I had made a decision.

The winter hairiness was for the chop.  Maybe to conform to a societal norm, maybe for the beauty of the feeling of sliding hairless into clean sheets.  I don't know but it was time.

I got out the epilator, the tool of choice for a recovering martyr perhaps?  Plugged in and began to harvest the leg hairs by their tender roots.  They had done nothing to me but there i was pulling them from the only family they had ever known.   There they were coming out of the wrinkly moley skin and being ingloriously laid to rest.  

That skin.  That wrinkly skin.  My objective brain was noticing the slackness of the skin, the sun damage.  It talked to me about the hours in the sun as a teenager, the hot Northland sun and what else did i expect after buttering my legs and laying back on the boat in the midday sun week after week?

And then it happened.

From out behind the objective voice it came.  Cold.  Cruel sounding.  Sneaking in like a rat to a cooling cake, the voice entered my head and took a big bite.

"What the hell are you trying to look better for?  Old and ugly.  Look at you.  What?  Do you think someone is going to look?  As if!"

And the poison the voice laid began to fizzle and rot all it touched.

I almost didn't notice it because, sadly i am so used to its venomous presence.

The mean voice.  The voice of the introject  (introject = the unconscious adoption of the ideas or attitudes of others).  Dr Estes calls them the poisoned arrows.  Dr Estes says our work is to root them out.   Dr Estes says to tell the introject "Begone- get behind me"  to be commanding and ruthless in the expulsion of that meanness that does not belong anywhere near our sacred heart.

Even though i KNOW  this from hearing those words of Dr E's like ringing bell in my ear, the way i have learned to cower in the face of the mean voice is second nature.  

I almost turned a mean eye on myself.  I almost agreed.  I almost gave up with the epilator.  I almost broke my own heart again - almost agreed that i was old and ugly and not worth tending to.

Almost.

Instead i heard the voice of my true self say gently
"I care about this.  It makes me feel good.  That is why"

And i know that that tiny voice was the antidote to that drop of poison.  I wasn't lying to myself, denying age or damage or anything of the sort but i was standing on my own side against that insidious poison.  It was a not so minor triumph for me, to turn for even a moment, from the way that voice that introject is like the Snow Queen in my life and look instead on myself with the sweetness of Gerda.  I think i am saving my own life that way.

Now all i have to do is keep saving myself over and over each day.  Speaking a voice of kindness into the wounds left by the introject.  Not having to know where it comes from or the theory behind it but just practice over and over and over applying the balm of kindness.

What is the point of this?    i am pretty sure i am not the only one who has a mean inner voice.  I am pretty sure most people i meet could do with more kindness.  

Maybe the point is if you can antidote poison in yourself and in doing so you free up others from the burden of trying to do it for you.  Maybe the point is that life feels better without this sneaky shit clogging up your pipes.  Maybe the point is regardless of what the mean voice says we all deserve to be happy.

After all if i can pour loving tenderness on my wrinkly hairy legs i am pretty sure you can find a way to be kind to the tender spots in you too.

Please try.

The world needs more kindness.

art journalling
more and more i tend to the creative act of art journalling, the more i see the deep reach of this magical portal into the inner landscape

i love the chance to show the pathway i have cleared to others, to make available if it feels like it fits, this treasured key - art journalling - to others

and so i have been honoured with a chance to offer up a portal i have called Restore for 21 Secrets Fall edition

it is an offer which supports us to tend to those tender and seemingly broken parts of ourselves, the photo above is one of those pages..

and generously the organisers have offered me a chance to give away a spot on the course and so i would like to ask you to tell me a time when creativity injected magic into your heart or what you would like magic to tend to there.

leave your comments below and i will come back in a couple of days to select a space claimer.

with thanks and love

jane

" Not til we are lost, in other words not till we have lost the world, do we begin to find ourselves, and realise where we are and the infinite extent of our relations."  Henry David Thoreau.  Walden.

 I want to tell the truth.
Art Journaling is not about making a pretty page for me.
It is not about making something pleasing to the eye or worthy of a photo.
Art journaling is about turning up like Inana, stripping layer after layer off until i get to the dead centre of my inner landscape. Sometimes like Inanna to hang on the meat hook of my shadow.  
Sometimes to lay down my heart on something downy soft and breathe and remember the beauty there.
Sometimes to turn up like a toddler looking for home, looking to remember, to be comforted, to find the way, and never have i been disappointed.
OK so that's not true.  I have been disappointed but only when i turn up expecting things to turn out a certain way.
Like Thoreau, if i turn up willing to get lost then and only then to i glimpse the vastness of my relations.  The interconnectedness, the gifts and the immensity of the truth that i am held and originate in love.
If i turn up wanted something meager like a pretty page or something pleasing to the eye then i keep myself to the path that Thoreau warned us against.
Art journalling for me is like going off road.  Following glimmers in the forest, not equipped with sensible shoes or compass my art journal allows me to inhabit wild for a time.  My art journal tells me that my reality is neither static or stale as it can seem when the day to day mundanity of groceries and clean toilets and being a polite member of society fills my day.

i believe any kind of creativity is a portal to the wild, the Divine, the unconscious, the ancestors, the depths of our souls and more and for me art journaling is the most private, safe and easily kept secret way of accessing this realm.  It is harder to hide your soul's path on a massive canvas and when the pathway is often messy and raw i feel it is important to allow space for that level of vulnerabilty to be present and respected.  Everyone i work with knows that their book is theirs.  They don't have to share or they can tell their whole story.  Raw pages can be glued shut or spread all over social media.  You get to choose.

When i open my art journal with my big three (the rules i have about art journaling that are paramount in my group work - Self kindness, turn up bravely and trust what arises) i am lead where i wasn't expecting into the heart of what i most need to know.

I am writing about this because i saw this quote this morning and i know Thoreau was a lot more literal than i am about paths and wildness etc but as i have been preparing for 21 Secrets and dancing with self doubt (your offering isn't art journaling, what you are talking about isn't a skill based thing, who are you to... etc etc) i wanted to articulate the real reason i treasure my art journal and the work i do to encourage others to explore their inner landscape this way.  

My offering for 21 Secrets is "Restore" and the pages above are based on the ideas behind restore.  This offering (not a technique class, not a skill based class but a deep and nourishing way of tending to your inner life, noticing and tending loving to the wounds of your heart.  I have used it to tend to things from my childhood, my working life and my daily life - it is a way to turn up lovingly to the things that are painful acknowledge them and apply the balm of noticing, not the flimsy band-aid of denial.   If you are interested in Restore or Art journaling then 21 Secrets is a great way to meet a range of practitioners, play and learn.  Here 
 is my affiliate link (which means i get paid so thank you kind person) to the information page about 21 Secrets and the link to buy access to the class.  There is a special offer on at the moment with interviews with some amazing artists as a bonus.


But i really want to encourage you to use the