Some random thoughts

It is Mothers Day here in the UK where we honour our mothers and give them presents. But should we not honour our mothers every day for what they did for us and often still do for us every day? After all we wouldn’t be here without them.

A visit to a local park made me look at and think about boundaries. The pair of swans were not allowing the Canadian geese anywhere near them and shooed them off noisily whenever one was spotted. The male mallard ducks were pursuing the females although there were many more males than females. Signs of Spring and also signs of setting boundaries. Do we set boundaries around us and our properties and how do we do this?

The days are getting longer as dawn is much earlier and sunset later. It is also warmer although a bit damp at times. It is time to do some clearing out really but I am packing for a house move. I am not clearing out any more books or other items as I did this last time and now need some of the items I cleared out. I have done this with books and then had to go and find another copy. As a writer I need books for reference as well as for my personal spiritual work. Are you good at clearing out?

I have been ‘giving’ Reiki to a friend this week. We have had several short sessions and these have been quite powerful for both of us. It has made me think that I should work with Reiki much more. Do you do any kind of healing work and if so how do you feel about what you do?

I am looking forward to settling in my new home next month when I can get back to my art work as well as my writing. I have felt a great need to paint again especially since looking at some of the art work from previous years. Do you find looking at what you have done in the past triggers a need to do more of that kind of work?

So random thoughts and questions for you to ponder. The photo is of the swan taking off after the goose.

What drives us?

What drives us? What is it and does it change over the years. I have been thinking about this quite a lot recently. In my early years I loved music and learned to play the piano reaching diploma standard by the time I was sixteen. It was music and the love of it that drove me then. But a love of art also joined in, painting, drawing and just being outside doing this too. When my children were of school age I was working, going to art classes and studying part-time for a degree in science mainly geology. Then the love of the landscape took over together with the music and art. It was good to know how the landscapes I loved so much had formed and this drove me onwards to find out more.

Throughout my working life music had played an important part as well as painting and being outside in nature. But when I got the opportunity to retire, did these things change? I now had time to do other things but music and art were still there as a driving force but then I began to write.The writing has taken over from the painting but the music is still a part of my life even if I can not play the piano so much nowadays. But I can’t seem to stop writing. I research for historical writing and watch nature for my creative writing but everything I have done is a form of creativity.

So what do I call that urge to create, that urge that drives me on? I have no idea what to call it but it comes from deep down in my soul. Creating is a way of life, I need to do it and am compelled to do it. Some would say Spirit is driving me on? What would you call it? What drives you on each day and forward into the future? Has it changed over the years? Could you survive without this urge to do things? Even now as my physical body is failing me my brain is active and I keep writing as in this blog. Why do I do this I ask myself. I could sit back and relax and do nothing but that is not my way. I need to be active and if I can’t get outside in nature like I did when I was younger, than at least I can write and take photos. I think I would wither away without this in my life.

New Year Resolutions?

A new calendar year has dawned and many people make New Year Resolutions. I, myself, do not do this any more but I do make plans.

I look back at what I achieved during the last 12 months and decide how to move forward in the coming 12 months. Having just moved house, this includes practical plans such as buying items, disposing of other items and replacing some items for the house.

But most of my thoughts about the next 12 months revolve around my spiritual life.

What can I do to show others that there is a different way of living their lives?

What can I do to enhance my art and craft work?

There are many who say you should concentrate on the ‘now’ not the future’ but tomorrow’s ‘now’ is today’s ‘future’. I look at what I want to do and ‘see’ myself actually doing that thing. I concentrate on this vision of doing what I want to be doing and so far it seems to work. So I ‘see’ myself sitting in the conservatory painting landscapes in acrylics. I’ll let you know how this goes in the next few weeks. Below is an oil painting done a few years ago of a mountain landscape somewhere in the Lake District.

Conflicting thoughts

This blog is about walking the druid path so how does this heading fit in with that. So a bit of life history here first, I think. I have always painted having taken Art at school in the 1950’s. Since then I have gone to a few art groups where there has been some kind of teaching but I have always painted how and what I like. I started with oils in the late 1960’s when I had a boyfriend who was an art student. He taught me a lot about technique and still inspires me with his current works.

My main paintings are landscapes, mostly of mountains, lakes, the sea and sunsets. The mountains for me are spiritual places and in my paintings there is much that the ordinary observer will not see. Nearly all of my paintings of landscapes have ways of drawing you in to the picture.

Over the last 3 years I turned to pastels and tried painting flowers, and birds but in the flower pictures there are fairies and angels hidden away for the sharp eye to find. This is almost psychic art.

But where do the conflicting thoughts come in? Well, I have been offered an exhibition at the end of this month and discussion with friends at the art group about my paintings bring up this conflict. I paint for me alone, my thoughts and feelings are in my paintings. They are not painted in order to be sold as I know some people do this. They are painted for me to look at, to share in exhibitions if necessary and sold if people would like them but mainly they are for me and they express my spiritual essence.

I have been asked about commissions as this could bring in money; that awful word. That is not the issue for me. But commissions well, again this is not for me. Last year I knitted a giraffe pyjama case for my son and then everybody wanted one. I think I knitted about 16 in all but the requests to knit them, put on the pressure and eventually took away the pleasure of the knitting. So I will not take any more orders or commissions.

It took me time over this last weekend to think all this out and decide exactly where I stood regarding my paintings. I think what really brought it home to me was a memory of a painting I did around 1973. It was of the Snowdonia mountains, in reds and purples and when I was painting it, a figure appeared in the sky. My current art tutor asked me what I was going to do with the figure. He advised me to either blot it out or make it stand out. I did the latter. This painting was named ‘Sanctuary’ and I refused to sell it. It meant a lot ot me as there was quite a bit of turmoil going on in my life and the mountains have always been a sanctuary for me.

However, in the 1980’s I had an exhibition in Beddgelert in Snowdonia and a woman came every day to look at this painting and wanted to buy it. I refused day after day until the last day of the exhibition, then I asked her why she wanted this particular painting so much. When she told what it meant to her than I reduced the price and sold it to her.

I feel this is where this blog stops. What do you think? Does my attitude reflect my spiritual druid path?

Here is an old photo of that painting.