A painting by Lorre Strain Welsh
An Artistic Life
This Full Moon had me on vacation, thinking about the artistic life. I am spending time with my partner’s mother who is an artist in her 90’s. Her house is filled with a lifetime of paintings and artwork that embody her devotion to her craft. She still sits in the corner and paints. Her paintings are often tributes to her large family: she also has 5 kids and three times as many grandkids. Her life-long productivity impresses me, and has me thinking about how I want to spend the rest of my days.
Essential Purpose
I was able to ask her a few questions about her practice. The first thing she said was that she always knew she would paint and draw, she was born to do these things. Feeling this purpose in your artistic expression is essential. Similarly, I always knew I would write. What is your “I always knew” form of expression?
Essential Practice
We need to listen to this calling daily and take action, building up our practice in small ways, and in this way building up the material results of our practice too. Like a matriarch surrounded by her children, she must feel full and proud to be surrounded as she is by her paintings, the fruit of her labor. She said she always made it a priority, even though it wasn’t always her husband’s priority and may have cramped his style.
Perfection Isn’t Human
On the difficulty that arises when we seek the perfect, she said that perfection isn’t human. We talked about embracing the flaw. Imperfections become an element that draws attention to our very human acts of creation. We need not let the constraints of others constrain our own work. Watching her teaches me that we can dare to be our own imperfect forms of creation.
A Full Moon of Full Emotion
With this creative inspiration in the background of the deep rest of my vacation, this Pisces Full Moon spoke to me of feeling the fullness of emotion, and in this fullness, learning to let the feelings go. Letting things go means feeling them fully, noticing what I put into myself to feel full, and allowing myself to feel the full feelings.
Feeling Feelings
The feelings that make me feel full aren’t always desired feelings. I’m learning to allow myself to feel the pleasure, itself a kind of fullness, of feelings I’d rather banish to some far and distant part of myself. If I banish feelings, I can’t feel them fully, and I can’t let them go. This is why shame is so harmful to us. Shame keeps us from feeling things fully, and thus from fully processing and releasing difficult experiences. They build up in our psyche and then we can’t even begin to know what it is to feel full of pleasure or joy. The truth is, if you are feeling an emotion, it is asking you to feel it fully, so you may as well do so without question. This doesn’t mean you need to act on it, but you can allow your body to hold it, and feel into it without judgment.
Safely Holding Emotions
We need to build a container to do this though, especially if we have trauma that has taught us that our bodies are not safe containers for our feelings. A relationship with another human can help us hold and process feelings, as can our relationship to the Earth. We can build the container at an altar, in the forest, with a tree. Find a safe place to go to in order to feel what you need to feel.
Watery Release
Pisces thinks the bath is best. Water takes on our emotions and allows us to drain them out, releasing and letting go. Or if you can, take your emotions to the sea. The sea constantly carries away what we shed, over and over again, rhythmically. You can ask the sea to take away your full emotion by throwing a rock or letting the sand run out of your hand. You can also go to a river or stream, where, rushing or flowing, your emotion will meander over stones and be set free.
Artistic Practice as Container
Our artistic practice can also be a container for our processing of emotions. We might not make art from this that we want to present or sell, but we can use our creative expression as the container that helps us feel and release emotion. Creative expression can help us heal painful emotions. Poetry has often served this function for me.
Virgo Season
The Sun is currently in Virgo, where it shines on the watery world of Pisces. Virgo is opposite Pisces on the wheel of the Zodiac, and in some ways this mutable earth sign contrasts with the fish’s mutable water energy. In other ways it is the perfect compliment. As I apply Virgo tactics to my full Piscean range of emotion, I have a model for the practical application of my art. Virgo season makes lists. I need to make time to do the things I want to do, the things I need to do, on my list. I need to practice my craft in real time, not just in make-believe or dream time. Finding time for completion is necessary, and this is what I might focus on in the coming weeks. I will have to quarantine when I get home and I have things I want to finish. As we move to the New Moon, which will be in Virgo, I can feel accomplished in my artistic expressions, and like the beautiful maiden in the stars, complete unto myself and whole.
Where are the Plants?
I realize I haven’t mentioned the plants in this download! Maybe it is because I am away from my garden. I know that my sunflowers have blossomed and my squash plants are still flowering and waiting for me to come gather their fruit. The plant life where I am is rather muted, by golf course and strip mall, but I know that this is all the more reason to go outside and reach out. If you want to do so where you are, check out my free guide to plant communication. You can sign up for it here. I’d love to talk to you about your creative process and you can sign up for a free talk about it here. I help people, especially women, create the container - be the container - in which their creativity can blossom.
A picture my niece took of my garden! The Sunflowers are blooming!
As ever, my flower essences are available for purchase and I can help you choose a personalized one with a private consultation.
I hope your Summer ends sweetly and your blossoming leads to many fruits.
Love,
Amy