Every Awesome Woman was Once a Little Girl

At the Art and Activism Symposium I attended recently, I met a wonderful musician called Jana Stanfield. Jana creates music that reminds us we can make a difference, and she kindly gave me permission to use her song "Every Awesome Woman" with my photographs of the beautiful young ladies at Woza Moya.  Music really does have a way of touching our hearts.  Enjoy listening and watching.

Living Our Passion

I've returned from attending and teaching at the Women's Voices Symposium at Skidmore College, Saratoga Springs, NY, and have been processing and integrating everything I experienced in the three days of deep exploration.  I attended workshops with wonderful teachers: Suzi Banks Baum, Jana Stanfield, Heather Summerhayes Cariou, Melissa Harris and June Gould.  I taught two workshops "Images, Insights and Illumination: The Transformative Power of Images" and a Photography and Photo App Exploration art class.  There was amazing music made including performances by Joanne Shenandoah and Kathy Sherman.  Every moment was filled with something inspiring, and I've come home ready to create!

I've been wondering how to put into words everything I experienced, and today this quote by Catherine of Siena found me, and expressed perfectly the feeling I have after these three days of connecting with others who are intent on using their art medium to make a difference in the world.  Thank you to Jan Phillips for making this event happen!  If you want a glimpse into what we experienced, the joy, the fun, the learning, watch this video.

The Power of Images

I'm collecting together images and insights to share with the audience in a presentation at Women's Voices for (a) Change next weekend.  My presentation will focus on the power of images to connect us to our authentic selves, and I'll be sharing the SoulCollage® process.  I am honored to be teaching along with a list of teachers I admire and respect, which include Jan Phillips, Melissa Harris, Inocente Izucar, Suzi Banks Baum and others.

This promises to be a powerful weekend of connecting the dots between creativity, our potential, and our desire to be a force for good in the world.  I am so looking forward to learning from everyone attending.

Circling within the Archetypal Labyrinth Circle

This past weekend, Cat Caracelo presented a Mythos Journey workshop in my Studio. It was a magical time of myth and personal story, of journeying and connecting, of creating and circling, made even more magical by holding our sharing circle outside in the center of the labyrinth - our smaller circle being held within the larger archetypal circle of the labyrinth

Sitting in the labyrinth, rather than walking the labyrinth was a very different feeling, although I experienced the same feeling of sacred connection that I feel when I walk my labyrinth.  I encouraged everyone to take off their shoes so they could feel the earth beneath their feet.  For me, being connected to the earth, surrounded by trees with a slight breeze touching my skin, made me feel part of a larger story. 

I have a quote by Thich Nhat Hanh on the bench next to my labyrinth which says: "Walk as if you are kissing the Earth with your feet."  I like to walk the labyrinth with this in mind, and sitting with my feet touching the ground during our circle time, felt very much like being blessed by the Earth.

Interview with Christine Valters Paintner, author of "Eyes of the Heart"

I discovered Christine's website, Abbey of the Arts - Transformative Living through Contemplative and Expressive Arts, some years ago.  I loved the ideas Christine offered, and have in my library four of her books, in addition to Eyes of the Heart:

The Artist's Rule: Nurturing Your Creative Soul with Monastic Wisdom

Awakening the Creative Spirit: Bringing the Arts to Spiritual Direction

Water, Wind, Earth and Fire: The Christian Practice of Praying with the Elements   and

Lectio Divino - The Sacred Art: Transforming Words and Images into Heart-Centered Prayer.

I refer to them often, and am nourished by Christine's words and practices which connect creativity with a deeper spirituality.

So, I was really excited to hear that Christine was publishing a book on using photography as a contemplative practice (and even more excited when I received the book and found that she had recommended my book The Creative Photographer in the resource section!)  There are a wealth of meaningful practices in the book which will deepen your photography practice.  To get a sense of the richness offered by Christine's book, Eyes of the Heart,  click on the "Look inside" tab on the amazon page to the book.

Even more exciting was the opportunity to ask Christine a couple of questions about her book to share on my blog.  Hope you enjoy our discussion!

Catherine:   Christine, I love your idea of seeing with the "eyes of the heart" and the heart being the source of true vision.   In the fast-paced world we live in, it can sometimes be hard to slow down long enough to see fully in this way.  What have you found helps you slow down so that you open to seeing the world through the "eyes of the heart", both when you have a camera in your hand and when you are out in the world?

Christine:  The most important tool I have to slow myself down is my breath.  Breathing slowly and deeply changes my body, so that everything relaxes.  Breath for me, is the anchor of awareness in my contemplative prayer, calling me back to this moment again and again.  I find myself often out in the world returning to my breath as a way of steadying myself and my attention right here and now.

Catherine:   Attention to breath, yes, thank you.  That is something we can all do, we just have to remember.  I also love that the Latin word "spirare" from which our words "inspire" and "inspiration" originate means "to breathe"!  There is a connection between our breath and allowing the world around us to speak to us more deeply.

What is your favorite exercise in the book?  Is there a particular photography practice you engage in when you need a way to see clearly again, perhaps after a period of intense work, or after a painful or difficult experience?

Christine:  My favorite is probably the invitation to take fifty images of one thing (p. 24) as a means of exploring a subject deeply.  I love allowing the camera lens to be an invitation back into intimacy with the world.  After working intensely or experiencing something challenging, that is often the issue for me – feeling at a distance from everything.  Intimacy invites me to remember the sacred presence pulsing through all things, people, and places.

Catherine:  I agree that is a very powerful exercise.  I also love that the camera allows us to remember special places and times.  We can remember the green of summer in the darkness of winter.  It is a way that we can stay connected to something meaningful.  I so enjoyed your chapter on the symbolic significance of color and in particular, your discussion of Hildegard of Bingen's use of the color green to represent life force. In your recent moves from the USA to Vienna and now to Ireland, have you noticed that different colors are dominant in different countries?  What is your favorite color and what is the symbolic significance of this color for you?

Christine:  That is a beautiful way to put it Catherine.  There is a sense of re-membering or making whole again in our memories, bring something present. I love your question.  In Vienna, the color that often called to me most strongly was white.  I am entranced by the hundreds of marble statues scattered throughout the city.  I have often imagined one day telling the story of them – angels and mythical creatures, men and women, all carved out of white stone.  They reveal a freshness of vision to me, even as I view them again and again.

In Ireland, green is definitely the dominant color.  It rains pretty heavily on the west coast where I live, which leaves a wondrous verdancy in its wake and always brings me back to Hildegard’s vision.  But another color I am discovering is the golden hue of light, when the sun emerges after a heavy rain.  It seems to illuminate everything – dancing off the river and bay beyond, shimmering across wet sidewalks.  It speaks to my heart of those ancient monks who created illuminated manuscripts with gold leaf applied as a way of representing this divine light in the world.

Catherine:  I've never thought about illuminated letters in this way - that they were a way to represent divine light.  Thank you for this insight!  

How did you first discover photography as a path of contemplation?  Do you always use photography in this way?

Christine:  I have engaged in photography since I was a child, as my grandparents owned a chain of photographic supply stores across the Northeast United States and so I always had a camera in hand.  However, it wasn’t until my own contemplative life deepened in my twenties, when I discovered the Benedictine tradition, that I began to discover photography as a means to slow down and see more deeply.

Catherine:  What other creative ways of being in the world do you enjoy?  If you had to choose to express yourself in words or images, which medium would you choose, and why?

Christine:  I do consider myself, first and foremost, a writer.  It is the very first medium I can remember falling in love with, and I have always felt called to express myself in words.  I discover new things through writing.  However, one of the great joys of starting a blog several years ago, was discovering how photography helped to illuminate my words in different ways than written language alone.  I remembered those ancient monks again, illuminating their sacred texts with images, because they knew that images and words together could be more powerful than just words alone.  So I love the dance my writing and photography do together, each supporting the other in expression.

Catherine:  I love the idea of words and images "illuminating" each other!  Christine, thank you so much for sharing your thoughts with us.  I know Eyes of the Heart is a book I will return to again and again for inspiration.

Art & Soul 2013

I've just returned from Virginia Beach where I taught four workshops at Art & Soul, as well as making time to take a workshop myself.  What a fabulous time of inspiration, community and creativity!

The first class I taught was entitled "The Secret Life of Trees".  It was a mixed media class where I shared lots of techniques that can be used in many ways, but the focus in the class was to leave at the end of the day with a completed journal.  Everyone started off with a kit that I had put together.

Kit for Secret Life of Trees class

Even though everyone started off with the same kit, the books they created were all unique and amazingly beautiful.  I was particularly touched by the story told by Brigitte Chavaillaz who told me that it is a custom in her family to plant a tree when a new soul is born into the family.  Brigitte brought photographs of the tree she and her husband had planted for their new grandchild, and incorporated these into her book.  What a beautiful custom, which reminds me of the saying: "One generation plants the trees, and another gets the shade".

"The Secret Life of Trees" Journal

My talented class participants!

I also had fun teaching three other classes where we made books, used our cameras to photograph close-up, made color journals and learned new ways to use the iPad as a photo art studio.  What a great week!

I have to also share with you the project I created in the class I took with Stephanie Rubiano.  I've taken two previous classes with Stephanie, as I love her work and the way she teaches.  I created an Encaustic Light House in the class!

Encaustic Light Houses made in Stephanie Rubiano's class

Stephanie shares some of her student work from one of her classes on her blog if you want to see more of these cute little houses!I also bought one of Stephanie's new iPad covers at Art & Soul Vendor night (the place to be if you want to see wonderful art and antique ephemera together in one place).

Soul Whisperings

I was excited to be a guest on Janet Conner's Soul-Directed Life Radio program on Unity Online Radio yesterday, February 14th.  One of the questions that Janet asks all her guests is what words of wisdom they would like to leave with the listeners on how to can create their own soul-directed life.  My soul-directed life fell into place once I began living my joy, once I began choosing to spend time doing things that had meaning for me. But how to translate this into "words of wisdom"?

Then I remembered my "Soul Whisperings" which I had translated into images and words to remind me of the flow of my creative process. I thought these might help others with their creative process and so this is what I shared as my "words of wisdom".

The first word is BREATHE.  This is to remind me to slow down and become conscious of my body and to thank it for how it supports me in doing the work I love in the world.

The second is LISTEN.  This reminds me to make time to listen for guidance by making time to meditate and to sit quietly and allow a sense of spaciousness to surround me.

Next is TRUST.  This is probably the most important word, as it is a reminder that I am not in the creative process alone.  I don't have to force anything, and I can relax when life takes a detour I wasn't expecting, as TRUST reminds me that all is happening perfectly.

These three words are essentially about how to show up in my studio.  Then when I am creating, I need to remember that I am merely a conduit and I have a partner in the unseen realm, so I do not create on my own, I CO-CREATE.

And finally, I need to SHARE, as creating, whatever form this might take in your life: cooking, bringing up a family or gardening (all life is an opportunity to be creative), is about sharing a part of you, and when you share from the heart you never know when you might be giving someone exactly what they need at that moment in their lives.  So don't judge your creations as not good enough or not big enough.  Everything you create makes a difference.