Camus

those two or three great and simple images in whose presence his heart first opened.

I have been thinking about this quote, and so many other things for a few weeks now. I am reconnecting with the divinity inside of me that is wider than raising my children and the PTA. I love the image of you being a house with many rooms in which to keep things. Those of you who have seen my house know that there is usually a lot of clutter. And you need to sift through a bunch of junk to find the truly useful and meaningful. I have started doing that with our house. Our living room even has our couch, lovingly bathed in red corduroy IN it as opposed to propped up in a corner on the front porch! I have a place to sit on Sunday and read the New York Times with coffee and orange juice and yell at Meet the Press. And these are no small things. They have given my everyday reality enough roots so that I can open myself up to the other rooms and unearth what is hiding.

Enough metaphor. My artistic side has been hiding, hidden for quite some time. I had delusions of Mothering grandeur when I first started this parent gig. I was going to cloth diaper my children, read to them, bathe them in lavender oil and respond to their every need with love, calm and rapt attention. Okay, I will pause here while my mother-friends clean up the coffee with too many sugars that they just spit onto their computer monitor or keyboard. Done? Okay, resuming. My heart, my mind, my chakras (a wink at ADS) are opening up. And it is luscious and overwhelming. Remember my post about desiring to live in the liminal - to live and feel each moment in sacred space? Cannot do it. Not possible. There is laundry and pick ups and playdates. And there can be years (for me 10)of just getting through the day. ART - takes a backseat.

I used to find it incredibly pretentious when people referred to themselves as "artists." Really? Who the hell are you? And now I realize that it takes a great deal of courage to admit, out loud, that you want to make the world a more beautiful place. That you are essentially an idealist which in mainstream parlance equals naive. You paint a huge target on yourself to receive ridicule and to be taken advantage of. It's a brave and bold move. And I always hated when people did it because I was not feeling particularly "artistic" for a good deal of my life. Jealousy really at their opportunity. But that is not fair. And I remember that being an artist means infusing your life with beauty. Ah.

Back to Camus. I have recently remembered all the images, touches, and sounds in whose presence my heart first opened up. There are so many. And remembering them has been lovely and painful. And so worth it. Think about this today - when do you remember your heart first opening up? You may find that there have been so many times and I hope each one of them causes you to smile. I tend to feel things very deeply when I allow myself to feel them, so it has been an intense couple of weeks. We Leos never do anything small. And my 100 Angels have rallied around me to bring me into the next part of my life. Filled with conscious beauty, discipline and dare I say it - art? Join me there.