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Newsletter Spring:
April 2004
Dear
Friends, I hope this newsletter finds you happy and contented. My Painting II class at Manchester Community College this semester has opened me up to new painting vistas. I am having a blast and painting my brains out. One more month of classes and then I’m off for Las Vegas for I Can Do It!, a spiritual conference created by Louise L. Hay, author of You Can Heal Your Life. Las Vegas is an unlikely place one would go to find spiritual gurus and yet all my favorite authors will be there; Wayne Dyer, Caroline Myss, Christiane Northrup, Doreen Virtue, and many others. Las Vegas was never a choice destination but I will be there. Sometimes you just gotta let go of your self-imposed and grandiose judgments. Enough about me. Are you wanting to discover more about yourself? Included in this mailing is a flyer of Sunday Art Workshops. This month we have Scrunch It! painting, in May we have a mixed-media project, and in June we have a carpentry construction project. All of these experiences promise to deliver up some good ole down home digging into YOU to see what buried treasure you can find in there. I told you in the last issue that change was in the air. Well, my Greenwich studio will be demolished in 2-3 months. Expect a new location soon. And as you’ve noticed, workshop formats and experiences are changing too. I don’t want to lose momentum on Igniting Your Intention, so I have dedicated a whole page to it in this issue. I am still writing the book and plugging away on the proposal, which I hope to complete before my Las Vegas trip. What changes are in the air for you? Can you include Wisdom Painting and Art in your plans to help you navigate the ambiguity? Let us hear from you. If you haven’t already signed up, send me an email to be included to receive our biweekly Inspiring Image via email notification. Peace
in love and light, Mary Newsletter Spring: April
2004 Painting Class Teaches Life Skills: Making A Plan Okay,
more about me and maybe you can glean something here too? I am learning several
things from my painting class. One is the importance of planning ahead. Painting
in Wisdom Painting is helpful in that we do not pre-plan our painting outcome.
This helps us remain flexible to what life hands us. And it also opens us up to
the myriad of possibility that the universe has to offer. Unexpected results
surprise, delight, and uncover the invisible layers inside us. Painting
in the academic way teaches you to pre-plan the outcome of your painting. Hey, I
am learning that sometimes this is a good thing! It is helpful to have a plan in
place. Most of the time, the plan gets obliterated in the process. The painting
takes an unexpected turn and the final outcome is not going to match the vision
of your plan. Nonetheless, to have a goal in sight is sometimes the anchor in
the storm that holds us safely to our lifeline. Plans
also free up thinking space because the thinking has gone before the doing. This
opens space in which to create in an atmosphere liberated from worry about what
you are doing. If you stick to your plan, you need not think, you can just
follow through with action. Making
a plan also helps me in practicing patience. I just want to get on with it,
putting paint to paper to discover what is there. Forget taking time to plan and
taking more time to make experiments. Isn’t this wasting precious time? I need
to get going. I crack the whip and take action perhaps prematurely. On
the other side of the process is ME. By having to pre-plan my outcome, I have
discovered that I can actually have a choice as to what shows up. Fancy that!
There is still that fine line between hard-willed control and passion-willed
dream. Dancing that line is where the creative tension builds and offers new
possibility and hope for making the life of MY dreams and not someone else’s.
Painting possibilities; painting my plan. As long as I keep the Faith, my dream
life will emerge.L Wisdom Bit: Faith and The Triangle Faith.
What does faith mean to you? Keeping the faith, having faith, living by faith,
walking with faith. Do you have Faith? Faith in what? Faith in God, faith in
yourself, for what is faith reserved? Faith
has been a hot topic for me lately. My dream life all boils down to holding
Faith close to my heart and under my feet. What else will help blast through the
solid mountains that seem to appear before me? What else has the jagged edges
that can cut through anything in its path? In
painting class, the triangle has been my symbol of faith. The triangle
symbolizes both the mountain and the cutting edge sword. It also symbolizes
stability when stood on its base. This visual expression of the triangle also
symbolizes the male. An inverted triangle depicts the female. According to the
book, Dictionary of Symbols, by Jack Tresidder, the triangle is the “simplest
plane figure, based on the sacred number three, the triangle was the Pythagorean
sign for wisdom, linked with Athene. (Hey, I guess I could put a triangle in my
logo.) Male and female triangles meeting at their points signify sexual union”
or integration of female and male energies. This is what I am also learning. I
need to integrate my male aspect with my female aspect. I have spent so much
time healing my feminine that my male is suffering. Huge insight! Thus, another
reason the triangle has become so beloved to me. Most of my paintings in class
this semester are either shaped as triangles or have triangles painted on them.
Going in ….. to the triangle. Is it the
Bermuda Triangle? When I leave my beloved triangle, I will emerge as a new
person, one that perhpas no one will recognize, not even myself. History tells
us that few return from the Bermuda Triangle. Maybe they do, we just don’t
recognize them. L Igniting Facilitators Program Coming Up Still in the thinking stage is an Igniting Facilitators Program possibly coming up for fall. Please let me know your interest in learning how you can facilitate the Igniting process to your own groups. Prerequisites will be to attend the Igniting series; after all, you need to show commitment and know the work in order to be able to teach the process. L Mary
Gravelle, Wisdom Painting and Art, phone: (860) 649-9701, email: mary@wisdompainting.com, website:
www.wisdompainting.com |
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Webmaster: mary@wisdompainting.com |