Asse-asse-asseverate!

(Image : “Use Your Imagination” Journal, recycled paper bags, SG, 2010)

Couldn´t resist…

I do declare, earnestly, nay, I avow, I allege, I asseverate, that this feckless tyro, this neophyte, this greenhorn, this factitious filibuster, this facetious sassy tenderfoot, this pesky pugnacious rogue, is causing quite a pother among the class.

…Happy translating, dear BabelFish!

Don´t mind me, it´s just a pretext for uploading a new image!…

(The Lady Dragon laughing, obstreperously, of course!)

Naa-niiiiiii!

(Image : Little Mister Sunshine, on Mamiiii´s knees, photo : Tata I-a, MDG, 2010)

“L´homme propose et Dieu dispose.” (Anon Le Grand,  ze French Anon)

Grandmothers propose and grandsons dispose, if you will pardon my French!

I told my daughter in no uncertain terms that no way do I want to be called “Granny” or anything remotely like it! So we said, OK, so Alex will call me”Ya-ya” (Granny in Catalan), but after trying it on, well, I´d rather not, ”La Yaya” is the other Grandma, thank you very much. So we said, what about “Nana” ? Mmm, nice. Nana, I can digest.

But no.

D´you know who that screech is meant to bring about running : Na-niiiiiiiii!! which means just about anything from Gimme-my-bottle-and-not-too-warm-eh? to Lift-me-up-quick-I-wanna-see-sumpthing!…Yeah. Me. the Wizard of Lothlorien. Ha.

So be it,  – Nani it is. And …Maaaami-iiiii (Mama), Tata I-a (auntie Mika) and Da-da (Adam). Awa (agua, water), Maaa-meh (dáme, give me) and other wonderful words which we have a hard time not imitating! Like in:  ”I-a, maa-meh awa”! (Mika, give me water). Family in stitches.

Ecopsychology Junior!

(Image : photo Tati Mika, 2010)

This is Alex, now 14 months old. He walks, well, he stumbles about, and enthusiastically bangs his head on most corners, which has his Nani (me) very worried, and running after him to prevent major disasters. Apart from that, he is an angel, very easy. A little sunshine guy with Paul Newman eyes, lol!…

And yes, this is the third generation of the Earth Sanctuary.

Dear Reader and Friends

…I´m up to my ears in “green days”, everything in the gardens is shooting up, up, out and away, the birds that are nesting make a wonderful racket just outside my window, and I´m truly exhausted with so much sheer activity! At night I just want to sink into the cushions of my sofa, and watch some really stupid television programme, which rests my mind no end, and then go to bed and sleep like a log until the birds start their racket again the next morning!…

So, not much time or psychological space for blogging, just now.

´Scuse me, I´ll be back when things go back to normal.

PS.- Mika has started a new blog about her latest passion : ecopsychological macrophotography. (Whoah! A mouthful!) It´s…wow!

A Druid´s Eye

W(art)s and all!

(Image : Little Book of the Goddess, SG, 2007)

Now something really up close and personal.

 It´s funny : I have three w(art!)rts on my face, one right in the middle of my forehead, and one on each side of my nose. I don´t see them, except in a mirror, so they don´t bother me, but sometimes I think they might bother other people, so I had this idea of getting rid of them, purely on an “esthetical” level, since I don´t even feel them. My daughters (26 and 30), and the people who love me, apparently don´t “see” them anymore either. They begged me not to do that, not to get them out, they say they love this “spiritual Triangle of the Bermudas” on my face! It is so “you”, they told me. Mmmm… OK. So. Now you will simply have to love me… warts and all! (Which is a very good thing.)

In the same way, the way of unconditional acceptance of reality, in my art, I don´t choose colours and themes, they choose me! I work with whatever I have at hand, recycling old stuff, old paint, magazines, wool – whatever lies there in front of me on my worktable at any given time. OK, it is the appropriate stuff that is lying about, but nevertheless I do not plan and think in advance, nor do I calculate. “It” (…the flow of Awen?*) just…you know, flowers! And I never judge the results, not even by my own standards. I just… let it be.

When I find myself in times of trouble

Mother Mary comes to me

Speaking words of wisdom,

Let It Be

And in my hour of darkness

She is standing right in front of me

Speaking words of wisdom,

Let It Be Let It Be, Let It Be Let It Be, Let It Be

Whisper words of wisdom, Let It Be

And when the broken hearted people

Living in the world agree

There will be an answer,

Let It Be

For though they may be parted there is

 Still a chance that they will see

There will be an answer,

Let It Be Let It Be, Let It Be

(John Lennon)

*grin*

Awen* – In the Celtic world, the flow of inspiration and intuition.

A glorious epitaph!

 (Image : “Druid Review”, a non-verbal journal, SG, 2009)

…Decorators, I am told, have “mood boards”, I have my Art Journals in which I record what happens in my inner life. Thus, I have my Mystical Journal, my Dragon Journal, my Dreams Journal, Angels, Traces (abstract), Druid Diary, Elves, Merlin, Faerie Book, Why Not, Dancing Moon, angry, sad, nostalgic, funny, surrealistic, etc.

I tried written diaries but never went past the cover! So I gave up, haha, and instead of writing the story of my life, which I do not need to share, I just go crazy with watercolours, collage, wax crayons, supermarket tickets, the lot, what not. (Yes, I´ve got a Crazy Book too, and a black-and-white-only Ghost book!)

My journals are all that is not planned, not structured, not thought through, and not surprisingly, they are absolutely chock-full! I love to amaze myself!…

What a legacy to leave behind when I go to the Great Prairies up there in the Sky!…(Or, better said, under a little apple tree in my own gardens!)

(And yes, I did complete a “Nana´s Wisdom Book” as a gift for my grandson.One day he will think “what a crazy old bird my Nana was!” – and that, my friends, is a worthy epitaph for this lady dragon!)

Madame Mim and Native Americans

The little Mademoiselle on the left is me, aged three (I think), the photo in the middle is me, 60 years later, and the drawings (not mine!) are of Madame Mim, of Walt Disney fame.

Madame Mim is of course another funny archetype with which I have worked. She is the zany side of me, the “animated” Miss Marple in me. I love her dearly.

…The two comments on yesterday´s post don´t sound odd to me : I have a very keen inner relationship with the cosmos of Native Americans. Being such a nut about Ecopsychology (= the relationship of Humankind with Nature), I have this same…errr…sort of disinterested (questing ?) look on the Crazy White Man (the photographer)? Lol.The “heatmap” tech thingie and the colours no doubt emphasize the perception, but the energy is there, that´s true. It´s the Warrior of Shamballa in me that comes to the foreground through the “heatmap” thing. And yes, it´s the very same picture! (See how you can play?)

I am working in a journal with the original picture, in all sorts of nutty ways. What looks Native American can also look very ladylike with another option of the same programme. I´m working with all options, including an Andy Warhol-like pop painting type of collage.

Psychosynthesis calls these aspects of oneself “subpersonalities”, or “subs” (lol). All of us have lots of facets, and PS gives us the tools to make a true Mandala out of all of them, so that we can see that they are all fragments of the same Self, each semi-detached piece being a path in itself towards “center”. Some of these fragments are quite independent from the central ego-structure (what we generally call “me”), for example the Shadow realm on one “side” or on one hand, and then the spiritual side of our basic nature on the other.Very often these two aspects are not contained within the ego structure, and are “projected” onto other people. PS is the Path to reclaim all these projected aspects of ourselves (of our selves) and bring them into harmony, “owning” them, maybe for the first time in our life.

I think that PS, or any Path that practices “soul retrieval”, is especially good for ladies of “our age” (mmm…) because in a way our lives are behind us, we have already made our choices, and lived through the consequences, for good or for bad. At least that was my experience when I worked for my PS diploma with Will Parfitt (you´ll find a link on the side).

So yes, thank you, Susannah and Jill, I really appreciated the sharing of your perception.

Becoming a Legend…

 

Just so you see what I mean in my preceding post…The lady on the left is Margaret Rutherford as Miss Marple, both Miss Marple and Dame Margaret being legends, and dear models of mine as I go through my post-menopausal years.  The image on the right is me, recently, retouched with a heatmap design and nothing more, bwahahaha (so appropriate!)…Yes, well, I still have a long way to go to be like The Legends, but I´m getting there, day by day, …from the feet up!…

Yeah, I know, I look a lot tenser than Miss Marple, I look weird (even without the heatmap thingie), but that´s because I try to control the damn jawline! See what I mean ? I would prefer to let go, and am not able to, yet. Anyway, did Miss Marple worry about her looks, or didn´t she ? We´ll never know.

 ;-)

Elderwoman

(Image : Autoportrait surréaliste, art journal, SG, ’10)

“Happiness is not a destination. Happiness is a wonderful corollary of being on the right path.”

        The Blessed Anon (Anon-ymous).

…Can´t believe that ten years have passed since menopause! I´m perfectly OK, but oh Goddess have I changed! I´m no longer the Mom that I was, now I´m a friend of my daughters (a darn good one at that!); I´m no longer the “goddess of love” that I was (thank the Goddess too, that struggle is finally over, lol!) – but strangely enough, I feel closer to who I was before I became an adult. I feel much, much closer to the Inner Child, the luminous Mabon archetype. When I laugh, I don´t laugh prettily, and when I cry I cry for all human beings. The older I get, the more universal I become. I would define myself as “a grandmother for humanity” now. Watching “my baby” with all the awareness and love contained in my heart.

Ten years back, they (books, friends, etc) advised me : when Lady Menopause knocks at your door, either you are “clean” (OK with your past), or all the ghosts will come running back! All the unfinished business, all the negative energies, all the shit. Menopause is one grand opportunity to get clear before the Universe!…Yup, and that´s how it was. And I worked my way through it all, patiently, sometimes it was hard, sometimes it was funny, sometimes it was heartbreaking, and sometimes it was outrageous (like when I decided to get my first tattoo at 63, and the tattoo man couldn´t help smiling at my enthusiasm!). Looking back,  it was relatively easy, and not one “hot flashes” spell! I didn´t even go to see a doctor, (if you have any doubt about your health, don´t do that, I must have been crazy, lol). Not a one. Just some wild heart beating at times (the hormones, I suppose), in the beginning, and then some pain in my joints, some more wrinkles. My creative spirit soared! I immediately ”grokked” it that this was the central point in this menopause business : to allow the creative spirit to go from creating new life (or the opportunity of it, every month) to actually being this creative spirit all the time!

I never had any problem with my womanhood, so no negative ghosts reared their ugly head. It was just one long process of slow change until now, when I finally acknowledge that I have become what some feminists call “a crone”. I don´t really like this word, it makes me feel old, and I´m not ”old” (…that will be the next ten years? Hahaha). I prefer to say “wisewoman”, or “elderwoman”. I look at my daughters (27 and 31) and at my grandson (1), and I feel for them, – I´m finally out of a long archetypal tunnel, hooray, it is finally over, this constant battling with stereotypes! OK, I don´t like my “love handles” too much, but that´s because I have a “couch potato” vocation, my idea of “relax” being sitting with my feet up, a nice cup of coffee (a definite “no-no” for menopausal women, but who cares?), and maybe a chocolate bun.

My eyes are changing, it´s as if they were looking into the inner world most of the time…I care a lot less about what´s happening “outside” me (excepting Climate Change, and stuff of that nature), and I care a lot less about how I look to others. (I still put on my “war paint”, though, they say I have a “piercing look”, hahaha, and I enjoy enhancing that!…But just a dark line around my green eyes…mmm? No powder, no “foundation”, no perfume, commercially I would put beauty parlors out of business!)

I´m not reacting as fast to what is happening around me, I enjoy looking at the grass “growing by itself” a lot more, as I enjoy riding in the car instead of walking or running. There, I confessed. Oh and another confession, it hurts a bit when I see that my jawline is slacker in photographs from up close than before (though the said jaw itself is perfectly functional, lol), but then, hey! my model is Margaret Rutherford (Miss Marple) not Demi Moore, so I´ve still a long way to go…

Apart from these changes, I´m still the same zany person, and yes, outrageously young. In this case, young meaning vital, movable, moving, moved, in one word : dancing, see? Plus, I´m still practising beginner´s mind, except in those situations where a more mature outlook is needed,  and then oh Goddess can I be mature!…

So, my two cents of wisdom re/menopause to all of you lovely gals out there going through the Change : trust yourself, be true to yourself, and you´ll be just fine, even with hot flashes and aching joints (coffee is a no-no, remember that!), the last best part of your life is expecting you, no bullshit. I did it.

 

Hecate, and all that jazz!

(Image : Autoportrait surréaliste, SG  April 2010)

…Have started a new Art Journal to explore the tricky passage that I am going through as a woman, I´m definitely a crone now, but you see, I don´t really feel like one.I wonder how many women feel the same way ? I don´t have a clue of how I´m supposed to feel, though I know that I am supposed to feel something, some things, and I dont – repeat: don´t –  agree with those things one bit! And I see the desperate efforts of some other women to cling to the last remnants of their youth, like clinging to worthless rags… I swore to myself that I would not be like them!…

I don´t feel “my age”, I don´t really look “my age”, I´m the same “me” as before, and yet there are subtle changes that I do acknowledge. I cannot run as fast, I have wrinkles, sometimes my teeth are hurting (lol), and I´m certainly not as slim as I once was (never been “slim, so what?)

Actually, I feel strong, ready for battle, full of creative juices- and quite determined to help the next generation as the brand-new challenges of climate change and the need for deep change arise in their young lives. I´m a weathered veteran really. Veteran, as in skilled,steady, adept, expert, versed and practical. (Courtesy of Dictionary, com, lol). 

And that, my friends, is one hell of an advantage, for me and for them.

PS.- The Spanish say “Don´t you have a grand´mother?” when someone throws compliments at themselves (which is a grandmotherly task, as we all know).

 Well, no. I don´t have a grandmother anymore. I am my own grand-mother (on my passport only).