I Know

“The magic of life hides in the dusty corners of chaos and you must sweep out the cobwebs of confusion before you reach the calm & euphorically moments; your soul believed, existed all along.” ― Nikki Rowe

Your heart/soul/spirit knows things that your conscious mind may not.  You may have moments that you call "epiphanies, ah ha moments...etc..." but you may not have named it as it is and let it leave you in wonder about the thought, but not where it came from.  It is your sixth sense, the gift of knowing something truly impacting, and women are truly gifted in this.  it is access to meaning beyond connotation and denotation.  It is Soul Speak!

We do not have to meditate to have this.  We do not need to be openly psychic to know this.  You do not need to be a Medicine person, a miracle worker, a palm reader, a visionary.  We all have access to it.  We just need to watch for it to show up and develop that kind of listening.

Be open to new ways of thinking, of knowing.  Trust in that inner voice that speaks positives to you and squelch the one voice that is your Lizard Brain/Ego that speaks negative to you.  Wisdom of Soul Speak is ancient and trustworthy.  Perhaps we have squelched all abilities of the Sixth Sense.  Pay attention to your body that will send you messages and lessons of wisdom.  When you listen to other people, there will be almost a clanging of a bell as truth of it enters you.  When you walk in nature, listen to the forest.  It, too, will send you Soul Speak.  When you see an animal that draws you, seems to be atypical and seems to speak to you.  Do not ohhh and ahhh... simply listen to its message speak to your soul and note how your soul speaks back.  

Soul Speak is guidance and it carries many metaphors and symbols that we should know.  Wisdom is within you and without you, consciously, trying to logically sort it all out.  

It comes from the real you. Not your personality, not your stories, not the culmination of your experiences.  It has nothing to do with facts or experiences or education.  It is soul work.  It is knowing without thinking.  It may be that moment of déjà vu.  It is what you know when nothing seems rational.  It is a thought that pops in your head, in a loving positive way.  Do not expect angels of a vision, although this may happen to some.  Simply know the times you have KNOWN before.  Some may say it is an experience from another lifetime.  But, it is not that.  I believe it is ancient knowledge connections to something older than this world... your soul communing with your own higher soul. 

Cultivated this knowing.  Do activities that encourage this kind of listening that it takes to truly hear.  Art is my way of listening.  For some, it is meditation, listening to classical music, walking in a forest, working on a crocheted piece, etc.  Look beyond your habits and the noise we fill our lives with.  In the silence, be struck with awe moments. 

What do you know?  When was the last time you had a Soul Speak moment?  Can you drop the chatter and clatter of the world and find a way to listen to your own soul?



©Carol Desjarlais 4.20.19
 

Spring Arrives As We Move Into Winter

“Growing into your future with health and grace and beauty doesn’t have to take all your time. It rather requires a dedication to caring for yourself as if you were rare and precious, which you are, and regarding all life around you as equally so, which it is."― Victoria Moran

What do you and I want to do for the rest of our lives?  I spent my whole career being THAT.  Afterwards, I was a writer and I was that.  Then I was/am a painter and then I was becoming what I am today.  Somehow I have set goals, I guess, or found an interest and then became that.  It was how I was defining myself.  But, when I strip away all the trappings, who am I and why I am I still here, and how do I make the rest of it have some kind of meaning?  A purpose, a reason to be, I am sure, and then being that as long as I can and then changing it up when I cannot be that any more.  Don't wait for others to define us.  They haven't a clue.

What, now, gives you a sense of purpose?  What gives you joy, peace, tenderness, love?  We are all unique and our uniqueness will give us unique things of joy, peace, tenderness, love.  What do you wish to expend energy on?  What keeps you here?  Consider this deeply.  Make a list of things that give you purpose.  

I love my art practice because it is there I become whole.  It is there I become soul.  It is there that I feel I am worthy of much and deserving of much.  It is there where life does not make demands of me in any way.  It is there the world, my world, feels whole.  It is there that I strengthen myself and my resolve to just make it through some days.

I have let go of many things, even precious things, to have this peace I so long for, to gain new purpose when an older purpose runs dry, and to stop chaos and drama and things that make me restless or weary. Sometimes purpose finds me in that, I think up something new to do for each day, be it a new recipe, a new way of arting, a new job to complete.  

I think it takes some time just being quiet, to stop and be still, for me to reaffirm my purpose.  The whole time I am arting, it is, in that stillness that healing from life happens.  It is there that I accept my limitations, and experiment in ways to get around the arting difficulties I am having.  It, then, is how I can learn, that stillness can help me in other areas of my life, especially in knowing purpose(s).  

While engrossed, lost, sunk into the beauty of some type of meditation that comes over me, in arting, I connect to myself beyond this earthy sphere and connect to my soul/spirit, through Muse, and I explore, deeply, the rhythms of my own truths.  It fills and fulfills me.  It gives me a deepest meaning.  It, then, urges me to continue on, picking up a brush, day after day, touching the keys of my expression and typing what I am thinking about, and cause poetry to happen in color, shapes and words.  Be it ever so humble, it is a purpose.

©Carol Desjarlais 4.19.19

Aging and the Spring-Soul

"If you are pining for youth I think it produces a stereotypical old man because you only live in memory, you live in a place that doesn’t exist. Aging is an extraordinary process where you become the person you always should have been.” David Bowie

Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter, are the stages of all things.  And, yes, some seasons overlap in many ways.  We can, at once, be oldly young and youngly old.  As well, things from each season add into each other season.  Being 'old' does not always mean in chronological series.  As we age, we become more and more unique individuals.  I love to see unique older women.  I want to be a unique older woman.  I think trying to stay the same, oldens one.  I am thinking of the women in cults/groups/religions who are commanded to wear their very hair exactly the same, their dress just the same.  I think that this makes comparisons even more stark.  Yes, slipping from one season surely means we are slipping into the next.  But what we gather along the way is what counts.

I want to age wildly.  Sometimes I forget this and tend to slip into a typical-looking, acting, woman.  I have always been a nonconformist, at heart, so I choose to be that now.  I know emotions plays a huge part in this.  I want to have vitality, passions, a good-thinking brain, and, I wish, a working body.  Sometimes there are trade-offs, I have discovered.  We do live longer than our ancient ancestors.  But, so we live well?  As the baby boomers age, we are realizing that there are more age-related problems that are coming to the forefront.  And, yes, attitude has a great deal to do with it all too.  It does not mean we will live longer, necessarily, it means we will enjoy living longer. 

I have noticed that my passion for creativity has quadrupled and I have time to be able to do art when and as I please.  Most of my portraits of women are young women.  My soul is involved in the creativity and perhaps it expresses itself.  And love has changed; I mean the connotation of love.  I love more deeply.  I have moved off and away from those who do not love me back.  I am more content than I have ever been.  I am more compassionate for myself.  I know that my art practice every morning makes me think more deeply and thus I think I am healing much of what the Younger Me experienced.  I, also, deal with new issues more quickly.  And I crave the laughter that never changes from childhood.  

There are so many things that I have gained in this Springtime Soul of mine.  I am more connected to others in deeper ways.  I ride the waves of life more easily because there are no more minor emotional tsunamis.  

"The world is violent and mercurial - it will have its way with you.  We are saved only by love - love for each other and the love that we pour into the art we feel compelled to share:  being a parent; being a writer; being a painter; being a friend.  We live in a perpetually burning building, and what we must save from it, all the time, is love." - Tennessee Williams

©Carol Desjarlais 4.18.19

The Bibbity Bobbity Boo of the Young Woman Within Versus the Aging Body

Beautiful young people are accidents of nature, but beautiful old people are works of art. - Eleanor Roosevelt

Who is to say how an aging woman feels?  Who is to say how an aging woman should feel?  This blob of water, tissue, bones and skin is merely a vessel and mine is a cracked old thing.  It does not define who I am.  It never would be possible to look at me and say "This is who she is!" 

My outside body ages without my permission or control.  (Get thee hence you purveyors of Fountains of Youth and your money-making deals.)  Genetics rules how we age, as does external factors throughout our life, and , also, how we have lived has a role to play.  Did you know that scientists found out that a woman's breast tissue is actually some of the oldest tissue in our bodies?  It is older than our chronological age by years.  I found this fascinating. 

To me, aging seemed to happen in jumps and starts. The only way I should have done this aging thing is to accept it when I noticed it.  *I didn't.  It was like someone went 'bibbipty bobbity boo' and suddenly I leapt to an older body age.  Suddenly, here I am, with old woman things happening and it, in no way, reflects the girl within. 

Perhaps you have had the same mind-blowing realizations and have become paralyzed with fear, betimes, and you set your mindset to denial, but you found the body had other ideas and no matter how we try to prevent it, you aged.  Perhaps you embraced it when it came to notice and you changed your idea of your aging body with you expectations and capabilities.  I have recently been told by a doctor to 'act my age'.  That struck me deeply.  How often, in my life, have I heard that?  I am having to admit, accept, that I cannot be the whirlwind of multitasking.  I cannot go like a dust devil like I used to.  The mind is willing.  The body is not.  How do I give a stern talking to to the young woman within and surrender to this old body?

It is said that those who were the best at being young will have the worst of it when they age; the worst of accepting it, surrendering to it, exploring it, and honoring it.  Those more focused on body-beautiful will have the hardest time being the age-appropriate woman full of dignity and grace.  Some lose their confidence as they age.  Some hold on to that youthful woman, within, tooth and nail.  Some find ways to work around aging.  Some fall into depression and anxiety.  I have had my moments of each.

And then there are the clichés.  I am not any of those clichés.  I realize I have more experiential maturity but I do not feel all that wise.  And I am grateful, sometimes, for having lived this long when others have not.  I know I tire more easily no matter what job lists I have for the day.  I have been learning to give myself permission to be tired.  I have learned the joy of an afternoon nap in the middle of some job list I had made for the day.  I cannot say I am embracing 'The Years', I am succumbing to it, more like. 

One thing I have noticed is that I am learning to enjoy things more, sometimes as if this possible last time.  I think this began when I lost my soul mate.  It might seem maudlin to others, but I do not want to live as long as my maternal ancestors.  I do not want to live long enough to lose what mind I have left.  I do not want to live long enough for body pain to be my burden to bear.  I am trying to have the mindset that this is all I have so enjoy it.  I am trying to live life where the mind stays that youthful 34 year old yet understands her limitations.  I am living life trying things one last time to see if I can do it (think diving into the river last year and meeting my limitations). I, absolutely, am learning to enjoy the young woman within and do things that make her satisfied with how I am living.

©Carol Desjarlais 4.17.19