Tag Archives: Intentional Creativity

Grotto

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Grotto, acrylic and ink on watercolor paper, 18″X24″, Lex Leonard

In the beginning
a cavern gestation
dark, warm, fluid
underwater quiet
a den in which to grow
without worry
a place to become
what I am

Then I emerged
all new and shiny
ready to become more
still me, but more

There is no need for me to fear
This dark
This hollow
This stillness
This solitary space
Imposed

The other time, in three days
here was something new
and shiny
still the same
yet more
not in ways of musts and rules
but a knowing…there is more
and it doesn’t matter what that is
just a reminder
to be me, here and now

I, too, will emerge from this antre
shaking off many things
having been exiled to
dark, still, quiet in
sacred space
knowing there is more

 

Author’s Note:

This is day eleven of the National Poetry Writing Month/Global Writing Month. I didn’t post yesterday’s poem. It is at the bottom of this post. And today I am not writing to the prompt.

I began this painting yesterday. I am several years removed from celebrating the traditions of Holy Week and Easter. I celebrate in another way taking with me a life of of what serves me.

I have no specific religion, but I do believe in Source.

I do believe in holy and wise people who came here to help us realize what gifts we are. To help us realize that we are wonderfully and perfectly and beautifully made. This is our personal gift as well as a gift to all beings. And it is our purpose to share our beautiful selves. Flaws, if you must, and all.

As I painted this on Good Friday, I was in a place in my fear. In darkness. And I knew there was a message for me. I used only bone black and titanium white to begin after having blessed the canvas with the elements and opened the directions. This is my holy practice with my art.

As I sat with this, faces began to emerge from the strokes. Many faces, even a figure. I thought I might just darken a few lines of all the faces, but I stopped at the one that was most obvious. I knew I was going to add the quinacridone crimson. So this face emerge d surround by red, fire, hair. Me. So she stays. I’m posting below several image points along the way as I painted.

I am a certified Intentional Creativity instructor, Red Thread Guide, and poet. Using Intentional Creativity as a spiritual practice is a powerful addition to my other practices – Passage Meditation with the Blue Mountain Center for Meditation and my shamanic practice.

Life, for me, is about weaving together that which serves and sharing the gifts I have been given to help all beings realize their beauty within.

My Process: 1. Blessing the canvas with the elements. 2. Writing the intention. 3. Opening the directions. 4. Faces emerge.

 

NaPoWriMo Day 10

Today’s prompt (optional, as always) is another one from the archives, first suggested to us by long-time Na/GloPoWriMo participant Vince Gotera. It’s the hay(na)ku). Created by the poet Eileen Tabios and named by Vince, the hay(na)ku is a variant on the haiku. A hay(na)ku consists of a three-line stanza, where the first line has one word, the second line has two words, and the third line has three words. You can write just one, or chain several together into a longer poem. For example, you could write a hay(na)ku sonnet, like the one that Vince himself wrote back during NaPoWriMo 2012!

 

Evolution

Paramecium
Swimming obedience
Survival in tedium

Prometheus
Clayed resilience
Sparked life abundance

Bohemian
Soaring avian
Extant not oblivion

Microscopic
Story mythical
Consummate zenithal marrow

Bluejay

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Bluejay, acrylic and ink on watercolor paper, 18″x24″, Lex Leonard

Bluejay

Today is a spiral day the anger and the fear and the hopelessness all coming at once but organized one right after the other they greet me as i open my eyes and start my day i try to organize them for my brain and all they want is each one to be the first in line without exception impertinent little bastards impolite and quite pushy i get mad at the dog i am sharpe with my partner i am angry at myself for the dirty floor and the piles of stuff cluttering from a few weeks ago attempt at clearing out the clutter another failure my office my sacred space for meditating that must be clutter free i am at odds with myself because of those impish grins pushing to be first and most important and what they fucking don’t understand what i can’t seem to make them fucking understand is that they are not important enough to make me feel like shit and i breathe and listen to the birds and write this on watercolor paper to paint on when i am finished to bring healing and i hear the bluejay singing like i have never heard before he is happy at the bird feeder alone right now because all we can get is the cheap seed and the birds are spoiled and don’t like it and it is spring and there are other sources so it is his alone and when this is all over we will always buy the good stuff because that is what is important right now

 

 

Author’s Note:

The days spiral. Today is not such a good day. So it is to the canvas I go with my words. And then paint. Thank the Universe for Intentional Creativity.

From NaPoWriMo/GloPoWriMo:

Our prompt for the day (optional as always) is inspired by Kaschock’s use of space to organize her poems. Today, I’d like to challenge you to write a “concrete” poem – a poem in which the lines and words are organized to take a shape that reflects in some way the theme of the poem. This might seem like a very modernist idea, but poets have been writing concrete poems since the 1600s! Your poem can take a simple shape, like a box or ball, or maybe you’ll have fun trying something more elaborate, like this poem in the shape of a Christmas tree.

Gentle Landing

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Gentle landing

Water hardly detected it presence,
only a perceived pressure.         

Natural to its course
it integrated the ever so tender caress
in artistry, replica of peaceful agreement.

Voracious search for ownership, purpose,
to examine only if one chose.

It wasn’t a brick of clay dropped into the day,
just an existence deeply rooted, without roots.

Not a temporal smirk flirting
but a seeing through the glass.

mute

unencumbered

float

Author’s Note:

This from Systhesis/A Collage Journey with Jenafer Joy at http://www.inspiriediquiries.com – Lesson Four – Word Spelunking

Feint

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Little bee
you came out
almost
too soon,
winter’s trickster feint

But sun is warm
bones thaw
you move again with grace
about your daily chores

Your wings loose
and stretch
ready for flight

Violas call
You cleave

And I ride your back
honeymeade our drink
eternity our design

Colors

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Shaman Dreams, detail, by Lex Leonard

Shaman Dreams, detail, by Lex Leonard

First you learn to see
hues and tints
shadows and light
they are always there
not always noticed

Let go of what
you think you see, what you
want to see. Allow for unexpected
to surprise you

It will

You watch, without
judgement, without need

See, it will unfold
invite you into a new
way of being

 

Authors Note:

Happy National Poetry Month and Glo/NaPoWriMo!

Spring

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Spring

 

Winter negotiates spring,
its last watered drops, ice tears
nourish that which will be,
release of what no longer serves.

After snow, graupel,
downpour of rain, I see your
green blush arms reach
to azure sky. I await, I inscribe your
nod to a new found spring.

 

Awww. It’s spring, at least in part. NaPoWriMo/GloPoWriMo begins tomorrow.

I welcome this as much as longer days and quick melting snow and birdsong.

Won’t you join me?

 

Now

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I found myself in that place again
that place I thought I left behind
released
Now.jpgcracked the container wide open
to watch contents drain
into the gutter flow
into the sewer wash
into the ocean

Here I am again but
I know better now

I am at cause
my feet on Earth
next to tree
I create that which
serves

In wonder I pick up
a twig somehow
knowing this piece of skeleton
broken
dry
dismembered from its whole
is still at cause

Energy is neither created nor destroyed
It just changes form

Into compost,
Little Twig,
transform into
nourishment for
Little Seed
roots and stem
buds and leaves
from what seems
nothing

I am at cause
I create

PPP – Peace Poetry Postcard Month

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February is one of my favorite months.

Valentines Day. Imbolc. And the World Peace Poets who usher in their Peace Poetry Postcard Month.

We sign up to receive 28 names and addresses of other poets from across the world who will write one poem a day in February on a postcard and pop it into the mail to a different poet each day. And, of course, the theme of peace flies through the universe courtesy of the mail systems. Ahhhhhhh, a beautiful way to spread peace and art and magical words and intentional creativity.

I am late in posting. It is already Day 6. Today I shall catch up. Then post one a day from here on out. I promise.

02.01.19
Being
I
Become
Bring forth
Be at cause
Realign my extent
Turn around

Revolutionary Evolutionary Being

My gambol in

Peace

 

02.02.19
Convolvulus

 /kənˈvɒlvjuːləs/
genus Convolvulaceae

Bind weeds to strangle

Morning Glories, family, too
Bright eyes in morning sun
Blue as Mar Pacifico
“the peaceful sea”

Two sides of family

Revolutionary combatant
Evolutionary halcyon
Beings conceived in parallel

 

02.03.19
Good Ancestor

I reach back to you,
Good Ancestor,
embrace your peace,
your walk with me.

I reach ahead to you,
Good Ancestor,
divine your peace,
your walk with me.

I walk my day,
an open vessel
to shine out your peace,
Good Ancestor To Be.

 

02.04.19
Milky Way
It all came back to
why she dyed her hair.

She wasn’t at peace with
who she was.

The Milky Way
gently nudged her
home.


02.05.19
genius loci

The spirit of place that is.

Architects, the good ones,
the ones who know
beings
and nature
and things created
must reside in peace,
and weave the genius loci
into its right
and honorable space.

(Dedicated to Daniel Libeskind, architect of the Denver Art Museum, after hearing his interview on Colorado CPR)

 

02.06.19
Roofers
In February’s stolid chill
roofers crack open early morning peace.

Rhythmic nails shutter out
weather’s purpose.

June’s hail storm
Re-collected.

Seducing the Muse

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I do not share events very often, but this is one I would love for you to check out.

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Make your inner critic your ally and let your Muse out to play
Find out how to rewire your brain patterns and quickly lower stress levels
Journey into the portal of your imagination with a world-class artist
Discover how to enter the “flow state” and free your creative, playful self

I know Shiloh Sophia through my own experience with Intentional Creativity and healing/transformation this past year. And I would like to introduce you to her joy with her complimentary event at the Shift Network.

Visit my “Events” page if you are interested in more information.

Below are just a few muses I painted this year while I was immersed in the process of Intentional Creativity.