The funny thing about asking for a Grace storm is that it doesn't generally look like you think it's going to. You can claim, pray, beg and intend Grace but what you don't realize is that Grace knows better than you do what is really best. Ramakrishna said "The winds of Grace are always blowing, but you have to raise the sail." So you raise the sail and find yourself enduring gale force winds in the middle of a shit hurricane.

My mom always said, "This is building character." and "It'll get worse before it gets better." I think that was her way of saying it's all Red. It's all getting you where you're going. And you'll be better off when you get there.

The past 48 hours have been the hardest of my entire life I think. The good thing is that words flowed out of me onto paper, the paint flowed fluently from my brushes. Why is it that creativity comes out of me when I am hurting more easily than when I'm happy? Maybe I've got it backward, maybe the hurt comes because the creativity has built up inside and not been outlet. Maybe it pushes itself out in a cathartic way because I tend to ignore my need for it when there are other pleasant distractions going on.

Here's the deal sweethearts: I must apply myself with utmost consistency and discipline to getting on with life. This is going to take hard work and fortitude and a deep connection to the voice of my soul. I think the only way I'm going to make it through is paradoxically to apply myself just as hard to the art. I must paint and write and craft and sing and dance even when I am not inspired to. Especially when I am not inspired to.

I thought I would share what came out of me today:

She flew. Rising higher and higher like she had in so many childhood nightmares.
The tethers that had bound her to the ground trailed behind her, their bloody roots glistening.
She had not known freedom would feel like this. Like tumbling ever onward into clouds filled with thunderous tears.

There was no stopping the onward rush into terror. And yet, there was a pause underneath the rush of wind in her ears.  And behind the crash of lightening ahead. She heard it.

Ka-thump. pause pause pause. Ka-thump. pause pause pause. Ka-thump Ka-thump

She was afraid. Ka-thump. She was lonely. Ka-thump. She was out of control. Ka-thump. She was lost. Ka-thump. She was so very sad. Ka-thump Ka-thump.

And on into the darkness Ka-thump she tumbled Ka-thump falling ever upward Ka-thump into the unknown Ka-thump. There was no rhyme Ka-thump no path to follow Ka-thump no knowing what lay at the end of the rainy cold freefall Ka-thump Ka-thump Ka-thump

There was Ka-thump only the soft Ka-thump quiet beating Ka-thump of her warm Ka-thump, living, Ka-thump glowing, Ka-thump Red Ka-thump heart.

It's all Red sweethearts....everything.

In Grace,

Kell

Hello Sweet Hearts - It's been 2 months since I journaled here. Not my longest absence from the world of blogging, but too long an absence from my living my own life on purpose and with presence. I last wrote right after my first show and was riding a happy high. According to Gay Hendricks, in The Big Leap, this must have triggered a reaction to some unconscious upper limiting belief about my self because shortly thereafter I plunged headfirst into a time of chaos and darkness during which I couldn't tell my own head from my ass to find which way was up.

Hades caught me of course. He always does, every time the earth opens up beneath me and swallows me whole. But this morning he seems to be pushing me out of the womb of the earth and saying it's not time to be here anymore.

If every dark cloud has a silver lining, the most recent one is made up of the people in my life who have shown up to love me through this. And as usual, goddess speaks loudly through the mouths of those around me, so I am blessed to be surrounded by such deep vessels. So, if I may take a moment I'd like to speak in humbled and slightly embarrassed gratitude to those who so eloquently spit my own words back into my face when I needed them.

JKW I would go through hell 2 1/2 more times if it meant I got to meet you all over again. You once toasted to the darkness and told me I would get through this. More recently you told me stop bitching, get my shit together and make a plan. (Well, not in those words, but that's how it translated.)

My sage of wisdom and laughter and the best boss in the whole world who will never ever read this blog....you quoted woo woo LOA new age verbage to me like you'd been raised the love-child of Louise Hay and Wayne Dyer. "You just need to get a vision of what you want your life to look like and then keep looking at it no matter what and see where it takes you."

Miss RS, the Deva of Drama, you put your hands on my shoulders, looked me in the eyeballs and quoted my own words back to me. "You are already a radiant goddess no matter what anyone else thinks or says. It's about your pleasure. Everything else will work itself out!"


KC - if I believed in soul mates, you would be her. We are K2 to the nth degree, every guy in a bar's wet dream, and two wild at heart peas in a pod wearing affirmation panties. I am never in a million years re-incarnating without you.


JDS - you will always be my best friend and greatest teacher. Always. No matter what.


Well, there. Sometimes you just have to say thank you.


All of this mostly to inform the universe that I know it's all been Red. To re-affirm and re-intention that a Deva's ultimate calling of making the world a more beautiful place for others to live in is only made possible by her finding and celebrating every ounce of pleasure and every drop of joy in each split second and inch of time and space.


Some famous lady is quoted as saying she wants to be such a woman that when she gets out of bed in the morning, the devil rolls his eyes and say's "Oh crap, she's awake." If I believed the devil was an actual entity and not a myth made up by patriarchal founders of a hundred religions who needed a source of evil in order to scare the masses into submission, he would not just be rolling his eyes, he would be standing in pile of his own shit.


Deva's back! Are you ready for a Grace storm?

Einstein Saturday

All the days leading up to the art show, I kept telling myself about all the stuff I would do once it was over. I kept remembering SARK saying not to get so wrapped up in your passion that you forget to live your life. My yard and garden had become a mess. None of my other projects were getting worked on. I was consumed with getting ready for the show.

So the show happened and was lovely and all that and I took a day off to recover and recuperate and made the decision to do another show in barely over a week. Which means I'm looking at another rapidly approaching deadline and a big push to concentrate on painting and getting ready. That's not a bad thing, right - I mean this is my favorite thing to do so it's not like it's hard. But, my other favorite thing to do is work in my yard and I had really been looking forward to a couple days of getting my feet dirty and finding my green thumbs.

Fortunately I remembered what Gay Hendricks had written in The Big Leap about living in "Einstein Time." Not the Newtonian version where time exists out there and is something that I am constantly fighting with and not having enough of.  But, rather, where time is completely relative to me and exists only where I am so in essence is being created by me. If time is created by me, then I will never run out of it and can simply decide to create more of it.

Armed with this vague and murky knowledge, I sat down and made a ginormous to do list this morning. It included all the gardening and all the cleaning and all the painting and prep work I needed to do in a perfect world where there is always more than enough time to do everything I want to do. This ended up being one of those epic lists that span 2 to 3 notebook pages. I generally only get to the end of the first page on any given day and end up remaking the list the next day.

But this time as I started out hauling mulch bags and cutting back grape vines and pulling weeds in the cool of the morning, I imagined time actually spiraling out of me as I worked. I thought about creating and birthing time itself and imagined myself in my own little bubble of minutes and hours that existed only for my use - completely separate from the clock the rest of the world was running on.

I probably don't have to tell you that I got almost to the end of my ginormous to do list. I worked barefoot in the yard for hours, set up and organized my studio for hours, got out the skill saw and cut up boards for hours, cleaned house for hours - and managed to stay hydrated and full of super foods all day long. I'm looking at this list now, with all its items scribbled out and I cannot believe I did all of these things today. In one day. In 16 hours.

I'm looking forward to another day of Einstein time tomorrow. And all week long as I prepare for this weekend's craft fair, and spend time in my garden, and clean my house and spend time with friends, and work out at the gym, and practice extreme self-care while working my ass off.

I wonder if Einstein ever wore Red?

If it's all Red, that means Time is too....

In Grace,

Kell

Kelli asked me on Facebook today how I was doing and I replied that I'm totally hagging it out. This is what a deva does when she is in total self-care mode and doesn't give a damn what she looks like. But hag is one of those cool words that I'm reclaiming. Yes, my hair is sticking out all over and I'm still in yesterday's underwear. But the original hag was not just the toothless, hunchback who could give you the evil eye or brew a potion to send you into endless sleep, (doesn't sound so bad today!) she was the wise woman who lived deep in the forest to be close to the trees, the herbs and the energy that made "magic" in people's lives. Much like "crone" I'm taking back my right to be a hag. Today I am resting and cleaning up after my big adventure, and yes....magically preparing for my next one!

I had a sign at Cracked Pots that didn't sell - but it got a lot of attention! "Future Crone" was noticed by every woman over the age of 40 who all chuckled and said "I'm already there!" Really? You're already the wisest woman you know? The woman who is so full of inner peace, power and joy that she no longer needs to care one whit what anyone else thinks. The silvery haired shaman, the medicine healer, the gatherer of herbs and the brewer of potions, the writer of "spells" that people could take home, repeat over and over and have come into being. The one people went to when they wanted answers. The one who looked them straight in the eye and told them exactly what they needed but didn't want to hear. She is where I want to go, but I hope I don't ever get there and go "Oh I can stop growing now, I've arrived!"

I understand that people just didn't get it. My Aunt Mary asked me to explain it to her and when I told her the original definition she asked "How come I didn't know that? How did it become just an ugly old woman who is doubled over in pain?" I replied that it was not by accident that she didn't know and that the reason is that if she knew she could become that, she would be powerful and dangerous and the patriarchy could not contain her! And so it is with words like hag and crone and witch and cunt. They've been made awful and dirty and something you would never want to be. I think Future Crone is going to get hung over the Red workbench in my studio.

Anyway, Cracked Pots....lovely Cracked Pots. My first ever show as a real live artist was such a delightful success!  Every one's first question is always "Did you make any money?" Like that's the only measure of success. Well, I'm happy to say that on May 1st, I started keeping track of business expenses and revenues. As of today, I have officially broken even and made my first $25 of actual profit! More importantly, being in that beautiful garden under a giant Maple tree and surrounded by people who create things was a thrill unto itself. I made friends, hundreds of contacts and can now say, officially, with proof, that I am an artist.

Just ask Jacqui and Meribeth who told me I inspire them. They brought their "Gratitude" sign back the next day so I could sign it for them. Ask the 15 year old girl who walked by my spot and then stopped and screamed, "Oh my god! I have to have that! Mom! You have no idea! I need that! I'm not leaving until I have that!" It was "The Journey is the Goal" and whatever it means to her today, I hope she never forgets it. Ask Greta who chatted with me for a half-hour both days. Who "got" every single sign on display and finally ended up with "Act As If" on an old drawer front. Ask Judy who bought "Grace." She has a kidney that a friend gave her 3 years ago. She named it Gracie. She fought back tears as she told me the story. She definitely knows what Grace is. There was the woman who bought "My Cup Runneth Over" for her mom. The story is that immediately after giving birth, her mom whispered those words to her tiny infant.

I love that "Jesus Saves, I Recycle" went home with 5 different people. That two different women bought "Follow Your Passions, They Know The Way" because they knew they needed to see it on a daily basis. I told them both, "They really do know the way; I know this because I'm standing here." I loved the couple that bought "Move Along, these are not the druids you're looking for" for their Star Wars shrine.

Can you tell I had fun? I even had fun staying up 'til 3 a.m. to make more signs to sell on Wednesday. Every sign I made in the wee hours sold and it was a lesson in how fast I can actually crank things out when I want to.

Mostly it was surreal - like I couldn't believe it was me standing there and people were saying how cool it was. I felt like Sally Field..."You like me, you really like me!" I don't know which is more delicious, that I sold 25 signs or that something that came out of me touched someone else' life. There's this whole other wow factor going on around that.

So, today I am hagging it out. Recovering from the lack of sleep and riding the high into tomorrow. I'm reveling in the shimmery energy and the realization that public success involves personal accountability. But, I don't have to know the next step or the how right now. My wild donkey is taking me to new exciting places. I'm just along for the ride.

It's A Rainbow of Reds!

In Grace,

Kell

Long Island Ice Tea and Birthday Cake

My life is perfect. Well, I spend a great deal of time worrying and whining about all the shit that isn't perfect in my life but right now, in this moment. This perfect moment - my life is perfect. I'm sitting on my back deck smack in between the two display sets for Cracked Pots I've been playing with. I'm drinking long island iced tea from a grown up sippy cup (both the liit mix and the cup were a gift for my 40th b'day - I use the cup all the time but am finally breaking out the mixer. I haven't had this in years, it reminds me of college and Thursday nights at Omar's.) There's a votive from my favorite candle makers - Tyler Candle Company - in Birthday Cake flavor. It's a little sickeningly sweet but it's diffusing nicely in the open air.

It's been a great working weekend. I've been kind of in awe of it actually. I actually gave up a family camping trip and turned down a few other choices in lieu of "working" like crazy to get ready for the show. I painted and lettered and painted some more. I slapped primer and gesso on cut up paper bags and then cut out squares and wrote stories for each one of the pieces going to the show with me. I cut a plastic grocery bag into ribbons and attached the story tags to each piece. I took new pictures of every single piece for the special orders album I'm making - did I mention that I painted and lettered and painted some more?

And all the while I kept thinking, "This is suppose to be hard, I'm suppose to be frantic!" And while there is a sense of urgency and deadliney-ness, I'm mostly in awe of the fact that this is my job. Doing what I love most in the whole world is my job.

And another awe inspiring thing is that when you're truly having fun, time doesn't always fly. It seems to come out of me, from that creative place that all things come from - that place where there is always enough of everything, including time. Because not only did I work, but I watched Bay play baseball. I shopped for a phone for my husband and a game system for Gav. I went out for drinks with Kelli last night, and today had nice talks on the studio couch with my sweetheart - and now here I am Relaxing and doing what people are suppose to do with a gorgeous summer evening.

In The Big Leap, Gay Hendricks talks about how time expands when we are in our Zone of Genius. I guess I experienced that this weekend and well, I keep saying it, but, wow - it was awesome. And I don't mean it in that 80's flippant valley girl sort of way.

You know all the times I've said that in order to do the thing, you have to be the person who does the thing? This weekend felt like that. Like I was not just doing stuff to get ready for this show so that I could be/do/have whatever it is I want. I felt like I was being the Graceful Deva. And it felt good.

So, whatever it is you want to be/do/have - start being it now. Right now. In this moment. This perfect beautiful gorgeous moment.  I'm raising my grown up sippy cup to your being-ness. Cheers to how Red it all is.

In Grace,

Kell

Summer is here!

27 days 'til Cracked Pots!

I was out of the loop and just realized today is the Summer Solstice! We're mid-way through Beltane and the glorious sun is shining!

The boys are out of school of course. Bailey Little Bear is off to his big New York/Wash DC trip tonight. Amazing how much effort and energy it takes to get one teenager packed and out the door. Gavin Little Bird goes to grandma and grandpa's this weekend and stays for a whole week. Meanwhile Relay for Life is this weekend and I have to get the giant red cardboard barn front out of my garage. Crazy week!

The lovely parts: First ballroom dance class is this Friday! Relay for Life is Saturday and after recovering on Sunday, there will be overlap in the boys trips and this house will be kid-less for almost 3 whole days! Whoot whoot!

I made my big organized flowchart for the day (like I talked about last time) and it has actually helped me stay on track most of the time. I learned another lesson this week that's even better: Relax, chill, make it fun, breathe, do it because you love it, not because you have to have 30 more signs done by 3 weeks from today.

A little bit ago I was in the studio adding hangers to some finished signs and I looked around for what to paint next. Everything that I'd been working on was done! I'd been having so much fun just having fun that I hadn't realized how much progress I was making. So I got out some more pre-cut boards, got out the sander and the primer and started 5 more stations from the beginning.

Ooh! I also talked a lovely young man in Boston named Lee today.  He's with Merchant Warehouse and I, Graceful Deva, can now officially process Visa & MC payments without going through Etsy or PayPal. I will be utilizing their very cheapest program which involves the use of one of those old-school cha-ching, cha-chunk card swiping imprint machines. Ha! The thought of this makes me laugh. It feels a little ridiculous. But hey, being ridiculous lets me know I'm alive.

So, now custom orders don't have to go through Etsy or pay by snail mail.

Have you liked Graceful Deva on Facebook? Please do! I update it separately from my personal page with just stuff that's happening in the studio. Plus, it will make me feel good!

Breathe! Enjoy! Don't beg for Grace, be Grace!

It's All Red.

Kell

Super Nanny to the rescue!

So, I've had a life epiphany. Just now, this morning as I sat in my sweaty gym clothes watching 3 back to back rerun episodes of Super Nanny. (Besides the fact that actually watching tv-as-it-happens instead of a DVR'd version brought home the fact that tv is a giant cluster-f@#$ing waste of time because of all the commercials.)

The other day on a sunny evening walk with my husband, I admitted to him that  I get frustrated with my Self for not knowing how to be organized. I have so many hats, so many roles to juggle that, while I manage to keep the balls in the air, I don't necessarily do any of them very well. There is just seemingly not enough time in the day to get some of everything in to the point that any of it feels like its being adequately taken care of - so I end up feeling fairly mediocre at everything. I have traditionally been a list maker - but my to-do lists always end being these impossible gigantic tools of frustration. I have tried day planners and calendars but I always end up scheduling everything down to the minute and things get messed up in the transitions. So, lately it seems like I have this giant cloud around my head filled with all the different things that need doing, with no specific time set for when I will do them.

This is the reason I found myself in front of the tv this morning even though there were a million better options to be, do, or have.

Enter JoJo the Super Nanny. She took 3 completely out of control, dysfunctional, chaotic families and gave them the tools to fix themselves. The number one thing she said to all of them....establish a routine. She made big bright colorful charts of the step by step process the children needed to do to calmly get out the door in the morning. She had parents fill in the blanks on poster sized hourly schedules regarding when meals were served, babies were fed, naps were taken, toys were picked up, etc.

That's my epiphany.That's what I need. Not a blackberry with microscopic fields you can hardly see. Not a day planner with detailed spaces for minute by minute scheduling. I need a gigantic, poster sized, colorful wall chart with stickers and movable happy faces! I need a "first you do this, then you do this" lesson plan and I need it staring me in the face every morning. I want a routine. I long for order. I want to get up in the morning and know exactly what I will do when because it is exactly what I did yesterday.

You steadfast 9 to 5-ers probably think I'm crazy or lazy or both. I get it. I also get that spontaneity is a beautiful thing and that I need to allow it. But lack of structure is not working and I need to get me some.  Complete with Magic Markers, glitter pens and glow in the dark stickers.On a Red poster board, of course.

Join me at Office Depot anyone?

In Grace,

Kell