For the months of June, August and September ~ I’ve been traveling!
Virtual Traveling!
Image by Pixabay
Virtual Sketchwalk is a Facebook Page with 849 (and growing) members. At the beginning of each month, the Admin ~ Kate Powell ~ posts around 100 plus photographs of interesting places, local and foreign. Sketchwalks involve a group of artists who meet up at a specific location and spend time sketching together at that location. Virtual Sketchwalk brings together artists who might not be able to travel yet still can enjoy sketching and learning about the area. It gives us a chance to practice our skills and then share our artwork with each other on Facebook. Each of us can choose from the photographs and we can sketch as many as we want. It’s fun to see the different interpretations that evolve from each person.
My previous post on the Virtual Sketchwalk for March, April and May is HERE.
This was a fantastic challenge! I’m not participating this year 2019. Even so, I’m still following along with all the great art that is coming from it. Here’s the 2019 Prompt List followed by my own creations in 2018:
********************
This month has been an eventful month!
I had a medical set-back that sent me to the emergency room a few months back and was soon diagnosed with AVNRT which is a form of Supraventricular Tachycardia. A Cardiac Ablation was scheduled for October 15th and while waiting for that date, my activity level took a nose dive.
Then I heard about Inktober 2018 and decided it would be a great way to pass the time and fight the boredom. It would calm my pre-surgery fears and also give me a buffer-zone against the ugly, stressful developments in our country’s politics. The challenge is to come up with an ink-sketching idea based on a daily prompt. Here’s the video that explains Inktober much better than I could:
So all went well with the Cardiac Ablation and I’m just completing my recovery with a good report from the doctor. I also finished all 31 days of Inktober and feel pretty good about it. Take a look at my sketches. Maybe you’ll join us next year for Inktober 2019?
Week One ~ Oct 1st thru 7th
This slideshow requires JavaScript.
Week Two ~ Oct 8th thru 14th
This slideshow requires JavaScript.
Week Three ~ Oct. 15th thru 21st
This slideshow requires JavaScript.
Week Four ~ Oct. 22nd thru Oct 30th
This slideshow requires JavaScript.
********************
And HAPPY HALLOWEEN ~ Enjoy a Margarita on me!!❤
(I’d love to know which sketch you liked the best! Leave your choice in comments!)
“People heal by being able to tell the story, the whole story.”
~Clarissa Pinkola Estes~
********************
********************
“Today we are witnessing an immense longing for relational, mutually empowering feminine qualities at every level of our society—from our politics, to our economics, in our psyche, our cultures, our patterns of leadership, and our theologies, all of which have become far too warlike, competitive, individualistic, mechanistic, and non-contemplative. We are terribly imbalanced.
Unfortunately, the feminine has often had to work in secret, behind the scenes, indirectly. It’s to the church and culture’s own detriment that women haven’t been recognized as leaders.”
JOURNEYS WITH THE DIVINE FEMININE (See more) is a collection of 24 personal stories of women’s experiences in discovering the Divine Feminine and journeying within to experience it, understand it, and grow from it. You will see yourself reflected here. You will see paths you didn’t know existed, and you may even feel freer to walk some you’ve perhaps been afraid to venture down.
The writers are from Irish, Dutch, German, Scottish, North American, Trinidadian, English, Indian, French, Australian, New Zealand and New Zealand Maori backgrounds, with combinations of Jewish, Christian, Buddhist, Hindu, Pagan, Wiccan, Baha’i and other religious and spiritual practices and traditions. They are writers and artists, therapists and coaches, mothers and grandmothers, academics, yoga teachers, psychics and healers, nurses and salespeople, sisters and daughters.
The re-emergence of the Divine Feminine from oppression, suppression, repression and ultimately depression, is vital to restoring the balance of this world and all who live on this planet. Too long, we have been living a lopsided life as the forgiveness, love and compassion so sorely needed have been lost and are now being resurrected.
~Patricia Iris Kerins (Foreword)
Their journeys are often physical – to sacred places around the world, genealogical – exploring the gifts and wisdom of their ancestors near and far, intellectual, and always emotional. Their experience of the Divine Feminine is necessarily spiritual – encompassing a myriad of different meanings of that term – revealing that the Sacred is rooted in the soil as much as the heavens.
I discovered a poem I wrote on September 22, 2001 so I thought I’d share it:
*********************
~ THEY HAVE NOT DIED IN VAIN ~
If we see life a bit clearer and appreciate its beauty and glory alongside its horror and sorrow ~ They have not died in vain.
If we’ve reached out to those we love and opened our hearts a bit more in trust ~ They have not died in vain.
If we’ve learned beyond a doubt that politics and religion can be dividers of people as well as reconcilers of people ~ They have not died in vain
If we now know that God’s grace and love resides in the hearts of individuals regardless of race, creed or country ~ They have not died in vain.
Freedom or fear; Love or fear; Courage or fear ~ Everyday battles fought in everyday lives.
If we can believe that the way we live our lives; The way we treat each other; And the way we respond to hatred and evil will bring about change in this world ~ Then they have not died in vain.
~ Mary Lou ~
♥
(Dedicated to the Victims and Families of September 11, 2001)
Photo by Thomas E. Franklin, The Record (Bergen County, NJ)
