I'm on a personal quest to study Love. It is a pivotal year for me...the year two thousand and eleven, and I have made a conscious decision to spend it reflecting and re-evaluating my life and it's greatest motivation: Love.
This summer I turned sixty and embarked upon the third, and final, trimester of my life. I admit that the realization of this milestone birthday was a bit daunting, since I've never been one to give aging much thought and in my head, I've always been much younger than my calendar years. -But reality is reality...I only have a limited time in my life to reach my dreams and to accomplish my goals, and I had better get on with it, pronto. First, I need to reflect upon my authentic self:
Art Journaling is an amazing tool. Combining creativity with reflection and focus, it provides an outlet like no other. There are no rules - there is simply desire and expression.
In my quest to study Love, I signed up for an online workshop She Had Three Hearts by Christy Tomlinson. She based her class on an old Chinese Proverb which reads, " a woman has three hearts... one she shares with the world... one she shares with family.. and one she shares only with herself." Here is my interpretation:
Sometimes we share the best parts of ourselves with co-workers at our workplace and withhold them from those we love most -our family. Sometimes we hold the best parts of ourselves deep inside our own hearts and are fearful of sharing them with others. One of our greatest struggles is with finding the perfect partner to share our lives/loves with. This is how I expressed this challenge in my Art Journal:
Sadly, my partner, Jim, is battling stage four prostate cancer, and I am faced with the strong possibility of losing him after nearly a decade together. In the piece above, I was exploring the concept of hearts simply "resting with each-other a while." Hearts are seldom paired together for ever...and perhaps that's OK. As painful as that may be to accept, it is in fact a very real part of life and growth.
In this next piece, I expressed my frustration at how "messy" Love can be at times:
Christy's workshop has been a lot of fun -bursting with all sorts of mixed media techniques, and I'm grateful that it brought me back to the healing power of Art Journaling. I am also reading Be Love Now by Ram Dass and Rameshwar Das, which explores "the path of the heart". I will continue to share my Love-quest journey with you as I go, and I hope you will take a moment to share some of your similar journeys with me.
Fear not, scrapbooking friends...I will be posting some fun summer-themed scrapbook ideas soon.
Sharing the Love, Enikö
