Circle The Divine

Image by Digital Plus Art & Photo

I am often asked by students how or where to start, when it comes to changing their life, and my response is always the same - commit to spiritual growth. It is the key to change and achievement.

Spirituality is not a religion or a philosophy and it is does not belong to new age incense burning hippies. Spirituality relates to relationship and lifestyle. The type of relationships we have with self and others and the type of lifestyle we create for ourselves is a direct reflection of our level of spirituality.

So if we want to improve our relationships and lifestyle - we commit to spiritual development, and the first step toward spiritual growth requires changing the way we think. In a sense, it requires a spiritual renewal around our thoughts and attitudes.

The way we think determines the way we feel determines the way we act determines the way we create.

“Be careful how you think; your life is shaped by your thoughts.” proverb 4:23

Unfortunately we have a tendency to run on autopilot, that is, old tapes playing constantly in our head, shaping our thinking and therefore our behavior. Willpower has been proven ineffective when it comes to switching off autopilot. Whilst sheer will can produce results, they are usually short-term changes that create internal conflict and stress because it is not our natural behavior.

According to Rick Warren, author of The Purpose Driven Life: there are two parts to spiritual growth or CHANGE - a ‘work out’ and a ‘work in’.

“The ‘work out’ is your responsibility, and the ‘work in’ is God’s role. Spiritual growth is a collaborative effort between you and the Holy Spirit. God’s Spirit works with us, not just in us.”

Warren clarifies this statement by saying it “is not about how to be saved, but how to grow… During physical ‘workout,’ you exercise to develop your body, not to get a body.”

Our ‘work out’ requires us to be responsible and mature with our thinking and attitude - we grow up! The ‘work in’ requires meditation and prayer to evoke natural change - we grow rich!

Click here for your weekly affirmation and spiritual ‘work out’ exercise.

Image by Audrey

“Commit to living the highest vision for your life, and prosperity, joy, and love beyond your wildest dreams will be realized.

When you follow your dreams, you connect to a wellspring of healing and happiness. Unite your life with Spirit by living the highest vision for your life.” - Susan Santucci

There is so much value in self-assessment. It requires contemplation and reflection - tools that are responsible for the development of self-awareness.

With out self-awareness it is difficult to know where or how we are positioned, nor how to navigate through life’s wilderness.

A great self-assessment exercise is asking “What stands between me and the vision I have for my life?”

If we have the power to make the choices that create the life we have, then we certainly have the power to make the decision to chip away at the beliefs that hold us back.

I choose success, peace, security and serenity. But I have other material goals equally important to me … I choose to write and my goal is to produce books - lots of them.

This morning I took a long hard look at what steps I’ve been taking to achieve my publications, and I’m afraid it’s been very little. I take on too many projects, which in turn steals my writing time. So today I choose to re-access where and how I utilize time.

There are two affirmation cards I keep permanently on my writing desk - SET A GOAL and TAKE ACTION! Two things I’ve been doing for other people, but lately, have neglected doing for myself.

It’s great helping other people achieve their personal and business goals, but it’s important that we also view our own goals and work as being equally important … something I don’t always do.

As I write this post, I am tantalized with a backdrop that is wet, wild and wintery. The wall of my home is glass and, nestled high on an escarpment, I am afforded the most beautiful elemental entertainment of rain, mist and wind, interacting in Nature.

Wrapped again the cold, beside a warm heater, I choose to take time to contemplate, re-access and set new goals.

I have written so much over the years, I could have produced a number of books, but always I divert from editing my own work. I do so much editing and design for other people, it seems like a chore when it comes to my own work. Perhaps it’s time to stop being the editor and, with a sanguine approach employ an editor to start shaping my work!

When I loose sight of the vision I have for my life … I tend to drift aimlessly, which is ok in short bursts, but not long periods of time.

On the back of my SET A GOAL affirmation card, there is a simple direction:

Set a goal, write it down,
and release the outcome.
Small steps make a big difference.

Visit the Affirmation page of this site for some positive direction for the week ahead.

Image by Perla

I recently visited abbeyofthearts blog where Christine writes about not finding words and sitting in silence. It is a reminder to me, that I have not sat lately, in the space of stillness … and I miss the nourishment it provides the Soul.

I love it when we transcend the physical limitation of words, transcend the need to use physical functions to give meaning to mystical experiences … when one no longer actively seeks to pray, for in silence, they become the prayer.

The hub of silence presents a beauty, a stillness, where we become the vessel for living prayer. I think this is how God means for us to be. Silence gives birth to creative musing; heals the emptiness and dissolution of meaning often present in depression. Silence melts away our theories and assumptions to provide room for deeper mystery. (more…)

Each morning I draw three affirmation cards from a small handcrafted bowl that I keep on my desk.

The words on these cards provide me with daily goals, they help me to maintain a focus on how I can provide safe, nurturing support for my soul.

This morning I have drawn spontaneity, compassion and authenticity - important qualities necessary for soulful creative expression.

It does not surprise me that I have drawn the word ‘authenticity’. The last few days I have been contemplating these two questions: How am I being authentic? How am I keeping my life real? (more…)

Shifting our gaze is refreshing for the Soul.

Even killer whales know how important it is to take time out and look up. The keys to creative recovery and personal development are perception and focus. It is about shifting our gaze to encompass a view of our world that is big, bold and beautiful. (more…)

Write from within

Trees are poems that earth writes upon the sky,
We fell them down and turn them into paper,
That we may record our emptiness - Kahlil Gibran

Cambodia has some of the most intriguing, prehistoric jungle. I stood beneath roots that spanned the height of three story houses, then atop of this a tree that blows open the most vivid imagination. Equally fascinating is the ancient world buried beneath this jungle, its secrets held captive by these towering forms.

I spent an amazing amount of time exploring, wandering, sitting, contemplating and writing with both pen and camera. And I had the pleasure of stumbling across other artists tucked away from the world, in the bowels of this vast and truly remarkable landscape, writing with ink, brush and paint.

These artists were both locals and travellers like myself, all of us with similar goal in mind: to sit still enough, quiet enough, long enough, to capture a sense and feel for the stories hidden within this jungle. And I often got the sense that, lingering here, were stories wanting to be told.

I believe that hidden within each of us, like these ancient tombs and temples, are stories wanting to escape, and I believe we are born to tell them.

There is a writer inside us all, waiting for permission to come out and play. In every moment of living, we tell a story in some shape or form (more…)

My favourite rockpool frozen in a photographic moment

Lately I have been drawn, during idle hours (which are few of late), to reflect upon memory and it’s relationship with time, pain and recovering a sense of place in the world.

Memory can sometimes spark in me a grief for life long gone, particularly when all I recall are small glimpses, fragments of image, as though life has been frozen in time rather than fluid and present.

Often memory evokes more a sense of feeling rather than particular remembering, placing my past just out of reach.

How important is memory in recovering a sense of identity, in knowing Self and understanding why it is we do the things we do, the way we do them. (more…)

Ancient Spiritual traditions remind us that each moment of the day, we make the choice to either affirm or deny our lives.
Every second, we choose to nourish ourselves in a way that support or depletes our lives, to breathe deep and life-affirming breaths or shallow, life-denying ones, and in a manner that is honoring or dishonoring.” ~ Gregg Braden, The Diving Matrix

Life is a reflection of the choices we have made. Every moment of the day we stand at the point of choice. We determine how we want to perceive a situation, what we want to believe and what we will not accept. How we respond to life, what we make of life is a collaboration of hundreds, thousands even millions of little choices we make through out our day.

Although we often are unaware of choices we are making, all choice is ours alone. (more…)

Creativity A Spiritual Experience

Most people are aware of the health benefits of meditation, but many do not know that the process of meditation awakens our higher consciousness and as a result, we become highly creative beings.

Throughout the centuries artists have informed us that art is not about talent but rather spirituality. (more…)

Recovering a Sense of Identity

When you learn to love and to let yourself be loved, you come home to the hearth of your own spirit. You are warm and sheltered. You are completely at one in the house of your own longing and belonging. - John O’Donohue

In ancient Celtic tradition, the ‘house of belonging’ was used as a metaphor for the human body as the earthly home for the soul. In Week One of The Artist’s Way we work on creating a sense of safety in preparation for Week Two - returning home to reclaim our spirit. (more…)

The integration of spirituality and creativity is a subject close to my heart and I am very passionate about the healing benefits this type of integration evokes within us. Actually it is not just the healing that is of interest to me. What we are able to achieve in our life as a result of this form of integration, is in itself, quite remarkable.

Recently I was drawn to the topic of creative tension: that is, the energy that suspends and blocks our ability to channel creative inspiration from a source greater than ‘Self’.

This tension often results from a loss of balance between higher will or higher consciousness and self will. We loose sight of the bigger picture, our connection with the divine and with our own divinity. This can happen so subtly that we often do not realise until we have hit a brick wall, there is no more gentle forward movement. (more…)

Regardless of whether we throw paint, string together words, play music or capture pictures, we do what we do because we have an urge to express something inside that needs to be born. Most artists have a force within that propels us to create, and we use our body, mind and spirit in whatever way is necessary to give life and expression through Art. Art is what feeds our soul, Art is what we must do with our life. (more…)

I often imagine myself running through fields of lavender. My shoes are off, the fields are soft and padded beneath my feet. The sun shines warm on my shoulders, a hint of breeze gently lifts my hair.

This image evokes a wonderful sense of freedom for me. I feel light and childlike. In this visualisation I carry no heavy burden, I am completely carefree.

I tap the light joyous freedom I am feeling and I bring it through into this world with me. I anchor that energy into my present moment.

I am free to feel this light, joyous and free, all of the time. And, if ever I am in a situation where I struggle to feel this way, I recall this image in my mind.

I have the power to evoke a sense of joy and freedom regardless of what is going on around me.

I create my reality based on what I’m feeling.

Through imagination we establish a vision for our
individual lives.

The way we perceive our world is not always objective or real. Our way of thinking and processing is an underlying factor to the way we experience life (more…)

It seems like just a few short months since making the decision to rework The Artist’s Way and already I have had many opportunities open up.

I accepted earlier this year an assignment as Special Features Writer with The Mercury newspaper; editor for two new Special Publications: FoodWine and Image magazine and just recently have accepted an offer as Sub-Editor with Rural Press which requires me to move from my coastal home (and The Mercury) to the Southern Highlands of New South Wales.

A great career move and places me in an excellent position (case study) for my Masters in News Room Management.

However I have never (more…)

Distracted from studies, this young Vietnamese Buddhist monk daydreams in solitude - an act essential for nourishment of the Soul and creative inspiration.

This image was taken on my travels through Indochina, it evokes in me a sense of mindful innocence.

The Macquarie dictionary describes innocence as: showing the simplicity of an unworldly person - and unworldly is certainly how I felt (more…)

A wise person once wrote “a peaceful relationship isn’t finding the right person but being the right person.”

Most of us, at some stage in our life, have experienced the discomfort of living a life removed from, or not in harmony with, who we really are.

Sometimes we may be unaware - drifting from our truth, our sense of centre, until we start to (more…)

I recently received an email from a friend - a fellow artist, that I met during my travels in Vietnam. She wrote to let me know that she had recently finished a painting that was inspired by our travels on the Mekong River and about to start another.

Whilst Vietnam was truly inspiring, I found my rhythm in the Cambodian Jungle, exploring and photographing 12 century ruins of Angkor Wat - religious temples engulfed in ancient rainforest.

Travelling through foreign and exotic lands was appealing to my inner artist, my urge to capture images so strong. Even the food of this country stimulated my creative senses - rich with colour, texture and flavour.

Most appealing was the movement of light across the jungle floor, (more…)

When we come into rhythm with ourselves the false burdens fall away - John O’Donohue

One of the great gifts I received from the Artist’s Way came unexpectedly from the artist date. A block of time we pencil into our diary for our self. We date our inner artist in stimulating and playful ways and it is a solitary exercise. This means no one goes on the date but you!

An artist date could be (more…)

We restore dignity by making choices that are healthy and sustaining for our self. In making healthy choices, we honour what is right for us.

One of the most empowering things I can do for myself is admit that I am not perfect, I am human and I make mistakes.

Success arrives when action meets with opportunity. When we set small achievable goals, we set up the energy of action, we affirm to the universe that we are receptive to opportunity. (more…)

May you recognize in your life the presence, power and light of your soul.

May you realize that you are never alone that your soul in its brightness and belonging connects you intimately with the rhythm of the universe.

May you have respect for your own individuality and difference.

May you realize that the shape of your soul is unique, that you have a special destiny here that behind the facade of your life there is something beautiful, good and eternal happening.

May you learn to see your self with the same delight, pride and expectation with which God sees you in every moment.

John O’donohue