing and slightly disorienting, then you too may have entered into the great spiraling Ouroboros with me. It is, after all, the name of my studio and its meaning is woven through my artistic practices and creations.

Just as the Ouroboros spirals around through time with the mouth always seeking the tail and the tail always seeking the mouth, my creative process is the same. Images and expressions  rising to the surface of my awareness at a particular moment in time will return anew or live again in relation to the ongoing Story or in relation to another image sometimes painted years later. My life and my Story are alive within these nonlinear communications - it is how I have come to live my life. I am following the images, whispers and clues in an attempt to thread them back together, to remember them, to remember the Story of my creation and the creation of our human kind.

Each image and word that passes through me is dancing on a web; their relationship to each other and the worlds that they are born of in many ways exceeds the importance of an isolated image removed or excluded from the unified whole.

​I have come to understand that there are Stories that Call.  Ancient Stories that whisper and speak through symbols, messages, and dreams. Stories that remember ancient agreements and the meaning and purpose of our existence. Stories that are Medicine in the truest sense of the word. I believe that these Stories find ways of reemerging and being born again into our modern society so that we as a people may remember who we are and consciously move towards who we are becoming.

We are the magical and physical realization of our ancestors. Whether we know it or not, I believe that we are carrying the medicine bundles which have been passed down to us through generations. Whether we are aware or not, I believe that we are seeking to fulfill a legacy of our ancestors’ grail quests and dreams. We are a walking legacy.

In our “modern” society we have been conditioned and trained in the externalization of power and in this training, we have suffered a deep loss in ability to internalize power. We have sacrificed our internal power and our nobility as human beings and in this ongoing sacrifice we are in danger of losing something even bigger, our luminous planet, our Mother, our home. I believe that in this disjunction, there lies the potential in finding meaning at the moment of
losing it again.

The Ouroboros is an ancient symbol depicting a serpent or dragon eating its own tail. It is a symbol that represents the perpetual cyclic renewal of life and of coming full circle. It is an ancient whisper that speaks of the eternal return: the cycles of life, death and rebirth leading to immortality. Like an old and ancient beautiful thread, the colors of the Ouroboros are woven throughout time in the Stories of phoenix, dragons, serpents and snakes.

I have come to believe that inside the belly of this ancient snake who eats its own tail, lies the ooze of primordial unity. Primordial unity related to something existing in or persisting before any beginning with such force and qualities it cannot be extinguished. Within that ooze lies the undifferentiated infancy experience of both mankind and the individual. The ooze from an ocean from which all is born and where all is One. 

As I followed the trails of this Story, I found myself wondering; could our lives, our personal Stories, our collective Stories, the Stories of all mankind, the Stories of all kind and beyond be from the vast waters of this primordial ocean, from this place which, like the Ouroboros, has no beginning or end? Is it possible that the waters from this ocean swell and rise within us giving rise and fall to our memories and the memories of our origins? Do these waters direct the rhythm and flow of our Stories and our lives? A perpetual pumping of liquid memory that flows through the vessel of our beings in a way that allows us to be continually reborn. If we are reborn in this manner does our birthing hold the possibility of remembering the source of our origins and the agreements that we have made with the source of our existence? Could this liquid, this memory, be a form of Medicine that could benefit humanity and the magnificent world that we all share and which is in desperate need?

I wondered if it is us/we who navigate the rivers and oceans of our lives or are the rivers and the oceans the captains of our sailing and sinking ships, navigating us on a journey that reveals our individual purpose within the Story that we are all a part of? Are we like that ancient snake, both swallowing and disgorging ourselves in an all consuming yarn: each of us following our individual threads in order to be lead to our collective and shared story; a beautiful, expressive unraveling? If we become aware of our relationships with these waters, if we become aware that we are not separate from these waters, are we then able to see its and our own passage through time and space? Are we then able to see that we are all swimming in the same primordial water?

I began to think that perhaps the answers to these questions were unimportant. Perhaps what matters, what is of importance, lies within the seeking of these questions and their answers? Perhaps what matters is being willing. Willing to enter into the mouth of the serpent knowing that you will eventually become the tail that will spiral its way back around and enter into the mouth once again. Willing to become part of the food and part of the Story. Willing to acknowledge our individual responsibility and part in an eternal return. Willing to live a life that
is an honoring and remembering of the cycles of life, death and rebirth that leads to the feeding of an incomprehensibly beautiful dance. 

Rivers have been flowing through my dreams and conversations. They always seem to call to me, and in their powerful and mystical way, they always seem to be calling me home to myself. There is no definitive thought or tidy conclusion in the writing that follows. Perhaps, as you proceed, you could think of these words as a winding river. There is no end destination that you or I need to be aware of. Rather, we will move, flowing together. I suspect that we may still be in mid-current by the time the words cease to move across the page.

I once had a teacher who spoke to me of rivers. Pointing down to the flowing river and then pointing up to the sky she told me how, "as above, so below" is a truth revealed by watching and knowing the movement of the river and its sister river flowing in the sky - the air stream. They move along the same currents. Did you know this?  A body with circulatory systems in the ground and in the sky. 

I used to believe that I fell in love with rivers when I lived in New Mexico, however. I have come to understand that I have always been drawn to these winding fluid bodies. Perhaps, it is more accurate to say that the time I spent in the desert illuminated my love and longing. Interesting how time spent in a desert was the inception of my actively seeking the footpaths that follow their movements, always on my way to or in search of spots along the bank where I could rest myself and wait. Wait until I could begin to hear the song and sit in moments when time is intersected by eternity.

Each river has her own language and each river sings her own song. Movement over the rocks, the formation of the riverbed, the direction in which the waters run , the creatures who move within her waters, along the banks, all in relation to one another, all contributing a thread of the melody of each river's song. If you sit still and listen she will sing her song for you. If you ask, she can assist in carrying away heaviness and the worries which tug at the corners of your heart and soul. If you are patient, curious and respectful, she will reveal herself and her nature. When her movements are just so, and you see the light jumping across the surface of her skin and her shimmering scales, do you feel wonder? I do. 

Rivers have been flowing through my thoughts and through my body. I have been practicing noticing, becoming aware. Aware of the sensations that arise within me. Aware of where I have constricted the flow. Aware of where I have built dams and diversions. In much the same way as I have sought out the banks of rivers to listen and come to know their song. I am attempting to tune in and listen to my own. 

You see, if it should be that there comes a time when I am called to your banks, to your river, I wish to know how to be in your presence. I wish to know how to hear your unique and beautiful song. This means that I must come to know my own. If I am welcome and you offer me a seat at the bank of your river and I look into the surface of your waters I want to have befriended the stillness that would allow me to see my reflection in you.

When I rest my head on the pillow tonight I wonder if I will again dream of rivers. I wonder if I will dream of you, waiting with me by the river. I wonder of we will be waiting for the rains to come. 

​I have been thinking a lot about what is required to grow beyond who we have been in order to become who we need to be. What parts of our identities and how we have previously known ourselves do we need to acknowledge, relinquish, expand and what parts are in need of tending and care in order to experience the fullness of our humanity?

In September of 2018, I would once again step into a tattoo studio in order to  refresh the ink in the WARRIOR tattoo. At the time, I believed I was recommitting to my original idea and understanding of what this word means and what it means to have this intention permanently marked into and upon your skin and body. 

Speaking of words, how about the word "strong". What does it mean to truly be strong? Throughout my adult life, strong is a word that has been attached as a descriptor for me with a certain amount of regularity. Strong for being a single mother. Strong for standing up for what I believe in. Strong for being an activist. Strong for not giving up on my vision of being an artist. Strong for surviving abusive relationships. Strong for putting myself through undergraduate and graduate school while being a single mom. Strong for raising a child whose skin color is not the same shade as mine. Strong for directing organizations. Strong for having an identity other than straight. Having a strong constitution. Having a strong will. The list can go on. 

At the beginning of this then unimaginable year of 2020, something shifted deep inside me. I cannot say that it was the result of any one particular experience or event. I actually believe it was the culmination of many. The culmination of many "strongs" so to speak. Strong had lodged itself inside my identity and I believed it to be such an established component of my makeup that whatever the other side of strong was or is...well...it terrified me. I was terrified to admit that I did not always want to be strong. I was even more terrified to admit that I wanted to experience the other side of the coin. I wanted to experience vulnerability. I wanted to be open. I wanted to learn to soften.

This shift did not look like what you may expect. In fact, the only way that I was able to continue to see and honor it for myself was through the acquisition of a pink, fuzzy, luxuriously soft sweater. I needed a way to signal to the world and to myself that there were times that I needed and wanted to be treated with care and with gentleness. A way to signal that I was more complex and layered than perhaps even I had been wiling to admit in this regard. I needed a way for me to physically feel my willingness to embrace vulnerability and the softening that I longed to experience.

When I was a little girl, I boycotted the color pink. I believed it was the color that had been invented to ensure that girls could not do what boys could do. I believed that pink was a signal to the world that you were anything but strong. Enter the pink fuzzy sweater. The first time that I wore my emblem of vulnerability it was quite a surprise to the people who knew me. Every time that a comment was made, I explained that I was embracing my softer side and enlisted them in shifting the way that they had grown accustomed to seeing me. I am still a warrior. I will always be, however my definition of what that means and how it feels to wear it has expanded.

This being human is a guest house.
Every morning a new arrival.

A joy, a depression, a meanness,
Some momentary awareness
comes as an unexpected visitor,

Welcome all and entertain them all!...

The dark thought, the shame, the malice,
meet them at the door laughing,
and invite them in,

Be grateful for whoever comes,
because each has been sent 
as a guide from beyond

~Rumi

First, thank you for taking a moment, pausing your day and being willing to stop and step into mine. 

I am blessed. Every morning I wake between 4 and 4:30am. I make my way downstairs, fill the kettle with water and go about the early morning business of feeding Pebble the cat and Sadie the golden retriever. If there are dishes that have waited overnight in the strainer I will often pad around the kitchen and the pantry returning cups, bowls, plates, pots and pans to their various locations. Next, I pour the steaming water over the waiting coffee and chicory and as it makes its way through the grounds, I prepare the morning meal for Disco Kitten who is patiently waiting in the studio, staring up from behind the most beautiful blind eyes that see more than most. ​

Once the coffee is ready, I make my way back upstairs and enter the studio. I sit at the old desk that was once my great grandmothers, I turn the light on next to the desk, light a candle and then I begin. There is always 3 pages of stream of conscious writing in the journal. Dreams, thoughts that are caught in corners and refuse to let go. Questions that continue to be asked. Cycles and rhythms. Stories of love, joy, grief and the everyday. Next is the writing that is done as reflection and self examination. This is the writing that allows me to examine my character and keeps me in touch with what I know to be my truth and, to the best of the ability, live a life of integrity. As I engage in this process, I ask that God continue to hover over me.

This time before the sun rises, and while the world is between sleeping and waking is my favorite time of day. The magical pause before the rest of the world comes to life. Sometimes as I am writing I can hear the squeak of the bedframe down the hall as my beloved rolls over and sinks deeper into sleep. Sometimes, the gentle snoring of Sadie who has followed me in and lays next to my feet on the floor keeps time to the rhythm of my moving pen. Sometimes Disco Kitten rolls between my feet and playfully sinks her tiny razor teeth into my toes and ankles. My extra fine point pen continues carving the lines that form the words that comprise my life across the page as I sip coffee. To me, this is a truly delicious life and I am poignantly aware that I am blessed.

This morning as I moved through my morning routine, I was both grateful and comforted by the ritual; the tending to the seemingly simple nuances of my everyday life. I also moved slower, feeling into the surrounding sadness and beyond. I, like many of of us in this country, slept tenuously last evening. We are such a deeply polarized and divided people. I sat at the writing desk that was my great grandmother's and I wondered what my ancestors would say...what they are saying. I wrote about children in cages separated from their parents. I wondered what my ancestors (only a very few of which came from this land and the majority of whom immigrated to these shores) faced upon their arrivals. I wondered about families and friends whose lives and configurations have been altered by a pandemic and who turn to face empty space where loved ones once stood. I wondered about many things (pepper spray, confederate flags, boarded windows and storefronts, climate change). I opened my most recently completed journal and reread the poet's words that have continued to remain with me throughout the last month.

Among the list of things that I thought about this morning is love. Truth be told, I actually think about love a lot. What does it mean to love your neighbor? What does it mean to love your fellow citizens? What does it mean to love those who are less fortunate? What does it mean to love this beautiful planet, our home? What does it mean to actively practice choosing love?

I wonder, what is the sound that remains after our lives touch another, once we pass by? 

I will end this blog post in the same way that I ended my writing and prayers this morning. 

God, please, hover over all of us.

Yours in love, creativity and art,
Heather

As I have mentioned in previous posts, I get up very early in the morning...before the Sun rises.  I typically will go and sit outside for a few moment and take in those glorious moments before the dawn starts to shine her light.  This mornng as I was sitting outside holding my cup of coffee, I was watching the play of light and shadow and  remembering the dream that had come in the night.  This particular dream came on the back of another dream that I had received two days prior.  I have been "calling" for a dream.  I did not expect to wake from that first dream gasping for air and desparately looking around trying to determine which reality was the one that I found myself in.  It was a "shock" dream.  One in which you have no choice but to acknowledge or "wake-up" to the message that the dream is trying to convey.  I am usually very skilled at dream interpretation, especially my own, however, this one left me shaken and unsure of aspects of its meaning.  

If you have been following these posts then you may remember the one in which I shared the story of the painting The Creation of the Firmaments.  The dream that came the other night had some of these elements...a completely white building perched on the end of a vast and expansive sea.  The arrival of a great whale...except this time the whale arrived transported in the arms of a massive and swirling storm.  I am still unravelling the message that were sent in that night vision. The dream that came last night provided a clue or a further unravelling of the first one's meaning. 

So...back to me sitting with my coffee, watching the veil between night and day shift and looking up at the night sky.  As I was sitting there wandering in my thoughts and the waking of the world, it happened - a shooting star went streaking across the sky.  In my life story, shooting stars have historically signalled that a large shift and/or transformation has begun.  One night, a long time ago, as I laid on a pile of wooden boards in a small rural village in New Mexico, it was a shooting star that was the final determining moment that precipitated my move to that land of sky and sand. So, this morning, I watched as that streak of stardust tore acrcoss the sky.  I have felt its coming for some time now - its arrival confirmation for what I could feel but struggle to have words for.  What I still struggle to have words for.  What I do know is that I am changing.  Of course we are all always changing, for how could we not be, but I am talking about the kind of change and transformation that you can feel occuring deep below the surface of your skin, muscle and bones.  The kind that is like a wind which can steer the vessel that you move in in strange and unexpected ways.  You know that you are being set on a course.  For me, this always simultaneously occurs with a feeling of uncomfortable restlessness. 

My most recent painting, The Becoming of Persephone also speaks to this feeling. ​ 

This was not how I originally envisioned this painting.  In some way, shape or form, all of the paintings are autobiographical - how could they not be.  It is not unusual for the paintings to take on a life and/or will of their own, but this one snuck up on me.  I am typically working on more than one painting at a time.  This number can range from 2 or 3 up to about 9 or 10.  At some point while I am working on all of them one will jump to the forefront and let me know that it is ready to be completed (at least in regards to my role in the process).  If you would have told me that when I originally began this painting I would later title it, The Becoming of Persephone, I would have been extremely doubtful for I never envisioned it/her becoming what she did or having the feel that she does.  This is not one of my facorite paintings.  On the day that I completed her, I found myself choosing colors that I would not typically combine  in order to convey the feeling of unease or uncomfortableness that I was experiencing as I watched her morph from the original inception that I had for her.  

There are certain paintings that have marked a transition or a moment when my painting style shifts or changes, or when I am in the process of incorporating some new aspect of working with the paint, brushes, my soul and the images.  This is one of those.  She is what I think of as a transitory painting; a painting "in-between" larger movements of my life.   What will follow...well...I do not yet know.  I do understand that it is about rhythms and cycles that are at play.  I do know that in order for her to return in the spring she must let the previous season sleep, become the compost that will nourish the new growth of the following season.  

What will I do now?  I will go after the riddle.  I will spend time researching the images that swim through the dreams, I will research Persephone in all of her various forms throughout time.  I will look for the clues that have been left for me to follow.  What else will I do...keep painting and keep dreaming...

In Love, Gratitude & Art,
~Heather

OK. I lied. I made a post/announcement that I would not be doing the scheduled blog post today.  As I stepped away from the computer and walked through the house and returned to my thoughts - the ones that have been turning over and returning for the last couple of weeks I rethought my previous statement.  

If this blog is what I say it is - a journey into artistic process and the life and art of one woman - then writing about these thoughts and the artistic shift that I can feel is in process, perhaps writing about it is just what I needed to do.  I feel certain that there are other artists out there...and other human beings who do not call themselves artist (a point of thought that I also think about often)...who know exactly what I am talking about.  Those periods of time when you can feel something shifting on an internal level but where it is going, where it will lead is unclear.  I dreamt of snakes last night for the first time in a long time - I know when this happens that there is a change coming - a shedding of the skin so to speak.  

So what does this "feeling of change" look like in my world?  It kind of looks like the photos of my library above.  Typically my sleep schedule will change and I will find myself waking in the early hours of the morning, like at 2 or 3 am.  I then began prowlling through the house with a cup of coffee in my hand and my thoughts roam and settle, roam and settle.  I often get much done during these wee early hours in the morning.  I also love the sensation of walking through my home with a few small lights on and watching the light shift and change as the sun rises.

I am fairly certain that the 2 main creative projects that I have committed myself to in the last months have led me to exactly where I am currently at.  NAKED: The Art of Exposure and Vision Shift are projects whose inherent nature were intended to reveal and transform my experience of myself and the world around me.  So...I suppose I should have expected a shift in artistic direction to arise.  The unsettling feeling is that of not knowing exactly where it is leading.   But then do we ever really know where life is leading?  We can move through our daily life with set intentions and goals, but I believe that part of living life artistically also means watching were the flow of life is changing and being open to what you had previously not seen. I spoke with an artist friend of mine the other day.  She too mentioned experiencing a similar feeling.  When she said that she thought she might be going crazy I laughed and thought - well, we are both in good company then.  

This morning I was doing the early morning task of responding to emails, messages and social media scheduling and I was drawn to an article that anothet artist had posted on facebook.  The article was from the NY Times and was titled Is the Age of the Artistic Recluse Over?  This is one of those topics that have been milling over in the melting pot of my brain.  The vast majority of pantings that I have sold over the last years have happened as a result of social media.  It is an interesting time to be an artist.  Unless you are in the big leagues and/or are dealing in the world of galleries, in many ways social media is a necessary vehicle for getting your work out into the world.  Although in many ways I would be content to do what I do and not have it be public - that does not pay the bills and I also believe that sharing your work with the world at large is part of the definition of being an artist.   So I am both grateful for social media and I also find myself feeling ambivalent about it.  As much as it can be a useful tool it can also be a sucking vortex of time.  I also do not want to live a life in which a social media persona becomes my identity.  Who someone is on social media can be a very far distance away from who they are in person.  Not to mention that spending any time watching or waiting for LIKES and SHARES begins to feel like a strange way of determining any sort of value for your work, time or effort.  

So...where does this leave me?

Well...walking around the house at 2 or 3am...at times contemplating becoming a sculptor of fine chocolates and then laughing because knowing me I would begin to sculpt chocolate nudes - but that is a whole additional topic for another time!  Other contemplations include my beliefs that the way I, or any of us, lives our lives is a fine art onto itself.  Sometimes I wonder if I could disappear from social media and still accomplish what I believe is my purpose.  But in this moment in particular I am curious.  I want a conversation with other artists.  I am curious regarding who amongst us is also feeling a shift of undetermined origins?  I want to ask you my fellow travellers how you really feel about social media?  

So today's blog post is a bit of insight into the ramblings of my mind and soul.  It is also an invitation for my fellow artist (and any other human being who does not think of themself as an artist) to comment, leave a message and let me know how you feel about feeling or knowing that a shift in your work is in process but not yet realized.  Are you wondering around your homes at 3am too?

Perhaps by the next blog post I will be back to the regularly scheduled programming...but I have my doubts.

In gratitude, love and art,
​~Heather

I am awake.  It is hours before the Sun will rise and wash over the landscape; bathing what is now unseen in light and making the unseen visable.  

There are nights that as I lay sleeping the dreams wash over me and I am awake in other worlds or perhaps I am awake in other layers of the world within which my sleeping body lies.  At these times the unseen is also made visible.  I am a dreamer...in many, many ways.  There are certain dreams that come in the arms of sleep, dreams that carry a message and leave such an imprint upon the eye of my soul that they are impossible to forget. Within the multitude of these dreams there are a handful which always begin with the Moon.  She is always full and she is always dancing above the vast expanse of the Ocean.  For as many of the Moon dreams that I have received, there are an equivelent amount of paintings that move through me and find there way into the world.  The dream that whispered of the image below began over 15 years ago.  Periodically the dream has returned, or rather the dream has continued over the course of the last ten years.  Each time it returns it begins with the opalescent Moon; heavy, full and hanging over an unending expanse of Ocean.

A couple of years passed after this dream occurence before I would once again awake in the dream world to find myself in the depths of the ocean.  This time I was a whale.  I was swimming with a pod and I was singing there song.  Each sound reverberating through the depths of the water.  

If you are interested in learning more about Migaloo the white humpback whale I invite you to check out the following website -   http://migaloo.com.au/

In 2007 I began a project that I called A Sense of Place.  A project in which I made a commitment and a promise that I would actively and consciously engage in a practice of strengthening my relationship with the land that I lived on and the community that I was part of.  The commitment was simple; everyday I would carry a camera and I would walk through the community in which I lived.  My definition of community included my neighborhood/town and the natural world that was embedded, inseparable and interwoven with the constructed world of of our human interactions, inhabitance and the society had been built up around, through and upon it.  I carried the camera to document my adventures, what was revealed through the process, and what my eyes had been opened to that had previously gone unseen.  

I experienced and learned much in that year.  I learned about the watershed that supplied flowing life to my everyday world.  I learned about the cycle of life, birth, growth and death.  I learned of the plants and animals that I shared the geography of my existence and the world that we all knew as our home.  I learned about the impact that we curious humans have on the world around us.  I also learned that the more I became aware of the movements of the world around me, the more I knew of my own rhythm, impact  and my purpose  within it.

The "framing" of this mysterious and gorgeous world through the lens of the camera allowed me to shift my vision.  It afforded me the opportunity to slow down and see from a different perspective what on other occasions I had been moving to quickly to acknowledge, notice and see.  ​There was something exquisitely beautiful in returning to and/or passing the same giant pine tree everyday and watching as its  gorgeous, aromatic, sticky life force flowed in the spring, gummed in the summer and froze into magnificent blue, purple, white and pink crystalline structures in the arms of winter.

Interestingly enough, I do not enjoy carrying a camera when I travel to a place that is new to me or when I am a "visitor". I have a natural resistance to doing so.  The further away from where my life is centered and lived on a daily basis - when I am a "tourist" so to speak, the carrying of the camera can somehow feel rude or strangely wrong.  My eyes, being and senses are already so engaged and swimming in the multitude of new sounds and sights that the camera can feel like an unnecessary intrusion.  In these times it can feel like I begin to rely on the camera to shift my vision and only succeed in creating a distance between myself and the newness of the environment and experience.  It can also feel like I am using the cameras ability to "remember" instead of my own.  I travelled to New Mexico twice a year for 5 years and completely moved my life there before I ever took a photo of that land.  

​However...in the place that I inhabit, in the place that I rely upon as a daily source of my existence; the camera becomes a pause and a shift in the way that I can see.  It is an opening and an invitation to the world around me.  I am called to notice, to see differently, to not take for granted what surrounds me as a result of the regularity with which I pass by and/or my familiarity with it.   

I have now been living in my current home and location for  little under 6 months.  I have once again found myself carrying a camera for the same reasons I did in 2007.  The reason or intention that I am engaging in the process is the same as it was ten years ago.  It is the process itself that is now slightly different.  Technology sure has come a long way in the last 10 years.

​After taking an initial photograph I do a very similar process as the one involved in the creation of my paintings.  I "shift" aspects of the image; altering qualities of light, hue, distortion, inversion, contrast, etc.  I think of the process and its actions as a series of doors.  One door opens to reveal the next - each door revealing what had been previously unnoticeable  or unseen to my eyes.  

In Gratitude, Love and Art,
​~Heather

I invite you tp click on the word COMMENTS below to leave a thought, comment or question.

There is a space and time that exists only before the first rays of the rising sun can be felt and seen.  This is when I wake.  It is the pause before the world starts to stir.  It is the pause in which what has come in the blanket of the night begins to turn and retreat into the richness of the shadows.  It is the space  before the stillness has been broken.  This is when I most fully know myself.  This is when I am most able to hear, see and touch my soul.  This is when I consciously engage in communion with the source of my existence.

Prior to August of this year, I had experienced a period of time with a multitude of major life transitions.  Throughout this period much of who I had known myself to be was called into question.  The voice of my Mother as she prepared to leave this earthly plane formed swirling eddies out of what had  been flowing rivers in my identity and psyche.  Her words and thoughts of who I was or was not swirled with all of the other changes that had so recently occurred. I found myself struggling to hold on to who I had conceived and believed myself to be.  Time and life continued to move in an erratic and previously unknown way over the next six months.  There was no "normal".  There was no getting back to "normal".  Normal would never again be what normal once was.  

​I found myself and my identity being furthered called into question by the relationship that I had begun ten months prior to my Mother's passing.  The truth is that I was not who I had been before.  The truth is I was exhausted; physically, emotionally, and spiritually.  I needed time.  I needed space to sit with the parts of me that remained.  I needed time to grieve the loss of the parts of me that no longer knew their own name.  I needed to enter the silence and sort through the rubble.  When asked to prove that I was still who I once had proclaimed myself to be; I could not, for I was not.  The relationship ended and I began. 

In those early morning hours, before the light reveals the day, I began the long walk home.  Who was I when I was stripped bare?  Who was I when I turned off the cacophony of sound, stimulus and opinions of the world and those who believed that they knew me?  Who was I when I stood naked in the mirror and saw myself through my own eyes and the eyes of my Creator?  Could I dissolve my own entrapment?  Could I set myself free and welcome the form that I would take?  In solitude, could I reach into myself and find my truth, my beauty and my soul?  

​In the solitude I found myself to be spiritually pregnant.  Once again I began to hear that music, the hidden song  that my soul was revealing.   A deep and lavish richness is gathering within me and within my hands.  It is from this palette that I shall paint.

In Gratitude, Love & Art,
​~Heather

I am not who I once was. I am who I have always been.

Those of you who know me on a personal level have probably on occasion heard me say, "both of these things are true simultaneously".

A few days ago a strong storm came through where I live. I woke up feeling like the storm that had passed through during the night had somehow become part of my internal landscape; a disturbance of the normal condition of the atmosphere, manifesting itself by winds of unusual force or direction. Throughout my life there have been periods of time when I have been deeply aware that I am in the middle of a significant transformational shift. I believe that for the most part we are all in a constant change/state of transformation (if we so choose, welcome and allow). What feels poignant about certain periods of transformation is my level of awareness regarding the shift that is occurring.

I could feel the storm inside me. I could feel it changing, rearranging, cleansing, and breaking previously constructed parts of my identity. I cannot say it is a comfortable feeling. It can be rather unsettling, especially when the feeling is particularly strong. It feels like an electrical storm deep in my core. I have had similar experiences before but this felt different. I believe the difference lied within the sharp level of my awareness regarding the significance and impact of my choices on where this transformation would lead.

​What did I wish to leave behind? What was no longer mine to carry? What had I forgotten and sat aside that I needed to be willing to pick back up and walk with? What parts of me had formed around others beliefs about who I am or who I should be? Could the storm that I am feeling assist me in shaking loose what was not solid and core? Could it move away debris and reveal what is strong, rooted and growing inside of me? There has been one other time in my life when this feeling came on with such intensity. I started pouring through my journals to try and connect the pieces. Eureka! I found it. It was 10 years ago and it was one of the most prolific years of my life and artistic practice. It was also when I was working on a piece that I called Remembered Pieces.

​Interestingly enough, I never considered this piece completed. It had always been my intention and desire to construct a room out of the panels of canvases. A room that when constructed would create a universe and beyond.
​

A Prayer of Re-membered Pieces

Beyond the Veil of my human existence
deep in the Ancient Womb
where the creative Soil is rich with the dust of a galaxy of Stars

I Cry out to the Divine

on tears formed from the Waters that rise and fall in my body
rhythm takes form and my Soul begins to Sing

I am a song of Re-membered Pieces

my Humanity
aches
to know
to touch
to contact
to remember
my Divinity

the Call is returned, whispered on the Winds
moving the delicate strands of the Web
with the echo and reverberation of the Voices of the Holies

I Cry out to the Divine

on Winds formed from the direction and intention of my Breath
Life takes form and is carried from one Being to the next

I am a Story of Re-Membered Pieces

my Divinity
aches
to know
to touch
to contact
to Re-member
my Humanity

buried deep within this Temple of Skin, Bone and Flesh
a powerful medicine is known
cooked by the Fire that in its hunger devours all illusion

I Cry out to the Divine

Mountains and Valleys sculpted by the heat and movement of my Blood
a landscape of great Beauty and forgotten history

I am a body of Re-Membered Pieces

my Humanity
aches
 to know
to touch
to contact
 to remember
my Divinity

on the other side of the mirrored Looking glass
the Eyes of the Snake are clouded
preparations are being made to Shed its Skin and cross between the realms

I Cry out to the Divine

milk of transmutation moving, warmed by swelling breast and beating Heart
nourishment crossing the physical Boundary of skin

I am only part of the Re-membered pieces

my Divinity
aches
to know
to touch
to contact
to remember
my Humanity

Worlds touch
contact occurs
the interface is Created
the Veil shimmers and the illusion falters
Re-Membered Pieces merging in a Symphony of sound and color

I Cry out to the Divine

​All Life Answers

Change can come in an instant, forever changing the landscape that is familiar and known. Change can be subtle and unseen, moving under the surface undetected until it is ready to show its new form, its tender untouched skin.

Prior to 2012 I lived in the same location for 15 years. I had come to know this place and I had come to know my place within it. In the five years that followed, I inhabited and/or established 12 different dwellings, 12 different homes, 11 of which I personally lived in for various moments or lengths of time.

The cycle of the last 18 months, a year and a half as we currently mark the passage of time has been one in which unforeseeable changes, transitions, beginnings and endings have continually rolled over my internal and external landscapes with the unpredictable movement of a great and massive body of water, like the coming of a storm that lingers, shapeshifts and takes new and uncertain forms.  I said goodbye to my father as I knew him in this world to be. Five months following his passing I would care for my mother as she too took her leave of this earthly plane. I have walked and lived on the desert sands of the southwest and I have stood at the shores of the Mother Ocean and tasted her salted memory. I have returned to the land that birthed and raised me: revisiting what had formed and began my construction as the being that I had come to know myself to be. I lived through the season which I have come to call My Winter in the House of Ashes; four containers of those who had passed grouped in passage in their respective urns. I welcomed a new love into my arms and I opened my arms to release a love that I no longer knew how to hold. I have watched as one of my four legged companions, a teacher and a friend diminished quickly from this world, leaving another void and space that echoed with what once was. I lost and found myself, unsure of what remained, forever changed by the movements of lives and the marching of time.

I am inhabiting a new place, a new home once more. One previously unknown to me. I am in many ways unknown to myself. I am a creature who deeply inhabits, one whose foundation reaches out like the roots of a tree, connecting to the soil in which it has grown, from which it has come. What happens when the soil is scorched by the cleansing of a great fire? What happens when the forest burns and your roots, your foundation no longer stands as it once did? What happens during the period of time when the landscape lies dormant in appearance, cleared of what had once grown? Is it possible to become quiet and still while the life underneath connects to the nutrient rich ashes in order to begin to push up and live again? I have asked myself if I can be comfortable not knowing what that new form, that new life will take.  

Under the Sheets of Rain was the first painting that I completed after my Mother's Death.  The paintings always come first.  Until a feeling or experience has been moved through me by means of image, color, paint, I often struggle with "words" for they are not my first, best or preferred language.  Under the Sheets of Rain was painted while I lived in the home my parents' had built a life in.  A period of time which is included in a chapter of my life that I think of as the Interstice - an intervening space, or an interval between spaces and times.

As always, I thank you for the moments you choose to enter my world.   My Hands, Your Hands,

In beauty, love and art,
​~Heather

Following "The Dream of the Painted Face"​ it would take another 9 years before I began engaging in a sustained practice of painting.  On that particular day in July of 2004, when I sat in front of the canvas and held the brush I  considered the act of painting to be medicine.  
​

In Gratitude, Love & Art,
​~Heather

If I could, I would
whirl pigments into eddies and create you visible in energetic glow
the matter and mother which embraces you 

If I could, I would
layer incandescent hues to mirror the beauty of your muscle, skin and bone
revealing the light my eyes holds you in

If I could, I would
gracefully trace the curve of your hips in the movement of  fine sable brushes
whispering of the worlds cradled within your form
 
If I could, I would
merge the shades of your soul with the rhythm of my hands 
​giving voice to the map of stories on your skin

If I could, I would
bathe you in warmth and  ardor, creating a sensation of bodily heat
you would light the garden in your brilliance 

If I could, I would 
Glow

In dedication, gratitude, remembrance and love to the Divine Feminine and 
the Garden of Eden that lives within each one of us. 
Shine ladies Shine.

My hands, Your hands.

In gratitude, love and art,
~Heather

​

Venus of Moravary
​22,800 B.C.E
Mammoth Ivory figurine carving
Found in the area of Moravay in Slovakia.

GLOW
(noun)

1. a light emitted by or as if by a substance heated to luminosity; incandescence
2. brightness or color
3. a sensation or state of bodily heat
4. a warm ruddy color of the cheeks
5. warmth of emotion or passion; adore

​
(verb)

1. to emit bright light and heat without flame. become incandescent
   
2. to shine like something intensely heated
   
3. to exhibit a strong bright color; be lustrously red or brilliant
   
4. (of the cheeks) to exhibit a healthy, warm, ruddy color​
   
5. to become or feel very warm or hot
6. to show emotion or elation

More to come on the topic of glow soon.  Perhaps while you are waiting, every once in a while you think about glow.  More than think about it, perhaps you have an experience of it.  You could even try walking down the street while simply thinking about glowing and see what happens.  You could try it while sitting in your chair, right now, where you currently are.  I highly encourage it.

​In appreciation, art  and love, 
​~Heather