Ancestral Memories / Ancestral Love

The topic of Abbey of the Arts Poetry Party was my inspiration for this post. The pastel drawing was created by me a number of years ago and I wrote the poem and posted it with another piece of art last year, but both are reflective of each other. As I looked at the drawing, which I have always loved, I noticed how the grandmother's hand gently sits upon the arch of the handle of the basket that is a cradle for the child. The handle resembles a bridge between the two of them with the grandmother's hand supporting it with loving protection. We never lose connection with our ancestors. We are interwoven with them with strands of love. They stand behind us in united waves of strength, waiting for us to call upon them for guidance and support. Concurrently, when we heal our lives, we heal a part of our lineage, for our ancestors, as well as our descendants. They were born to help us, as we were born to help them. Listen for them. They call to us in unexpected ways: the whisper of the wind; a burst of sunlight; the song of a bird; the buoyant presence of joy or in a moment of profound remembrance of them. They are with us.

The sun smiles

and the moon beams

throughout infinite

journeys…

cycles of life

shining through the stars

of our bones …

revealing ancestral bridges

paved in love

that applauds us.

holy blessings.

gifts of light.

we are the substance

of our ancestors

and they…

ever after…are us.

Kate Jobe 9/8/2008

Listen With the Ear of Your Heart

"A River of Stones"

photograph by Kate Jobe

This post relates to the theme of this weeks Poetry Party at Christine Valters Painter's blog, Abbey of the Arts. The theme "Listen With the ear of Your Heart" is reflected in this poem that Christine wrote and featured in this blog post:

"ears listen, eyes look,

hearing, seeing below ground

to the sacred source "

Stones and crystals...minerals...are ancient...live below ground..and permeate it with sacred source. They are solid and ethereal at the same time. Many times they appear rough, monochromatic and plain on the outside, but when cracked open, reveal themselves to be lustrous and resplendent with many faceted hues of color.

Stones, like humans, are far more complex when you place your full attention upon their unique beauty and seek to understand the wisdom they have come into this world to share. Stones, like some people may appear to be uncommunicative but, when listened to with the ear of your heart, their truth will flow into you. It is the only way to truly hear the notes of the music of life.

What notes of the music of life have you been missing because you forgot to listen with the ear of your heart? What truth have you heard when you did allow your heart to guide your ability to hear? What new song can you hear whispering in your ear? What melody have you closed yourself off from and cannot hear?

To Martha

"Martha's Grotto Collage"

Today is my sister Martha 's birthday. From the moment that she was born, Martha was loved by each of us in our family. She has been, since she was very young, a ray of light and a source of joy and laughter. She is, at times, much related to the fairy kingdom. Plants flourish when she grows them. Hummingbirds, Orioles and birds of beautiful song flock to her property. A flower garden appeared out of nowhere the first year after she and her husband moved to her present home. She called it her Fairy Garden and said the birds must have brought the seeds.

Martha has been a rock to everyone and everything that she loves and has loved. She stands by them, loyally, and does whatever she can do to bring beauty, safety and happiness into their lives:Her pets; Her plants; Her friends; Her family. Martha is my sister, but she is also my friend. We have shared incredible and unforgettable moments together. We have laughed together until we could barely breath and tears were running down our faces. We have contemplated; argued; consoled; applauded; danced; played cards; worked; created; cooked; gardened; exercised,; lost weight; gained weight (without wanting to); appreciated; supported and cried together. We share a love of campfires, blues music, science fiction and fantasy movies and have spent rainy days watching all of the Lord of the Rings movies, back to back.

I was with her when her husband passed away last April and I have learned much about grief and grieving from her. The last year has been a time of sadness, surrealism and reconfiguring for her. Through it, Martha has exhibited grace under fire & deep compassion. She is re-birthing into discovering who she is without her husband. She is being birthed when she least expected it. For Martha, this year, I send light filled love and wish for her, safe passage to this new manifestation of herself. I wish for her deeper strength, greater joy, more expansive peace..and I wish for her fulfilling new beginnings that validate the gifts she has shared with others. Live long and prosper.

Who has touched your life and given you great joy? How can you honor the people you love? How have your sisters changed your life? Who do you know that is like a sister to you? What birthing is occurring for you, a friend or a family member at this time?

Transitions

Archway at The Grotto of Redemption, West Bend, IA

I am amazed to discover that I have not written an entry for almost two months. During this time many things have occurred that have deterred me from this. My scanner has a glitch that I have to figure out and get it back in working order. This prevents me from scanning art that I include with my posts. Without a scanner, I am adapting my methods and will be posting photographs I have taken until I get it working.

During my scanner-less-ness I have gone through a shift in my work focus which has created the need for some adaptations and new orientations in my life. My mechanical scanner may be out of sync, but my internal life scanner has been working overtime. Last year, I made the decision to place my dominant career focus up my art and soul healing work. Although I had transitioned from full-time work into working as a substitute employee, in April, I was presented with the possibility to apply for another full-time position at the same agency. The focus of this new job is more in alignment with my specific skills and work background than the previous work I have done there. Before applying for it, I had to scan my life: consider my goals; contemplate my personal mission statement; assess what I was willing to adapt and modify.

Engrossing myself in creating art and working at a job that is not typically art oriented has always been a struggle for me. Being fully present for one always seemed to overwhelm my ability to be fully present for the other. It has been an either/or dilemma for me that created frustration in my life. I felt like I was falling short of fully utilizing my true gifts if I inhibited my calling to create art. I felt like I was not constructing a legacy of substance and significance.

Charting our course in life begins the process of fulfilling who we are...once we set sail, guided by the map we have created to get us there, spirit will lead us away from or toward the channels that will ultimately allow us to travel to the most significant way we are to express our intentions. Artful healing is the process of creating a healing environment with an artful approach, regardless of the venue in which it is expressed. In applying for this job I made a major shift in my mental processing and gained the awareness of knowing that whatever art I did while fulfilling this job was enough. I realized that I could do both at the same time and that defining myself as an artist or, defining myself as anything, for that matter, was not important. I was called to embody what I knew but had not embraced.

In allowing myself to be resilient in thought, rather than rigidly holding on to thought patterns that I felt defined me, I have discovered something I had not expected: For the first time in a very long time I wake up looking forward to going to work.

When you scan your life, what is calling to you? What ways of being and thinking can you let go of to create an opening for new possibilities? How can you expand the way you are defining yourself? If you didn't define yourself in any way, would you fall apart or create a path for limitless possibilities?

Turtle Island

"Turtle Island"

Kate Jobe 4/2009

I began this mandala perhaps eight months ago with the intention of creating in a more earthy, and somewhat simple style. Being me, loving ornamentation, that didn’t happen. I found it this week and was inspired to recycle it. The more I worked on it, the turtles became more flamboyant. They are, after all, painted turtles and the focus of this piece was to celebrate and honor Mother Earth. So, my humble turtles have been transformed into highly embellished ones but venerable, nonetheless.

Turtle Grandmother is a symbol of Mother Earth. Turtle reminds us to slow down, look around at the world around us and to remember that all that we need is provided for us in the realms of Mother Earth: Her trees; Her lakes and rivers; Her grasses and flowers; Her animals and birds; Her sunsets and sunrises; The geography of her land…all have gifts of insurmountable beauty and resources to share with us. We will continue to be sustained by our beautiful planet if we reciprocate her generosity and take care of her.

Wherever Turtle travels she has her home upon her back. At all times, everything that she needs surrounds her. We carry everything we need within us…the spark of original joy…the comfort of our original peace that was infused in us at birth. We have to seek shelter within the home of our spirit, the compass that steers us toward truth, to experience more beauty and appreciation of the world around us.

To me, the alignment of the turtles shells in the North & South segments of this mandala resemble ornate tropical butterflies. On the medicine wheel the red road of the path of heart runs between the north and south. When we go within to the truth of our soul, we can determine what speaks to us with heart and meaning. Energized by passion for life, we rise beyond ourselves to reach greater heights of awareness and can then reach outward with a generosity of spirit.

We owe it to ourselves to nurture that inner spark…to cultivate it to its full bloom. We owe it to Mother Earth to be fully present for ourselves to allow us to take care of her in the best way possible. How can you further cultivate your spark of original joy and peace to it’s full bloom? How can you nurture and appreciate Mother Earth?

Listening for the Rainbow

"Listening for the Rainbow"

Kate Jobe 4/2009

The mandala featured above, "Listening for the Rainbow", with it's lines weaving together, some times in neat orderly rows and, in other segments, in a pattern that is in the process of being loosely formed, reminds me very much of fabric that has been created from mixed media processes...hand-drawn fabric resembling a crazy quilt or a tapestry embellished with texture, color and the sheen of gold metallic glitter. As I contemplate it further, the mandala speaks to me of the fabric that defines us, woven together from the threads and colors of a multitude of processes, interactions and knowledge gleaned from everyone who has touched our lives. Many of the individuals who have added to the richness that makes us who we have become are people we have never met and perhaps, never will:authors of books whose words resonated passion within us and supported our values;politicians, scientists, visual artists,actors and musicians whose work assisted in forming the direction of the roads we traveled in life; and ancestors...born generations before us...who have gifted us with genetic assets that resonate within our cells and whisper directives to us as we create our lives. We are the vehicles chosen to act upon the inspiration whispered to us by all of these people, as well as the ones that form, or have formed, an active part of our lives. They are all a part of our web. We are their gift and they are ours.

What significant threads woven into the tapestry of your life were created by people you have never met? What dominant threads were created by people you know or knew? How did each of them change the course of your life? What new threads or embellishments are being formed?

Ganesha's Labyrinth

"Ganesha's Magic Labyrinth"

Kate Jobe 3/30/09

Illusion builds
the bones that bridge
Ganesha’s
magic labyrinth.
Listen.
The dance of
laughter shines through…
revealing golden keys
cascading
from shrouds
veiling open
doorways:
Breathe Trust.
Pray Forgiveness.
Embrace Love.
Inhale Truth.

Plunge

into

the flowing stream.
Be Abundance.

The mandala art featured above began as a rambling doodle that evolved into the image of an elephant and as I continued to embellish it, I transformed it into a mandala. The poem came after I meditated while focusing upon the image. I then researched the symbolic meaning of Ganesha, a Hindu deity, here and here (among many other sites), and discovered that Ganesha, while generally depicted as red, is also shown in blue or pink. Ganesha can have a snake draped across him and has a silver or gold crown with a red ruby on his forehead. He is sometimes shown with long flowing locks of hair. Upon reading this information, I was, once more, affirmed of how, when we allow ourselves to be guided by our intuition, we are more in touch with the interconnectedness of all things than we can imagine. Ganesha brings the gifts of wisdom and abundance and is said to both place obstacles before us to keep us on our right path and to also assist us to remove the obstacles from out paths. Many times in my life, I have been frustrated by challenges that I perceived as deterrents from what I wanted to be doing. Sometimes they were in the form of timing; Sometimes jobs or relationships, or lack of one of these, that created the challenge for me. As time passed, I would eventually unveil a greater gift that was woven into the guise of my challenge. These keys to awareness allowed me to see that I had skills I had not realized I possessed, or taught me how to stand stronger for myself, which ultimately led me to pursuits I would previously not have attempted.

When you look back over the challenges in your life that you resisted, what gifts did you eventually find within them? What challenges are facing you now that are waiting to be transformed into greater wisdom, truth or abundance for you?