The possible’s slow fuse is lit by the imagination

~  Emily Dickinson

Do you ever feel like you are inching along like a caterpillar? Sometimes circumstances stop us in our tracks and cause us to slow down our progress in certain areas. That has been the case for me lately. My mother broke her leg last November and her recovery has been a steady journey towards getting back on both feet and putting one foot in front of another again.

My expectations were to have an art exhibit to celebrate and conclude my thirteen month blog project that ended in April. However, priorities and time commitments changed to be a caregiver. For now, the exhibit is postponed. I feel certain a better form or venue will take shape for it in the near future. Not to mention more and better art to exhibit.

I also slowed down the weekly pace of writing this blog to a monthly schedule.  It has taken some “doing” for me to let go of all of the”shoulds” that I hear –such as that you need to be consistent and post weekly if you are going to have a successful blog. But what exactly is a successful blog? I must decide for myself. This is my space to share as if you were a guest in my home. No matter what outside experts suggest, this is the pace I need to set for myself right now. There is an ebb and flow to life. I am taken back to the thread of Surrender which has a close kinship to the first thread of Mystery. We are sometimes taken back to square one. And what do you know? That is exactly where we are on this second round of the Thirteen Thread from the Wild Heart.

The first three threads of Mystery, Possibility and Desire are all invisible aspects of the creative process. There is an oscillation of going inward and then coming back out into the world with the next threads of Creativity, Action and Devotion. Then there is a return inward again for the next stages of Surrender, Change and Integrity. And finally back out into the light of the world we emerge with Laughter, Beauty and Harmony. While these stages are not always linear, and have different names per your own experience, there is an inward, outward, inward, and outward pattern to our creative lives.

Wild Heart #3 ~ Donniece K. Smith

Within this first stage everything is in the darkness of the earth, the womb and the interior of our hearts. It is a time when we are to nourish ourselves.The caterpillar is close to the ground consuming it’s food source. With no idea of what is coming next, it does what it knows to do with what is right in front of it. Unlike caterpillars, we as humans can get really distracted and go in many directions. We spin around, panic, procrastinate and find all sorts of shiny objects to pursue. Many outside “shoulds” influence our behaviors and expectations keeping us from the gifts this stage has to offer us. When we don’t slow down, listen to our heart and find clarity, we try to go in different directions only to spin our wheels.

If we have the desire for creative transformation, then we can help the process along by consciously choosing what we are consuming. We can slow down, go underground and really listen to our heart. Nourishing and supportive choices can then be made with care rather than on the fly and in a tizzy. It is definitely OK to inch along. In fact, there are times when that is all we can do. Take it all in and really see, feel, experience and digest. When you can’t do much else, it is a time to revel in mystery and imagination.  It will be time soon enough to get back out there in the world at a faster pace. For now, if you are inching along take advantage of the slowness to really see the gifts of beauty —of everyone and everything —that is around you!  You can’t help but be nourished and blessed!

Exploration: Search the topic  ”Slow Cloth” and learn about the hand sewing movement. One of my favorite books is The Alabama Stitch Book and the website is a feast too. http://alabamachanin.com/

Visit my friend Michele Lang’s wonderful nature photography site as she takes on a new adventure with a borrowed camera:  http://oneborrowedcamera.blogspot.com/

Enjoy my  Wild Heart marker doodle drawings that I have been creating during this time that does not permit much painting and stitching. I create these in about thirty minutes and they bring me joy. Would I have done these without my recent change of schedule?  Probably not but I have a feeling these little drawings are the seed of something bigger.  Enjoy!

Taking it Slow….

Donniece ~  Lulu Red

Wild Heart #5 ~ Donniece K. Smith

Wild Heart #3 ~ Donniece K. Smith

I’ll spread my wings and learn how to fly,

I’ll do what it takes til I touch the sky.

Kelly Clarkson,  Lyrics to Breakaway

Spring is here and so is a new beginning for the Thirteen Threads from the Wild Heart experience. This second round of the journey is about putting creativity into practice to empower our lives. What is the process of bringing something new into the outer world from our inner depths?  How can we nurture our creative selves? Who are we meant to be at our highest level of creativity?  And  what are ways we can choose to jump over those challenging hurdles of daily life that face us everyday?.  I invite you to join me again in sharing the adventures of the creative life.

The butterfly has long been a personal symbol of mine. Without being aware of it, I used the butterfly image many times in my college art projects from printmaking to an annual report design for my graphic design class. This repetiton of imagery was my first awareness that the butterfly really speaks to me on a deep symbolic level. I come back to this example in nature time and time again.  The catepillar to butterfly metamophsis is the cinderalla story of nature. It is the hero’s journey. It is the shaman’s path. It is the story of every major religion. It is the path to the heart, experiencing transformation and bringing that expression into the world.

Transformation and creativity are one in the same thing. It is vitally important to our personal lifes and to humanity that we transform our unique wisdom into into an expression that only our own dynamic DNA can deliver to the world. No matter how many times we think something has been done before, it has not been done in the unique flavor that only we can offer to the world.  If only one butterfly emerged in this world, it would be heartbreaking. But I am sure there are millions of butterflies. We may only personally experience a small number of them passing through our life.  There may only be one butterfly that lights on us or comes close enough for us to see up close and personal. You and your creations are that butterfly of inspriation and ah-ha that lifts up someone else.

In the following weeks, I invite you to join me in exploring

the creative life from the butterfly perspective:

Nourishment – Catepillar Crawl

Threads of Mystery, Possibilty and Desire

Immersion – Cocoon Building

Threads of Creativity, Action and Devotion

Emergence – Breaking Free

Threads of Integrity, Change and Surrender

Transcendance – Spreading our Wings

Threads of Laughter, Beauty and Harmony

Flight –  Soaring as our Selves

Thread of Celebration

Come Fly with me!

Lulu Red

- – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – -

Fabric Cuff Bracelet Class

Offered Saturday May 5th   1 pm to 4 pm

at the Lubbock Garden and Arts Center

Cost 55.oo  Includes supplies

Contact the Garden and Arts Center at 806 767-3724

Limited class size but more classes can be added based on interest

Sample bracelets narrow or wide - your choice. Use fabric scraps, buttons, trims, zippers, and beads. More or less embellishement. Easy hand stitches that are better when not perfect!

Bracelets are flat and wrapped around the wrist with a variety of closures from snaps to wrapped cords.

What looks like a lot of stitching is the back side of clothing labels.

Connie Berlingeri at Rancho La Puerta

“To watch us dance is to hear our hearts speak.” ~ Hopi Indian Saying

Turning points are not always the most joyous things to experience while in the midst of the changes they bring. However, when we have the luxury of looking back on the events that seemed to have ripped the rug out from under us, we usually see how we we were transformed for the better by the rough times.We are taken back to our roots to build something new and better.We weave a new story and a new legend with our hard earned experience. The seed of our lives cracks open to allow growth not otherwise possible. When we allow our growth, we bloom in celebration.

For Connie Berlingeri life moved her from the “business of medicine” to the” healing art of medicine” when her corporate career came to a screeching halt in December, 2006.  This transformation was thrust upon her during one phone call  that changed everything when she was let go from position as a sales representative for the pharmaceutical company, Pfizer. Her cut was a cost saving measure due to corporate restructuring.  The pain, grieving and disorientation of loosing a long time career-identity followed –  as did soul searching.

Just weeks prior to the fateful phone call, Connie had been on her annual trip to Rancho La Puerta, a destination trip to the Tecate, Mexico spa that she took every December for the past twenty or so years to decompress from her stressful job. Each year she enjoyed taking one of the classes there called Nia. Each year she enjoyed the class but had no other contact with Nia. But this particular year, the instructor specifically suggested to Connie that she check out Nia further and  told her that she personally thought Connie would be a great instructor. With a job working eighty hours or more a week, this suggestion was of no interest to Connie.

“Learning to walk sets you free. Learning to dance gives you the greatest freedom of all: to express with your whole self, the person you are.” Melissa Hayden

But a few weeks later upon her return home, everything changed. After the initial job loss shock had slightly lessened, Connie remembered Nia and looked into Nia training. Still not knowing exactly what Nia was in depth, she signed up for the training with the founders at their headquarters in Portland Oregon. What Connie did know is that the movement of Nia, even only once a year, had significantly helped her recover from the pain of a back injury. There were also many similar stories of what Nia had done for others.

“Everything in the universe has rhythm. Everything dances.” Maya Angelou

Connie Berlingeri at the top of Macchu Picchu

By moving the body through a fusion of nine movement modalities that include martial arts, dance arts and healing arts, the body moves in ways that are natural and pleasurable. The muscles hold our memories and movement releases energy so that our body and life energy can flow. Movement does not have to be painful to gain fitness.  Nia moves the body is so many different ways that the movement even breaks up repetitive patterns in the brain to allow more flexibility, not only in the body’s movement, but in how we live our life. That is why  Nia is thought of as a way of dancing with life even after you have left the classroom session.

Connie Berlingeri BodySense,LLC

Cooper Institute, Certified Personal Trainer
Nia Black Belt Instructor www.NiaNow.com

Co-Facilitor  for Soul Purpose Experience,
www.soulpurposeexperience.com

Lubbock Texas Nia: Wednesdays at the YWCA, 6 pm

See the Brigitte German Fashion Magazine Slide Show here: http://woman.brigitte.de/schoenheit/mode/ladylike-1091017/

For more information email Connie: csberlingeri (at) swbell.net

Connie modeling for Brigitte German Magazine at the Lubbock Ranching Heritage Center. Photo by friend on the set.

Connie modeling for Brigitte German Magazine at Trinity Ranch - Photo by friend on the set.

Me (Donniece) with my friend Connie

“The moments when you have truly lived are the moments when you have done things in the spirit of love.” ~ Henry Drummond

In progress painting - Untitled as of now - Donniece Smith

While this month’s topic is celebration. I have to admit that I am not truly at the point of celebration with this project just yet. I am working towards an exhibit that is scheduled for Friday, April 13th. You know what that means. I am under the stress of a deadline. ( of course all of you are invited and more details are to come )

As I reviewed the threads I have to backtrack this week and look again at the Thread of Surrender. I am surrendering to time and to the flow of getting it all done the way I see it in my mind. And the way I see it in my mind will likely not be the way it turns out. In my head I know that surrendering to the flow and having as much fun as possible will result in an event that exceeds what I can imagine. And if I hold too tight with stress and obligation I will sabotage my best intentions. And so it is I wrote the following verses to soothe my soul. I hope these words will help you too in such situations.

Celebration takes ordinary things and puts them into
an unusual context for a short intense time.*

When we think of celebration, what comes to mind for most of us are the celebrations that bring people together as a community, a culture, an organization, an institution, and a family. You know, the big ones like July 4th, religious holidays, weddings, anniversaries, and even the recent super bowl. And this week..what I now  call “the holiday of the wild heart” - Valentine’s Day!

It occurred to me that when celebrations involve the gathering of people, it is pretty safe to say the event involves food on every count. This week chocolate is in all its glory. Food is sustenance for people and celebrations are sustenance for communities. With regular traditions of honoring, our memory is fed to keep the celebrated story alive and vital.

That is the view of celebrations on the macrocosm level. For everything there is the other end of the spectrum. What is outside in the big world is also represented in our smaller personal level of the world. So I ask, besides your birthday, do you have your own personal celebrations that keep your own story alive? As I thought of this I couldn’t help but think of the word celebrity as a person who is celebrated.

“Celebration makes a small space and time in
which we are safe and supported.”*

Yes,it is time we become our own celebrity and celebrate ourselves more often. It is much like the idea of not saving the good china just for special occasions. Every day and every moment has some small element that can be celebrated. When times are tough it may only be that you are still breathing or that your car starts. Just start with where you are.

Sometime in 2010 I began a practice on my computer journal to give myself an A. This was inspired by reading the book, The Art of Possibility by Benjamin and Rosamund Zander. Over time I morphed the A into a gold star icon and realized how my heart enjoyed the child-like nature of the stars.

Giving gold stars is much like a gratitude journal but with a twist. In addition to things and circumstance I am grateful for in general, the gold star celebrates my active part in the cosmic and spiritual equation. Some things are so minute that it seems silly to mention them ( like giving myself a gold star for getting the car washed)
but if the action or result brought me joy, pleasure and fun then it deserves a gold star.

What happened in my experience is that the joys began to multiply. I sometimes think angels are putting things in my path for me to notice out of sheer recreation on their part. But where you direct your focus or your time, there is expansion in that direction. Creativity is about directing your energy towards the positive, the beautiful and what lights up your wild heart within any situation.

“When we exist at the core of ourselves, we’re departing from how we normally exist.  We’re bringing the heart, mind, body and soul into focus and being present with them in a particular way: doing it on purpose, doing it with unconditional acceptance, and doing it with deep attentiveness.  ~  Sue Monk Kidd

The Thirteenth Thread of Celebration is what is I am designating as the Golden Thread. It is the thread that makes living a creative life joyful and worth the effort. The art of celebration brings the rewards of golden moments, golden opportunities and a golden legacy born out of your true heart.

Celebrating you with a crown of stars,

Happy Wild Heart Day
Donniece Smith ~ Lulu Red

*  These two quotes are from the book
Learning by Heart by Corita Kent and Jan Steward

Happy Valentine's Day

Dear Wild Wild Hearts!,

It’s me, Lulu Red, popping in here this week to say it’s celebration time.  We are at the thirteenth thread of this year-long journey exploring the expression of our wild hearts.  Can you believe it?

We have moved back and forth amongst the threads of — mystery, possibility, desire, creativity, action, devotion, surrender, change, integrity, laughter, beauty, and harmony to weave them all together into our unique way of being in the world.

Perhaps we have remained stuck in one of these threads far too long before moving on. Or pehaps we have skipped over a thread or two that is uncomfortable for us.  Whatever your unique journey and personal mapping has been, it is time to celebrate where you are at this moment.

All of these threads culminate with one purpose— that we shine our light on the world like a candle!   Yes, that is why wick is the final and thirteenth thread.

A wick is a thread that is absorbent and acts as a transport system of fuel that burns to produce fire and light.  The wick resides at the core of a candle and transforms an otherwise useless mass of wax into flaming beauty and light.  Isn’t that the same thing our soul does within our body?

Likewise, we deliver light to the world when we stand in our core and deliver our unique self expression.  We need to celebrate this aspect of ourselves in small and big ways.   Don’t underestimate the power of what lights you up!

If you are game, make a list of at least 25 things that bring you joy and do them on a regular basis so that you are fueled up to bring joy to others. For what is great about sharing your light is that by giving your flame to others, your flame in not diminished. Nothing about lighting another candle takes away light from the original candle. But what folks don’t say is that the candle burns from fuel that must be replenished.  For us, that means being responsible for the self-care, joy, fun, rest, pleasure and spiritual food that fuels our heart-centered fire.

Do you know why there are thirteen threads in this series?  Some have asked why that is. Well, the number thirteen is the pattern of the seasons and the movement of creation and change. Seasons rotate in thirteen week cycles and there are thirteen moon cycles in a year. As such, thirteen is associated in myth, archetype and legend with the feminine creative aspects of the natural world. So the idea of thirteen is borrowed here and applied to our inner creative world.

May you find the natural rotation of your own creative flow, the fire that ignites your heart and weave all of the threads of your beautiful life together with love.

But we’re not done yet!   Stay tuned!

love and more love, Lulu Red

Michele Lange ~ Soap Artist

Art enables us to find ourselves and lose ourselves at the same time. ~ Thomas Merton

Every waking moment we are moving towards that which brings harmony in our lives. When there is harmony we perceive that –at least in our little corner – everything is right with the world. And while we are on this pursuit, we often find surprises that wake us up to what we love. When that little feeling of curiosity leads us to our passion, it can be like Alice in Wonderland going down the rabbit hole. A whole new world opens up for us that changes everything.

A current popular way of saying this is that we become a …nerd. I think of nerds as those of us that go deep and dig all the way to the bottom just because we find life fascinating. We love to find the information that is more than most people ever want to know about the topic of our passion.

But what happens is that the world becomes a better place by the ideas, products, services, and art that result from people applying their passion to make the world a better place. It is the essence of creativity! I am delighted to introduce you to Michele Lang, who found this passion in soap making around four years ago. Since then, her life, her family’s life, and her house have never been the same. What began as a household experiment to make a little bit of soap has turned into the cottage industry, Tierra Verde Handmade Soaps ~ Earthly Delights for your Skin.

Michele knew that handmade soap was more gentle on the skin than commercial soaps and looked into them as a way to help her daughter ease some skin sensitivities. A chance comment by Michele’s husband started it all when he suggested that she could make her own soap. What ensued was a research project, that to Michele’s surprise, captured her interest beyond her wildest expectations. With no chemistry background in school or any other reason she can think of, soap-making information captured her interest. Michele went down the soap-making rabbit hole and the experiments began.

Many messed up batches of soap later, Michele emerged from her experiments with something successful that made her happy. Much like food recipes, there are unlimited soap recipes and ways to make your own special versions. She came up with her base which she describes as a straight forward formula. The art form comes into play by finding the right harmonious combination of aesthetic ingredients. Her current signature soap is Orange Honey Drizzle with Oats. She describes it as “breakfast for your skin” with it’s exfoliating oats, moisturizing honey and heavenly orange scent.

Every ingredient is wholesome, natural and uncomplicated. With olive oil being the base of her cold process, all coloring is a result of natural ingredients. She uses no “synthetic fragrances” or “dyes” in Tierra Verde products. You will find these ingredients in other handmade soaps but Michele prefers to keep her product niche all natural. Any fragrance in her soaps comes from pure essential oils. Michele explained that glycerine, the natural by-product of soap making, is usually stripped out of commercial soaps. Glycerin is the very ingredient that nourishes your skin but it is removed.What you get from most all commercial soaps is detergent.

Shaving Soap - Tierra Verde Handmade Soaps

Michele’s philosphy in her own words:

I find myself intoxicated by the process of making soap. The ingredients alone are enough to turn the whole day around: lavender and rose petals, citrus and honey, therapeutic essential oils and pigments straight from the earth. The colors are palpable and rich – in ochre, russet and auburn – like the colors of a canyon wall.

I can’t help but make soap that cherishes these pure, natural ingredients. Soap that feels good and conditions the skin. Soap with elegant, clean lines in colors of the earth. Soap that offers a delicious aromatic experience, bred from nature itself. I make simple soap – but sometimes, simple really is best.

Michele said she used to deem handmade soap a luxury but now she champions it as a nourishing self-care necessity that is earth friendly. All soap is not created equal and Michele has made Teirra Verde soaps a functional creative art form for your senses.

Not only is Michele’s soap an art, so is her packaging. Created from all recycled/recyclable papers or reusable tins for the balms, Michele has created harmony with the earth, with our senses, and with her ingredients by pursuing her passion. The same principles that apply to a painting composition apply to Tierra Verde Handmade Soaps. Every ingredient is there for a reason, is authentic and results in a balanced composition that makes life a well-lived art.

Thank you Michele for following your wild heart
into the adventures of authentic soap making!

Find Tierra Verde  Handmade Soaps here:

Hodgepodge Design
2703 26th St # B  Lubbock, TX
Carries an assortment of the handcrafted
bar soaps and all natural hand balms

Lubbock’s Downtown Art Market
(once a month)Second Saturday of each month from 9 a.m.-3 p.m.
Full line and gift sets
1820 Buddy Holly Avenue

If you’re in the northern U.S
Soaps by Nature Handcrafted Skincare Emporium –
carries a variety of bar soaps, shave rounds and all natural hand balms
http://soapsbynature.com/

Or you may purchase product from the website :
$7.00 flat rate shipping is offered in an effort to allow you
to purchase several products at once.
http://www.tierraverdesoaps.com/

Blog http://www.tierraverdesoaps.blogspot.com/

Facebook
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Tierra-Verde-Handmade-Soaps/187811887935834?ref=tn_tnmn

Orange Honey Drizzle - Tierra Verde Handmade Soaps

Hand Balm - Tierra Verde Handmade Soaps

Tree Hugger - Tierra Verde Handmade Soaps

Sample Pack - Tierra Verde Handmade Soaps

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Spirit Line: A Navajo Weaving Path to Creative Renewal

A visit to the Wheelwright Museum of the American Indian in Santa Fe, New Mexico last year inspired me to learn more about a Native American weaving custom called a spirit line.

The exhibit Nizhoni Shima’: Master Weavers of the Toadlena/Two Grey Hills Region filled the museum gallery with beautiful rugs and tapestries woven by Navajo women of the Two Grey Hills region of New Mexico between 1910 and the present.

Each tapestry was of the highest quality woven by a master weaver of the highest skill yet all contained an obvious out-of-character thread. In the upper right corner, a strand of the central background color ran through the contrasting border and extended to the outer selvedge. If you were to only see one rug, you could easily assume the contrasting thread was a mistake in the weaving. This obvious thread is deliberately woven into the rug per tradition and is called a spirit line or weaver’s path.

The practice signifies the release of the weaver’s spirit from the weaving so that the artist’s creativity can escape the woven web to be renewed and freed to begin another weaving. The line can primarily be found on rugs that have borders in the design.  Borders were derived from oriental rug patterns and not an old custom of Navajo design.  According to the website. www.navajorugsblankets.com,  “Some weavers initially were suspicious about making a design element that appeared to be enclosing or confining. The spirit line countered the border’s negative symbolism.  It prevented the weaver’s spirit or creative energy from being trapped in the weaving and gave hope of even greater creative endeavors the next time.”

Carved Block Print ~ Donniece Smith

A Navajo woman told this story documented in the oral history project by Paul Begay, Voices for the Colorado Plateau, Southern Utah University:

So, my grandson,” my grandmother says, “When you look at a spider web somewhere, in your home or someplace, look closely, and if you don’t see a spider there, you’ll see a line, the direction that the spider departed. That’s why when you make a rug, in one corner of the weave, there should be a line that comes out to the end of the rug, we call the spirit line. When you leave this line, that means that you will leave your mind open to think of new designs. If you don’t leave the line in there, you close the rug, then you’ve enclosed your mind, and you will have a hard time thinking of new designs. New techniques, new designs will be gone. And so this is the reason why the line should be there. So it is the Spider Woman, this is the spiritual woman that we learned how to weave from.”

Native American weavers of the past probably felt the same conflict as artists do today when the time comes to sell one’s creative work. Three or more years of a family’s life and energy were required to complete a woven rug. In addition to weaving, the creative and commercial commitment included tending the sheep to provide the wool along with spinning the wool into yarn.

The spirit line custom is a significant reminder that upon completion “closure” is not the same thing as “enclosure.” When we consciously create a path outward to the world, we are better able to offer our work to others as a gift, trade or sale. We open the path for our next project to unfold with greater ease.

My Garage Door Resident Fall of 2010 - Magnificent Architecture!

Consider incorporating your own symbolic spirit line as a bridge of movement between commerce and creativity, daily tasks and dreams, hopes and heartaches. It could be your signature, a special seal or symbol you apply or simply a prayer of offering as you conclude the project.  By caring for our spirit, we create movement towards the future with greater flow of creativity, innovation, and freedom.  In doing so, we create harmony on many levels.

Wishing you a Happy New Year! May you Weave your Grandest Desires into Being in 2012 ~  The Chinese Year of the Dragon!

Donniece Smith ~ Lulu Red

There is geometry in the humming of the strings, there is music in the spacing of the spheres.”   ~ Pythagoras

My grandfather pictured with his harmonicas

It is the beginning of a new year and I am amazed that we have come to the twelfth thread in my series on creativity. The thirteenth thread, yet to come, is all about celebration. So in actuality, this thread is where the end of the project or process comes together as a whole. Wholeness is also harmony and the result of weaving all of the threads together in completion.

There are many examples of harmony and each has its own theories attached.  Color theory, music theory, the golden mean ratio, fibonacci numbers, the physics of waves and many more.  The many definitions of harmony range from simply being a pleasing relationship to very complicated physics.  But when I was thinking of an example of harmony the harmonica came to my mind.

I have three harmonicas that belonged to my grandfather and I pulled them out to inspect them. While I don’t know much about the harmonica, I have learned that it is a reed instrument and requires the use of air from a player to make a sound. What makes the harmonica unique is that sound can be produced by blowing air both into the instrument or drawing air out. Either way, the structure of the harmonica is what must be there for the air to make the sound. And the structure of the harmonica determines what key it is built to produce.  I realized the three harmnonicas were each a different key of C, A and G.

As I have been creating this writing project ( yes it will be  a year this week on my birthday the 14th!  Today is the 52nd post. ) I have been amazed at what has come to be with the power of this self-created structure. My writing, or the air in which I have infused into the structure, has brought music to my life and I hope yours as well. Sometimes there has been great harmony in days of writing and creating art.  Some days have have not been so productive but most of all the structure has held the space and intention.  This structure has become the house, or the instrument, that exudes music by way of tending to my creative spirit and doing the actions, practices and work. It seems contradictory to be talking about conclusions in January when everyone is focused on the new year.  But remember that endings and beginnings are two sides of the same coin.  You cannot have one without the other.

So as you begin the new year, what loose ends do you need to tie up?  What thread tails of starting and stopping need to be cleaned up and woven into a clean finish? What would bring harmony to your life and creative spirit as you end and begin?  What life choices will you select that work together as beautiful music?

This isn’t the end here yet! We still have much to explore!
And new things will come after these thirteen months conclude!

Happy New Year!
Donniece Smith ~ Lulu Red