grateful for paint

This is the first painting I ever did that I really enjoyed doing - the colours, the layers, and the movement.. it was great. Thank you, painting.

beautiful

i want to be beautiful ... for my self to inspire .. why?
so i will be loved, silly..
so i will feel that hope, too

Tues., Feb. 5th

I'm not doin' too good about writing in here... but today I loved how a new sense of myself emerged earlier this evening. I imagined her dark-haired and wearing red lipstick and she was oh so much more assertive about having fun and being assertive in general. A right to have fun. So I danced to Nina Simone for a while and got some ideas about my studio presentation on Monday. Maybe a dance where I invite everyone in. May I become this person. Or I am this person already - I wanna let her loose.

Jan. 30/08

* actually having my next-door neighbour over for dinner for one of only about 3 times in two years, even though her house is attached to mine, and her kids come over all the time - yeah!! I felt more filled up.. may I have the courage to have more simple connections in my life more and more
* listening to Noam talk excitedly about his new "Wizardology" book - esp. how he is in fact a wizard already and maybe it's just like Harry Potter and noone has told him yet

breathe yourself loose - Jan. 20th

something my yoga teacher said at my class tonight, and for a mere moment I imagined I was this. and that this was all there was to aim for - that all the beauty of the world awaits if we can relax into it. I like these little sparks of possibility I sometimes see, even though they are so brief. I like to think they stay in me somewhere, and make it more possible for me to expand upon - I think so. I had a hard weekend this weekend, the worst in a while. then tonight, at Ted's, with Maeve acting in her rejecting of me way that I find so painful, I had a remembering of an earlier insight that I have it within me to be fine already, that my descents into self-hatred and despair are habitual I guess - some flash that helped. Then I

Jan. 16/08: the good

* my very depressed client (who I saw this morning) is more consistently coming in saying she feels better and I think I have helped
* my new, very shy, French-speaking-just-learning-English client and I understood each other tonight and our session was helpful I think
* I am feeling less anxious this year than last, definitely :)
* Maeve asked me to lie with her at bedtime after almost a month of being upset with me on and off and preferring her father .. she finds me scary sometimes when I am past my limits and grumpy.. today was one of those mornings and she drew a picture of two scary princesses (me and her) on the way to school in her notebook which she talked to me about
* I put on a big batch of nettle tea tonight which I will drink cold and delicious all day tomorrow and feel like I am nourishing myself well with the earth

in order to be joyful

I have to carry my own sadness.. this is what stops me .. because joy brings me alive, whereas depression leaves me deadened, but gives me the option to not have to carry it, that which is so big. but then others have to carry it for me.. I don't want them to. This is what happened to me.. others made me carry their sadness, grievously so. It has to stop somewhere. Someone has to stand up and start carrying it, even if it wasn't theirs to begin with. The prize is all of life. Can I give up all of life because I don't want this pain? Of course not, but how can I get myself to do it - more? Be disciplined comes the answer. Practice carrying other pain. More simple pains. To be able to be with the big pain. Ay-ya.. my simple soul.. am I able to do this? am I? I have love enough, but courage? Let's see.