A poem from butterflies rising that sparked creating an Art Journal.

I found this wonderful author on Instagram and also her website butterflies rising. She writes such deep wonderful poems and also other thoughts. One I read just connected so deeply with me. The deep understanding in the authors words. I just had to Art Journal it. It gave me such release and acceptance. I am so grateful for so many of her writings. To find writings that just makes me nod and sigh.

Here is what was alive in me from these deep words from butterflies rising: 

"i forgive you...

for treating me the way you

felt about yourself

- butterflies rising

The wonderful words "Wild spirit, soft heart, sweet soul" is also from butterflies rising. 

 

 

A heart made in many layers. The copperygold pattern is under a layer of Self Leveling gel. So there is a depth there, that shows when you move the page. A heart with gold in it 💓 but also a heart that has been through some stuff. But remembering it's strength and compassion.

I read butterflies rising's poem as a reminder to keep a soft and compassionate heart.

More copperygold in a skin I made. The gold that is alive in the heart is also alive in the wise words from the poem💗 So I felt it fitting the gold showed up by the poem.

Art Journaling is truly a gentle therapy method for myself. Some pages I write and write, page up and down. Getting words out - to see them; brings such clarity. Sometimes I paint over them but remember the lesson from the page. This one gave me such feeling of gratitude. Lessons learnt from it.

Take care of yourself, you are so worth it! Love and light to you all 💗

The monotony and solitude of a quiet life stimulates the creative mind. Albert Einstein

It has been over a year since my last update in my blog. But I have been contemplating documenting my creative journey but without sharing it on the big social platforms. Blogs are also a platform don't get me wrong. But not as interactive is maybe the right word?
 

I am wondering if I could use my blog as an extension of how I use my Art Journal. I can't exactly create on this platform but I can document what I create and what is alive in me at the time.

I will see if this will be the way to express myself that I feel comfortable with. I do not have the capacity for the high tempo and share and like buttons that is nowadays. Not even commenting as before. I really miss communicating with friends and family. But unfortunately I do not have the capacity. I hope I will with time. That is the beast with an illness like ME. It robs more than your health.  

My little blog is so unknown and so quiet. Maybe this will be the space that fits my health and needs? I don't know, I will try and see if I can keep myself to it.

As we live a very quiet life, I just do not feel I really can relate as before with those who are abled and can handle the high tempo and achievements. So maybe making my own little space here, were I still can document that life goes on here too. Just in a much more quite tempo and pace and that is fine too  I think as long as I am documenting my slow and quiet creative journey 😊

My creative mind is just as active as before. It can take a siesta sometimes; but usually I think about creative things and ideas several hours a day So here goes another try of putting pictures up on my little blog

A tag I made at least 3 years ago? But fun to make as always! I think this was the last thing I made while we still lived in our other home.

This tag was made for a challenge my best friend had for Christmas about 2 years ago I believe. She asked me to contribute on the 13th of December for a December calendar challenge she had. This was my take. Also fun to make

This I made for my best friend for her birthday 3 years ago! Time flies

I have been really bad at taking photos of what I have made. I guess I got to go through what I have made and take some pictures  Should not have thought I used to scrapbook all the time. My camera or phone would catch a lot of moments. Now I truly love first being in the moment and then choose sometimes to take a picture.

Three tags for today! It is a start to catalogue everything from the last several years. One day at a time.

Love and light to any readers out there. I humbly say thank you for visiting my little place. Take care of yourself, remember you are worth it

“If we can share our story with someone who responds with empathy and understanding, shame can't survive.” ― Brené Brown

Hi again ♥ 

This blog has gotten so dusty. The last two years I have just not felt like sharing anything. I have been very much "in" myself, reflecting, meditating, reading A LOT! After some tough years I have needed to center myself. Find out what my needs are, how to get those needs met and finding a balance ♥

We have moved to a wonderful place. Where everything is on one level. So both my daughter and I can use more of the house. We live in nature now. The one thing our daughter has wanted for years. When we drove up to see the house, she made the most sweet sounds of joy! When she got out of the car she took the longest breathe. Like she inhaled the whole essence of the place. When she exhaled she just sighed and said - this is home! Mom I can smell nature! Mom smell the trees! Mom you know I am a nature kid! I said I know darling! Please mom can we pleeease move here?? So we have lived here now for over a year. It is an old house with a lot of soul. It feels like there has lived very kind people here. 

Daily we can hear or see animals. Moose, Hawks, Birds, Deer, Otter (!) yep he ran over the road! I even saw a Raven one night! Oh my it was amazing! It was chasing some seagulls on our rooftop! It was so close to me! Like a couple of car lengths away! We have a lot of birds and so much more! Our dog loooves living here! He is a lover not a fighter. Mooses comes all the way up to our porch and he just sits there tilting his head. 

One day when we were outside, we did not see that there was laying a moose between some trees by our lawn. Suddenly we could see a moose jumping OVER our dog Theo. He just stood still and let her jump right over him ♥ My sweetheart hubby loves it here too. He gets to see us so much more. No more stairs that stops us from being together. We love to snuggle up by the fireplace and just be together♥ We live a very quiet and peaceful life. We would of course love it to entail much more experiences but being really ill makes it more difficult. So a thing like sitting on the porch and feeling nature is a very strong and wonderful experience. Nothing gets taken for granted, nothing...

My need to be so quiet has also been because of my daughters and my own health. Finding the balance after the big turn when she got sick. It has taken me some time to find some normalcy in it. Especially with an illness like M.E. With so little treatments and knowledge. But I think right now we all know how to cope, deal as best as we can. So I feel I can start being creative again. I have tried now and again. But I have always been to enthusiastic and bit over too much. Or I have felt guilt for using my energy on only myself. Now I have learnt how to balance out the days. Before I could make an Art journal page in one sitting. Now I have to pace myself and do it over maybe ten sittings or even more. It can even take me a month for one Art Journal. But that is ok ♥ It is not about the result it is about enjoying being creative again.

Giving up has never been an option. I do not really understand giving up 😀 Then you have to start all over again. Taking a time out to regroup is fine, but there is always a way ♥ Also I truly believe suffering and hardship teaches us to process grief and loss in a very real way. There is no where to run or hide. If you try to run or not deal, it will just hit even harder. So what I have learnt most is how important it is to accept what is ♥ What is alive in us, accept what is happening right here and right now and taking mindful choices through that acceptance. Also knowing that life is not perfect, permanent or that we can control everything.

Living in the rich part of the world, we experience tons of privilege. That can fool us into believing that we are the masters of everything. I believe that is why we are missing a lot of language when someone gets sick. We are supposed to WIN over for example Cancer. But it has nothing to do with winning. But that is the narrative we have been used to. It is so much scarier to take in the whole situation. Or when someone is sick and it is chronic? How do we communicate with that person. Do we have the patience to keep being a friend when the person changes? Or does it get so scary, so we retreat and feel we are just bothering the person.

My hubby's best friend died a few years ago. He expressed such gratitude for my hubby still coming around. He said most friends disappeared when he got really ill. He could see their fear, their insecurities. I do not believe people stop caring, but I believe it is about not being able to relate to the person who is really sick. I have seen many of those scared faces myself. Especially when my daughter got sick. In a millisecond I could register fear on their faces. Every mom has this as her nightmare... Ones child gets really sick, there is no treatment that works.. what then?

So when my daughter just got worse, I did not have the language or capability to express that fear or grief to friends and family. I instead started comforting and trying to ease their fears. Instead of saying what I needed. I just retreated to making sure my daughter got the best care we could get her and stabilizing her life as good as we could. Also taking care of our own mental and physical health so we could be there for our daughter.

It is okay to not be okay! I was afraid if I seemed insecure and fearful , then my daughter would not get the best care. I know that sounds weird but it is about seeing to that my daughter gets what she needs. It is about her not about me, if that makes sense? When your child is diagnosed with an illness that carries so much stigma. It hits even harder. The uncertainty, the not knowing, the feeling of not having sufficient healthcare for ones child.. is.. I still do not have the words for it. That means I really have to have my own stuff together. It is about being responsible, and being very truthful about what is alive in me and what my needs are. So I see to that my daughter gets what she needs. If I don't deal, than that will be put on her shoulders. That I will not do.

Right now while I am writing I hear her giggling to an episode of Friends ♥ Hearing her enjoying the moment just fills me with so much gratitude. She knows how to be present and enjoy the here and now♥ She has such compassion, empathy, knowledge and patience that she takes my breath away ♥ I tell her every day that she enough, that I love every minute with her. She is so funny to! She can make me laugh so hard! Sigh ♥ So suffering, illness and challenges are what they are. How we choose to deal with them; well that will either bring some kind of calmness or it can bring more suffering.... I think we as a family has the last 6 years learnt a lot about how to mindfully accept what comes our way ♥

And that.. I am grateful for.

Love and light to you all ♥

Art enables us to find ourselves & to loose ourselves at the same time. ~ Thomas Merton

Hello again ♥ As I wrote last time I still have some stuff to share in my blog. Nothing "new" really, but new on my blog ;)

Today I want to share some ATC's and Tag's from a wonderful Challenge group on Facebook called ArJo's Tag og ATC kos. Every month they put up a challenge to keep the creative juices flowing. Not everyone has so much time to be creative. But to make 3 ATC's or a Tag, most of us can manage. Since my illness is kinda greedy at times :P and takes most of my energy. This challenge group is perfect for me. I can create some minutes here and there. So I can feel a little tingle of creativity at least once in a while ;) The girl's (Arnlaug  and Jorunn) who run it are amazing, and make's everyone feel so welcome and at ease. It is now an international group. They also have guest designers giving us a monthly Challenge. 

Last month Riikka Kovasin was the guest designer. I got so inspired that I went all in ♥ Just ask my best friend Jorunn how much I love Riikka's art and creations ♥ I noticed her because another good friend of mine told me to check out her blog. I bet Riikka has inspired so many creative people ♥ 

Well enough chit chat lol! Here are what I have made of ATC's and Tags in this group. So fun to make them all ♥

 This ATC challenge was a step by step. It was so fun! 

These in black I made for Riikka's challenge.

The Tags were wonderful to create. Remember these three got my mojo for creating back after not visiting my creative space in a long time. No wonder I love this group ♥

I had so much to say last time, so this time I am more to the point lol! But be warned next time there will be a hearty blog post. I am going to write about kindness... I had to make a simple Art Journal about it. I like to write down my thoughts and feelings, and then paint over it.. kinda like getting it out and transforming it to something with hope and tranquility ♥ 

Hope you all are safe and having a good weekend in every way ♥ Now I am going to paint a little bit before it is nighty night. Take care! More rambling and sharing to come ;) 

With empathy, I'm fully with them, and not full of them - that's sympathy ~ Marshall Rosenberg

Hi again, long time no see! Well better than the last gap in my blogging. I have been thinking a lot the last couple of months...

There has been hard hits in my private life for 3 years. It got to a point were I had to strip down everything to find my needs. When life gives you a busload of lemon's - you gotta deal. I had to sort out so many feelings and find the needs that were not met.  I am not afraid of feelings (thankfully!) I know they have some message or something I need to deal with.

Without spilling my guts out, I can say this. I had to accept that I could not control being sick or my daughter being sick. I only can do my best. As a woman I am the type that blames myself. One innocent example... when I went to a doctor several years ago. The doctor well hmmm I want to express this without judgement- he just was not in a place of non judgement himself :D . He did not have the time to listen and his reluctance to listen, made me feel ashamed. That it was probably because I said something wrong, or I even gave him a pass that he probably had a hard day. It was an innocent example. But when you start giving freebies were your own boundaries are being violated. I had to deal. With who or why is not important. But I needed to say no thank you! I do not want this. I have always felt shame if I was not the nice and good girl. I bet alooot of girls know this feeling. We are supposed to be soft, kind, generous, unselfish and give up our own needs for those we love. In Brene Browns book on empathy I read with such a reverberation. She was writing about me. In men shame is triggered often by feeling weak or not successful enough.. I feel my life has had a big change, when our daughter got sick. It is like our life before she got sick and the life after. No one is prepared for such a situation. Also when the illness has no clear treatment and the expertise in the health profession is slim. It is a rare illness, which means... so few understands. I get that, I understand that... but it is hard. At times it's a very lonely path...

Scrapbooking became something foreign and so painful. It was hard to scrapbook pictures from when she was healthy and active. It was hard to allow myself to think about anything but just right now. But isn't that how we are in crises? We try to survive the best we can. We do not know when she will be cured or get better. But I do believe it is important to enjoy every moment what ever the challenges are. If we would focus on what SHOULD have been, instead of focusing on what is RIGHT here right now... we would miss precious moments and important lessons ♥ Putting premises on life does not work in the long run. It just creates a lot of suffering. Everyone has value even though they are sick. They are still them ♥ But our society is so focused on what we DO, were we are supposed to go in life. So we do not have any practice in how to deal with illness or the "not mainstream". It is not that people don't care, they just do not know how to deal with it. I get that with such empathy ♥. I have seen others fear or insecurity when they have talked to me about our daughter being sick. They are so scared of saying something "wrong". I so want to just hug them and say, it't ok. I see you are trying your best to contribute in some way ♥

What are you going to be when you grow up is a regular question to kids and young people get. I have said many times - I am going to be thankful for life, grateful for what life brings and I am going to be me ;) Life is so precious, it is so variable. There will be hard times, there will be nice times... nothing is permanent. I really love everyday life. With routines, chores and other activities ♥ That is living, contributing and engagement ♥  So you healthy people, enjoy even the struggle to get the schedule to go up, or driving your kid to practice or so on. It will bring precious memories later ♥ 

So I am trying my voice again. I am in a place were I accept what is right now. I accept what I can do something about and what I have to remember patience with... I think fear and the heaviness of our situation has made me just freeze up. But better to work on what is alive in me, than to run away from it or ignore it, right? It is ok not to be ok all the time too, right?! ♥ I have been a little creative from time to time. Did you see the images lol!? The clean and simple card was for my goddaughtes confirmation. Using the amazing products from Papirdesign. The canvas I just played around with a rhubarb leaf and Brusho + water. Let it dry, then I stamped with paint using the same rhubarb leaf. The last finishing touch was silver leafing.
Thank's for stopping by, and also for you guys who read my rambling. I just had to express it in my blog. Because life happens, nothing to be ashamed about, nothing to create drama out of either. But acceptance with a good dose of empathy for one self and our loved ones. It helps a lot ♥

Believe it or not, there will be more postings.... maybe even next week! Wow right hahaha! I have some stuff that could be added here to my creative blog. So maybe I will get around to it next week. Fingers crossed lol!

Hope you all have a great day where ever you are and what ever you do ♥ One love ♥ Be kind to yourself and others. Everyone is doing the best they can ♥