Breaking the Ice

The last day of the year lends itself to reflection on the previous 364. I will always think of this year as the year of lost and found. So much was lost and grieved, so much was found and delighted in. It's the pattern of life yet never have the contrasts shown themselves so sharply. All that was known seemed to crumble and I have stood on the edge of the unknown many times. Waiting. Inert. Disengaged. Unable to move forward. Frozen.

Yesterday a shift, an inner movement, a bubbling of energy that arose out of a healing conversation with a dear friend. Last night I began to read a Christmas book by Michele Cassou who teaches creative passion through painting. Her work was recommended to me some time ago by Time Fragments and my sister bought me the book. Thank you Kathleen. Thank you Bee.

I read until the small hours, falling asleep with the light on and my head pillowed on its open pages. Every word resonated, inspired and excited me. This seems particularly fitting: "To create is to move into the unknown - to move into the mystery of yourself, to have feeling, to awaken buried perceptions, to be alive and free without worrying about the result."

Her words were with me as I set out to take a photo to blip, my eyes and my mind painting nice photographs in my imagination. And then I took my mind out of it and listened to my body. Which direction did my body want to walk? Where did it want to photograph? Instinctive, intuitive, mindless. My body took me to the frozen pond and I placed the camera on the ice without looking through the viewfinder. This photo took itself intuitively, how lovely that I didn't interfere.

So as we stand on the edge of a new year, a new decade I wish you the possibility of embracing the unknown with excitement rather than fear. To enjoy the freedom of connecting with the truth of your body without being distracted by your mind. Life is a blank canvas, may you paint it joyfully. Happy New Year all.