It started in the usual way ...
With lots of road to cover ...
The usual amount of detours, road construction and rain ...
I arrived at the Makerie Retreat in Boulder, Colorado ready to let go and let the paint flow in Flora Bowley's Bloom True 2-day painting workshop.
Over the course of those two days I tumbled, tussled, tangoed and finally submitted to the whispers of forms awaiting arrival, feelings and expression demanding colorful presence upon my canvas's stage.
We moved between two paintings the entire weekend and it was exhilarating and exhausting to be so attentive to both painting's demands. We painted layer upon layer upon layer and I felt myself pushed to delve deeper and deeper within myself and within the paintings.
I was grateful for my yoga training which has mentored me in the practice of riding a wave of experience and watching for that moment when I tend to want to jump off and out of the process. What I discovered this weekend was my habit of settling; that I have often times believed myself to be content with riding the smaller waves, maintaining that those little ripples are satisfying and more than enough for me and my life.
I am now entertaining more dangerous thoughts, one of which being I am content no more to play it so safe, to stay on the inside edge of the forest in sunlight, comfort, gentle breezes and birdsong. I stepped into the wild, the dark, the unknown this past weekend and while I was often frustrated and more often perplexed and confused as to where to go next, I do know I no longer want to settle for the easy and the known.
More is brewing within me ... fox traveled with me these many miles and I am anxious to follow her back into the brush, my whiskers twitching, tail swishing, eager for more. And more. And more.
The 8+ hour drive home was not enough time for me to even begin to resolve what is shifting within my thoughts, nor can I begin to bring into focus this expanded sense myself and who I am and how it is I want to grow.
I just know I am grateful to Flora for the windows she has opened within me.
Her work, her teaching, her voice are sunlight and Spring rain and fresh breezes inspiring within me a confidence that change is possible, thriving likely and blooming a surprising and unexpected reward for hanging in when the ride gets wild. And the process is chaotic, the outcome uncertain but the possibilities beyond my imagining.
I believe things are about to become very interesting now that I've returned ...
