Pink Coyote

Welcoming the Light

Ceremony is one way that I take care of myself. It's a way for me to show up totally in the moment and commit myself fully to my intention. Tonight I prepared for this week's rebirth by burning notes with the aspects that I wanted to free myself from written on them. I look to Fire's creative and alchemical properties to help me transform these outdated modes because of it's voracious appetite for consuming the negative and sending the "request" up to a place of higher perception than I operate in.

We had our lasagna al fresco and the kids loved it. We used the chiminea to build a small wood fire in, instead of the firepit-and a good thing, too, because it rained on and off the whole time we were outside. The covered porch kept babes nice and dry, though. The hacienda provides!

Even Miles got in on the action when he heard B and I talking about it and proclaimed that he'd like to also release Impatience and also "Madness". So sweet. He wrote the words down with little coaching and enjoyed tossing our notes into the flames.

 

 

First went false obligations

I feel lighter and I'm letting big breaths go as I putter about my evening now. I feel nicely connected to my conscious intentions and plan to take some time off here between now and January 4th. I'll still be popping in from time to time, just not quite as often. January is gearing up to be busy and bright, so I'm going to take the down time while I can get it.

Happy Season of Peace! Take very good care of yourselves and keep me tuned in to what is working well for you! I have so much to learn...

Honoring the Darkness

If health feels like deep, pranic breathing, then the last week has been tiny sips of air. Combining all of my intentions to attend to my childrens' needs before anything else, be a working artist and conduct a fair and soulful relationship with my partner is, at times, an impossibly tall order! Sometimes the expectations are a set-up for the afore-blogged anxiety to come right on in.

Thank you all for your comments on my last post. I'm very touched to connect about this issue. It's less often that I choose to write about the hairy, unkempt aspects of trying to be Super-everything, but when I do, I'm always glad I did. The pressure valve gets released when I send the energy out into the world to transform and it feels a bit like everyone gets a little healing from it. I'm still releasing, and I expect this will go on all week. Hopefully from a comfortable chair.

The blessing in all of this is not the eventual change that comes from realizing something must shift, but that the shadow gets revealed and receives the comfort that it deserves by being held into the light. Which is all it really wants, if I could guess at it. The shadowy parts are born from being shoved down into the recesses originally, so no wonder they seep up like unruly weeds fighting me all the way!

It occurred to me that doing this job (mama + artist + allotherhatsrequired) requires rigorous training. Which could look like sitting still for as long as possible, in my case!

Self-care is the thing I have to schedule in order to keep those muscles tuned up. In the year of giving birth to Ivy, I feel out of shape in all ways! I'm going to be thinking hard about what it could look like in the new year. Will you join me? How is being a woman like being an athlete to you, if so? How do you stay fit?My recurring thought is that I can't perform this job on little to no sleep. I'm looking forward to creating some healthy solutions in this area.

Though it will be a little while before the sun makes it's physical return, I'm honoring the darkness while gratefully inviting the warmth and light to return to this side of the earth (and to me). I feel the beautiful decay of my crinkling, papery skin slipping against my smooth, underlying scales and letting go.

I'm grateful for this moment between seasons...just as it is.

Shedding Skin + Postcard Gift

I whacked off the old hair then felt moved to clip the fringe up on top! Had to share this, for some reason. I took about 200 pictures of myself for my artist's statement that will soon appear in a little limited edition print book as a part of the upcoming 48 Hour Show, here in town. I settled on one of my knees and part of my shoes. Will I ever be comfortable with sharing my image with people I don't know?

I've long been admiring Hula's list (and her bangs) and took it upon myself to begin creating one for myself. I turned 38 in September and just confessed to B a few nights ago about some of the anxiety I'm feeling about wanting to do so many things before I turn 40. I know, I'm not even 39 yet. Why is doing stuff so important to me?!

Perfectionism is always loitering underneath my surface and I'd say its responsible for most of my anxiety and control shit. What I recently realized is that I'm not a perfectionist. Not really. I'm trying to shed a pattern that looks like this: Something triggers me into anxiety like having to rush around and gather a bazillion things in order to go on one short car trip. Then, I feel the physical part of the anxiety like shortness of breath, chest crushing pressure-and so my response is to try to remedy the discomfort with trying to regain control by...loading the dishwasher while my family is waiting for me in the car, or trying to organize the junk drawer and lashing out verbally about why "nothing is ever orderly around here, blah blah blah". It's one of my shadow comforts: Disgruntled Organizing.

Maybe making a list of things I have to *get right* before I turn 39 or 40 or 55 isn't important. Would I feel satisfied if I got to cross everything off? Or would it just be another source of anxiety and disappointment?

The winter solstice is a turning point. It shows me that I have another opportunity to release some of my expectations to do and be it all. That the light is going to return and grow, and that I will, organically, grow with it. I feel some of my power returning to me. I feel bolder, brighter, slightly more clear, and more forgiving. The painful squeeze of being in the birth canal is about to give way once again.

Will you shed anything this sacred week of the return of light? Leave your comment and I'll send you an animama postcard! Don't forget to email me your address. Easy peasy.

If you release that old bit, what will a new space be created for? I hope to release the need to remedy the uncomfortable feeling. I want to make room for more patience with myself and those around me.

Not Enoughness

Today is a day of urgency, of false obligations, of anxiety, rushing around, feeling overwhelmed and under-rested, and not meeting my own ridiculous expectations.

I'm grateful for beautiful little surprises that shake me out of my shadow and remind me that I am enough, and this too, shall pass.

Bear with me!

More Sarah Maingot. Never enough Sarah. I'm SWF for Sarah.

 

I love the stick this woman is holding, it makes the whole photo. By Sarah Maingot.

Shipping on paintings and prints is still FREE in the shop until the end of this week!
I'm going off the clock to wrap gifts and imbibe in cheer...happy season of peace, wild seeds...

Already a Blur

Um...It's the 15th of December? What happened to the other fourteen days?

I'm venturing a guess and some silliness that it went the way of...

Packing

Shipping

Wrapping

Decking the halls

Crafting decorations out of cardboard with little person

Holding tissues for noses to blow into

Christmas programs and Cookies and punching

Making tea for sick husbands

Well, one sick husband

Reading

Writing in my journal in bed, heating pad underfoot (finally!)

Catching up on the phone

Consuming an entire bag of red and green m&ms by self

Eating mass quantities of enchiladas suizas and pondering longtime about eating them every day for rest of life

Reverting to speaking like Cookie Monster

:)

On The Wind

This is a time of year when I start feeling really bold. I wonder if it's because the promise of the new year excites me so much? It feels like getting a new pee chee folder at school, crisp and ready to write I Heart So-and-So five million times on it, a perfectly clean slate with the potential for any number of wonderful things to happen. The earliest days of manifesting in action!

Last year I decided to carry  A Gift from the Sea, by Anne Morrow Lindbergh, around with me everywhere I went in order to allow her messages to infuse me. I didn't end up carrying her everywhere, but I did stuff it in many a satchel during the earlier part of the year. Without being overly intentional about it, balancing this act of mothering and turning the creative wheel did end up being the motif for my year. In other words, it all worked out as I'd originally hoped.

This year, I'm going to take the easy route and carry my all-time favorite book with me. I own two copies because I can't bear to walk to the other end of the house to find it if I want to read in bath or bed. I'm sure it comes to no surprise that my favorite book in the ENTIRE WORLD ever written is Women Who Run With the Wolves. When I open the stinky pages of this aged thing, the hairs stand up all over me and I know I am finding the words that are blueprinted on every inch of my own soul. 

This is the work of my very favorite photographer, Sarah Maingot. Can I bottle this?

It doesn't matter how many times I read it, I still find myself jumping up and down in confirmation that I am a criatura, that the aspects of woman that have been coerced and driven out over the centuries are not whispering under my skin, but screaming to pick up the *stories, the bundles for healing, the dreams, songs, signs and symbols* and feel, as CPE refers to it as "the sureness of their soulfooting". My hope this year is to reconnect with the archetype that speaks to me the most.

Maybe I'm hopping up and down howling all the time because this trail of crumbs is not new or unknown to me. Rather because it feels so warmly...familiar. By some strange twist of lightening striking in the moment of my birth, I have always known that I would be on this path. It's almost as if the tiny little genetic code of wild trickled down quietly through the women before me, but lined up in a quick blast for me, so that there would be no question about why my fur twitches when the wind blows in two directions at once and why I'm passionately drawn to other bitches with sixth senses who prefer to preserve their instinctual nature over...

Photo by Sarah Maingot.

...let's just say that I can smell you on the wind, sister.

The Prosperity Part

 

Copyright, IHEA, Inc. 2002.

Can someone please enlighten me as to why asking for abundance is so goddamned difficult, especially if one is a woman, moreso if one is a momma? At the risk of sounding bossy, I'm going to just say it from the gut. I'm mainly addressing this to my female readership, as I've not heard from one man on this topic. Care to venture a guess at why?

Why is it that I keep hearing stories from so many of you about not being able to ask for abundance for fear that you will feel or be seen as (in your being?): undeserving,  greedy, selfish, materialistic, ego-driven?

Do you fear that you will somehow sully your passion by seducing it to bed with money? Money is not the Big Bad Wolf. What is this unhealthy relationship with currency that implies some of you are willing to stop the flow of it in order to keep feeding a lie that you don't deserve it? Time for a shift!

My impression is not that women are sitting on their knees next to the bedside praying for fame, a mansion and a Mercedes Benz; but that you might like to have some of your basic needs met by trading your creative goods and services. What is wrong with that?

Listen, you- and you know who I'm talking to: The hunters and gatherers I'm most familiar with prayed for an abundance of clouds, rain, health, meaty game animals, salmon, new trees, obsidian, corn, beans, & squashes, babies, healing, signs from above, snowpack, years, dancing, spouses, stones, apples, leaves, feathers, bark, roots, truffles, fallen pine needles, medicinal plants, wampum, lodgepoles, visions, guidance, love...need I go on? Abundance of a resource whether in currency, energy or foodstuffs ensures not only that we will survive, but that we will have stores for when resources are short. It is natural to crave this insurance. It is also natural to crave comfort.

It is OKAY to want to manifest the life that is most meaningful to YOU. To give your energy to the things that mean the most to you and to expect your work to pay off in the way that you desire is not a sin.

My thought is that women give generously of ourselves, sometimes until there is nothing left for us. To dry out is not going to get us where we want to go or serve any good purpose, and yet there is a spirit of lack, that, as I see it, plagues the creative community. Funny thing is that also as women, we often yearn to gather resources so that we can....give them away again!

This beautiful circle of life feeds on abundance. The positive energy, the work that you create, the relationships you are being fair to, the children you are nurturing are your offerings. Make them worthwhile, I say! You may accept graciously, gratefully, and GUILT-FREE the rewards and nods that come from your efforts. 

This is a manifesto. This is your permission slip.

buffalo gals + check in

They are officially listed, the buffalo girls of 2009. I'm rather proud of their tiny bigness!

I wonder if I'll complete any more paintings this year, or if they will be my last...?

Oh! ptb=powers that be. *wink*

The natives are restless as my faithful coffee and I sneak in here to post this so I'll have to keep my check-in brief:

Poor little Willow needs mass positive wishes as she just had emergency exploratory surgery yesterday to remove F.O.U.R. pieces of stick from her throat area. She had a tragic accident last Sunday and while we think she's out of the woods now, it will be a painful recovery. (Dear dogs, please stop growing old, feeble, arthritic, ill and clumsy. Just for a month or so. Save risk-taking until after the new year, I beg of you.)

Kids rooms are moved. New creative space assembled.

Soup is off the stove.

Hurricane winds stopped.

Christmas bins are inching closer to the actual house.

Sage has been burned, prayers sent up.

Noses quit running.

Hair has been chopped.

Adoring thoughts of this family and their labors of loves have been shared.

List of errands and to-dos threaten to jump off my desk and into the wastebasket in favor of running outside to kick yellow leaves and holler sweet affectionate sentiments at the blue Autumn sky!

The day calls.... 

Manifesting Abundance

I'd forgotten something really important to me that I found in the archives of my brain this weekend about the days just before I conceived Ivy. I'm so happy I remembered! I'll share a bit of the story:

Last year I was lying out in the woods with my girls and someone had been drumming (was it me?) and we were all doing a journey. I'd been wanting to get pregnant with my daughter and the ptb totally weren't listening to me. I woke up first and lay watching all of the little crawling creatures and the beautiful earth with all of it's energy radiating out to the surface. So much life! In my journey, I was told that I would be having a daughter, but that she wasn't going to come on my watch. I'd need to exercise some patience. I love to hear this because I'm most certainly the least patient person on earth. Ants, the reminders of patience, shuttled back and forth with little grains for storage, twisting the knife and tormenting me, as they are often inclined to do.

Two weeks later, I was asked to smoke a peace pipe while on a vision quest. It's believed that the smoke carries prayers more efficiently up to the eagerly listening Creator Spirits that way. I recalled the medicine of Buffalo, which I remembered to be something like prayer aligned with purposefulness to bring about results. I'd surrendered, since my journey, to the possibility that I might have to be a mom to a daughter in a less conventional way than I'd previously hoped! I wondered things like, Would Miles marry someone who would be like a daughter to me? and all sorts of creative offshoots of that story. In the end, I prayed for lots of things, but I was sure to include that I had surrendered my expectations to get pregnant or have a daughter.

The concept of manifesting a dream fascinates me. It seems that sometimes one only need declare something in an open, yet surrendered way, and eventually, it comes around. I tend to forget, until I flip back through an old journal, how many intentions I've set that have materialized over the years. 

Which brings me back to big, beasty Buffalo.

Buffalo is a symbol of abundance, but not abundance without connection. Jamie Sams writes:

"Buffalo medicine is a sign that you achieve nothing without the aid of Great Spirit and that you must be humble enough to ask for that assistance and then be grateful for what you receive."

Ted Andrews takes it a little bit further:

"The bison also usually follows the easiest path. When we join the right action with the right prayers, the path is not difficult. We do not have to bull our way through. The path opens and flows easily. This is not a time to push or force. Follow the easiest path. Things will happen in the time, manner and means that is best for us if we allow it. This doesn't mean we should sit back and do nothing, but rather that we should do what we have to do and then let the events take their natural course."

As we get a little closer to the end of the year, my thoughts are shifting to my 2010 calendar. What do I want to plant seeds for? Am I ready for the things I'm asking for to come in? How might I phrase my intentions in a way that finds me open, yet not laid bare to any and all interpretations of my dream? (By those creator sorcerers who would totally misunderstand me!) How do I plan to feed myself?

It sounds superstitious, but there is something about the idea of being very specific about what I'm ready for that makes me feel like my dream is already coming true. I can feel the spark of synchronicity igniting, just by choosing my words carefully.

One of the things I seldom dare ask for is a nourishing home. But the words are leaving my lips more and more daringly. 

I'm making a point to ask for help in finding a community that supports us economically, nurtures us creatively, and inspires us visually.

So there it is. I'm officially declaring it- as I sit among seven teeny paintings, all of whom carry the energy of manifesting abundance. It is an act of self-care to open up and allow the highest good to come in...

 

How will you declare your intention?

Writing a New Story

Today's feature is a guest post by my friend, Christine Miller. What I've come to know about Swirly is that she is always willing to change. Please enjoy her offering.

Christine and Charlie.

When I think of my history with pets, most stories feel loose and frayed, with straggly threads hanging down like a scarf that was never finished.  I’ve shared time with a number of different animals, but there was only one whose death I experienced firsthand – a gerbil named Scooby.  His breathing became irregular, the vet said it was pneumonia, and the next day he died when I was trying to give him medicine.  I was in the fifth grade, and I’m not sure I even cried.  I had by then developed a certain level of stoicism thanks to a domineering father; if the loss of my tiny pet created an outpouring of grief, I have no memory of it.

 The rest of my pets came into my life and were somehow abruptly removed, so my experience of their deaths was always at arm’s length.  A German Shepherd named Charlie died after my parents divorced and he stayed with my father; two cats my college roommate and I adopted went with her after we graduated, so their passing was shared with me years later in a letter.  With other dogs and cats, the story is the same – I had them for a while, then some circumstance or event took them away – so I have yet to take a journey with a pet from the beginning of its life to the end besides Scooby.  That was more than thirty years ago.

 My husband and I have decided – after months of discussions about it – to get a dog, and as excited as I am about this, I am also fearful that I am not up to the task, that I will somehow let this animal down and not be able to stay in its life and ensure a peaceful passing when the time comes.  Going deeper, I am also terrified of what that experience will be like.  Will I be able to handle that loss?  How can I let myself get attached to such a loving creature, knowing I will likely have to say good-bye to it in just over a decade?  It is a wide open territory of unknowns, and I am afraid I will somehow fail.

 This is one of those situations where I could easily talk myself out of it – we’re too busy, it’s a big responsibility, I travel too much, etc.  And while all those things might be true (we are busy, it is a big responsibility, and I do travel quite a bit), I know that they are not reason enough to not get a dog.  If I use them to justify remaining safely pet-less, then all I’m really doing is giving in to my fears, and if I do that, I’m letting down this creature before we’ve even met. 

 I know our dog is waiting for us right now.  I can feel it in my bones.  When I think about bringing this animal home, training it, feeding it, walking it, and loving it, it makes my heart swell, and then it makes me weepy.  For I already have so much love for our dog, and I’m already dreading the day I have to let it go.  But then I see that this is precisely why it is time for me to take an emotional risk and bring this responsibility into my life.  It is time for me to make this commitment, to trust that I will be able to follow through with it, and give our dog a warm, safe home as well as a peaceful, quiet passing.  For in between the day we bring it home and the moment we have to let it go, there will be love and frustration, long walks and snuggling, learning to sit and cleaning up poo, and opening my heart that much more.

Very proud of this gorgeous Treasury List: http://www.etsy.com/treasury_list.php?room_id=97580

And testing "Quick Compose" mode!

Eleventh Hour Wishlist 2009

It's back! Yes, it's time for the infamous gift giving guide again. Though it isn't really the eleventh hour yet, for those who need to order customized gifts or shop online, it is time to get on with it already.

Like last year's list and the one before that, I prefer the work of artisans and locals wherever possible. We've drawn names in our family this year to cut down on the volume of loot and are trying to select very thoughtful and personal tokens of our affection (aHEM!) and gratitude for one another. Consumable items rule, as always, but there are a few goodies for the stufflovers among us!

For the Spirited Healer: Cedar Smudge Bundles by powwowlodge (lovingly made by my Spirit sister Sarah Jane, aka Auntie Sunjay)

 

For Man Who Loves Special Soap: Lemon Sugar Soap by Dress Green

(the men on my list look very forward to their fancy soaps!)

For Dances With Needles: Irish Moss by yarnarchy

For the Fairy Tale Girl: Tree Dress by Melimelon

For Owl Lover (a surprising number of you, come to find out): Print by Cori D

For She Who Lives Fashionably in Cool Climes (alpaca is rumored to be 4x warmer than wool!): Fingerless Gloves by ElfisCreations

 

For Genius Two Year Old: Playshapes by miller goodman

For the Vintage-Loving Hostess: Apron by Bananasaurus Rex (I also love her reusable snack baggies)

 

For Baby with Perpetually Cold Ears and Mamas With Weakness for Cute Hats: Knox Hat by plumknit

This one is also killing me, as is this one. We Campbells love our hats.

For Color Diggin' Toddlers: Rainbow Stacker by Imagination Kids

For The Humanitarian: Support Survivors of War at Women for Women International

**This is by far my favorite global women's organization- I'd love to know what yours are!

I'll be joyfully adding more as the weeks go on. There are some lovely craftspeople in the world today, and we're so beyond blessed to be able to use our abundance from the support we get as artists to keep the circle moving and support others!

shop update

Free shipping in the shop on prints and paintings! 

I will be up to my elbows in orange and blue paint as we prep the former recording studio to be Miles' new bedroom. We're moving Ivy's things into his old room, and so the game of musical rooms begins...

Do tell how you plan to spend your Black Friday...

 

xtra good

We woke up an Ivy sandwich

The coffee was extra good for some reason

Cousins dropped by for some kissing

Friends rang from faraway places

A new recipe turned out yummy and the old favorites were just perfect

I watched the sun go down

Counted my blessings

Like so many days when nothing could have been better

grateful

grateful for so many things this week

like ginger eaten raw, spicy and head-clearing

and split pea and barley soup

for anticipation of my mom's thanksgiving dressing

a circle of women who trust, cry and laugh together every month

skittering animals across my path and

tall lavender growing near dear friends who've gone back to the earth

a sweet photographer whose magical work appeared just when i needed it

my thoughtful husband who keeps facing his fears right beside me

that rascal the sun who teases me and forces me to love him

for the kinks

for a growling baby who loves seaweed

a sensitive boy who loves the baby

for friends who call just to tell me how proud they are of me

for kissing

for old cats at the door

for long showers when someone generous has the children

for words like purloin and speluncar and the friends who bring them

for kleenex

for surprise christmas compilations and anxiety mixed tapes in the mailbox and

a small box of new art supplies

for YES

i'm grateful for my life on this beautiful planet

with you

Light Bringers + Winner

My friend Sarah Jane says that trees who grow in a circle all grow from each other's roots. This is how I think of my husband and kids, we form a circle and we are all connected at our roots, yet branch out in our own directions skyward,

My guys are walking toward the Circle of Gratitude for Mary Ann and Joe's Vow Renewal Ceremony this weekend. Check out all of the cool orbs around Miles Brandon! I'm always crediting my son for bringing the faery folk with him and it was, instead, my DH that had them clinging to his heart this time. I love the layered octagonal shapes. Ever the scientific man, he's like,..."Those are just lens flares!" and I'm all, "No they're not! They're fairies!"

Grown ups.

 

It was a beautiful ceremony in the southern California mountains with lots of yummy people, indescribably good food, clean air and LOVE all around.

I am sick this week with a nasty wasty cold: the ear business, sinus crap, sneezing, dang it. Miles is sick, too, and we're trying not to give the baby cooties.

***And the winner of the card giveaway is Pati Maez! Congratulations, goddess.***

I'll be checking in and offering a free shipping week in the shop in the next day or so. *Hack*Sneeze!Cack! Go here and have a laugh, while I'm recovering!