First and Foremost...
HAPPY CANADA DAY!!!
Secondly... and a quick reminder the draw is tomorrow!
*****
Lousy health makes me sad, giving gifts cheers me up...
Soooo in honor of hitting 200 followers on my Blog so I'm giving away a
Prize...
Drop by and enter for a chance to win!
A quiet Canada Day here...
My husband is working driving the local City Bus with the many party-concert-bar going folk in and out of Downtown Ottawa all day today and into the wee hours. So da' boyz and I are are having a relaxing day with Red & White food and drink, flags strewn about the house and everyone off art-ing in their own little corners. I LOVE the fact that my kids are all so active with their own creative pursuits, means I can sneak off to do mine too. :O)
Today has been spent catching up on recorded phone chats, videos and some journaling.
Mostly for The Red Key.
Got 2 more pages put together in my Book of Legends:
The written portion of my Visualization Journey and the Daily Tease: LISTEN prompt.
One of the Daily Tease prompts was to stop...
and just listen..
What do you hear?
I answered the question in the message thread but also wanted it included in my Book. I printed it out having some Font-Fun and sketched in a picture over top. Colored lightly with watercolor pencils and finger painted over with water... light and translucent... like a visual whisper...
Journaling:
mmmm… Listen…
What do your hear right now?
I hear the conspiratorial whispers of 3 little boys in the dark of their room... they think I cannot hear them. I hear the steady thrum of the dryer and washer in the basement... like a drumbeat in the distance…
I hear the crackle of the candle wick occasionally guttering a bit beside me... always have one lit when in the Studio, a mini 'hearth'…
I hear the laughter of my eldest son across the room... he is listening to movie with headphones on my husband's computer…
I hear the wind outside my window and the rhythmic splattering of rain being blown against the Studio window…
I hear the puppy snoring on one of my feet... our older dog is breathing less noisily wedged in a space he does not fit (but insists he must inhabit) behind my chair…
I hear the steady tac-tac of my fingers gliding over the keys as I type…
I hear a heart that is off a beat as it knows it's soul's partner is not here... it will beat in sync when my husband is back from work tonight and they are together again…
…and I hear my Muse whispering “Make a Page”
For the Visualization Journey, though I had already Art-ed about the 'Garden Gate' *MY* Red key fits in, I wanted the written portion included in my Book. So I printed it off, lightly inked it up and stamped 'the key' on it and glued it into my Book:
Journaling:
The Red Key... Visualization Journey...
My search is over... I now *KNOW* where MY Red Key belongs...
Turn the Key... continue on...
***********
Where does my Red Key go? How did I get it?
It started with a tug back in April to buy a Blank Book…
Just after my Birthday, first week of April. Because it was on sale?… Did I *need* another Book? Why Did I buy a Book? This Book? …so very not my usual style.
There were many other things I ‘needed’ or ‘desired’…. But I bought this Book?! I asked myself these questions many times over the next few months as I moved the book around my Studio, from surface to surface. No matter where I left it or tried to stash it ‘out of the way’… somehow *it* was in my path… again and again.
Fast forward to May… I was out of commission for almost 6 week in pain… fire like pain running through, coursing through, every fiber of my being. I slept. I did not dream… I felt restless. Some of the restlessness was pain, beg you understand, but under that… there was something else. Something that wouldn’t let me feel fully rested.
Fast forward again, this time to mid-June, finally, started to emerge again thanks to new medications and a new diagnosis of Fibromyalgia to sit company with ADD, SAD, Endometriosis and Chronic Hyperuricemia (which rips crystal through my blood stream, shredding bit by bit, causing Gouty Arthritis and has my Kidneys shutting down at an accelerated rate). I have always believed in the power of words and the naming of things… this new demon had a name, with a name *I* have the power over it.
When I ‘came to’ in June I felt different, not anything I could put a finger on… find the words for… the restlessness of the past weeks was still there… but now I knew it wasn’t just the pain talking. I *had* a name for that… this I could not define so easily.
I started seeing The Red Key popping up in conversation I was hearing the last bits of, whispers here and there… and they brought me a warm, soft, glowing curiosity. I needed to know what this was about. Got the details and despite the financial portion being a huge issue for us, I bravely brought this new foundling of an idea to my husband and *he did not hesitate*. The encouragement was overwhelming… we balanced and juggled and actually cancelled a few things so I could continue with this ‘Journey’… this ‘Quest’ I wasn’t even sure WHY I needed to take. This unnamed NEED.
So now I am *HERE* at Cosmic Cowgirls University… soaking in warmth, basking in the cozy glow of the fire these women have set out for us…
Knowing that it could and will set me on fire if and when I step fully in…
THAT is what I want, THAT is what I desire…
I Am Here.
The first step was to think and visualize OUR Red Key…
What did it look like? What did it open? More and more questions… The Question?
I listened to the recorded phone call, sitting back in my Studio chair; eyes closed and just let myself drift with the melodious voices coming through my laptop speakers.
I saw a red haze… I felt warmth… I wanted to be closer so I let myself drift forward.
A Key came into focus… it was a red, rusty, old key… the kind I love so much. But it was more… indefinably more… It was drifting in front on me, emanating warmth… drifting, attached to a wisp of untwisted, raw, red thread… floating… waiting…
I reached out with no hesitation and grasped it… when my fingers closed around it I could feel it in the palm of my hand… pulsing and warm… as if it was a living thing with it’s own unique heartbeat… There was a sense of ‘aaahhhhhh…’ ‘THIS is right, so very, very right’. The thread started to wrap around me, it was soft, soft and silky and warm… like a blanket it wove itself around and around, surrounding me like a shroud… so warm, so comforting…
The Key in my hand warmed and a red glow began to emanate from between my fingers, it got hotter… but not uncomfortable. I slowly uncurled my fingers one by one…
The Key was glowing now, getting brighter and brighter… and warming. It was glowing a bright red like it was fresh from the forging fires… I could feel it’s heat coursing up through all the fibers of my being. Pain was disappearing… I could just feel warmth and the soft silk of the Red Shroud wrapped around me…
Then…
I started to hear softly, in the distance… birds, cicadas, the soft buzz of bees and the quick fluttering of fairy like wings I hear when my Muse is about… I looked down and there was a gravel path beneath my feet… it led forward.
I started to drift forward and the sounds got louder…
I could smell things too… Roses? Lilacs?... GREEN… I could smell the scents of a garden in the warm Summer Sun… the sounds continued and I turned a corner on the path before me…
There…. There it was… a Gate… a wrought iron garden gate before me, set into an old stone wall… Blue clear skies above and the teasing glimpse of lushness beyond the gate.
I had been here before with my Muse in dreams. I had smelled these scents before, felt the soft warm sun on my head and shoulders… but I had never before had a way to get in. I always had a taste, a tease… a rose plucked by reaching through the gate as far as my fingers could reach. But never before I had I been able to pass through that gate to see and experience what lay beyond.
I could actually taste the heat and roses now… and something more… the taste of a Summer Day… soaked in sun…
Suddenly I realized the pulsing Red Key in the palm of my hand was reaching a fever pitch, I looked down and it was now glowing brighter… it almost hurt my eyes to behold it… I saw another red glow from the corner of my eye and looked up…
The Lock… on the Gate… it was glowing too!
It was soft at first, but as I stepped forward and reached with the hand holding the Red Key it got brighter and brighter… I could feel heat emanating from the metal… again much like the Key I felt as if it *should* be burning me up… but instead it was warm, comforting… and right.
I slipped the Red Key into that Lock… and they started to pulse together in tandem, a beat that matched my own pounding heart… I started to turn The Key in The Lock…
…and then the recorded phone call ended, suddenly, and I was pulled back to the here and now in the Studio.
I was shocked at how vivid this experience was.
How the warmth of the Red Shroud still clung around me… The heat of the Key in my hand still lingered… My heart still beat in time with the pulsing from the Lock… I could still smell the roses… amazing.
So yes… yes I know this is where I NEED to be. I am ready Heart, Mind, Soul and Spirit to turn the Red Key in that Garden Gate and step forward to see the beautiful bounty beyond, walk the Paths laid out before me, cloaked in my Red Shroud… Ready, oh so Ready.
