Owl Medicine

Morning Harvest; Lucy Clark 2021

To truly transform, one must, each and every day, scrub off the layers of thoughts and considerations from others and be laid vulnerable and naked under a blanket of our own standards. A daunting task to say the least. One that truly requires our authentic self to shine past what others think of us, of our work or our intentions.

We have all been there. Willing, oh so willing to judge another for their reach in this world. Or their lack of ability for self examination. We roll around, thinking unkind thoughts; beating our way through the brush of our own chaos and lighting a candle on someone else’s fire.

And yet, our vulnerability awaits. To be laid quivering and cold, without our protective blanket of what our ego is telling us to believe is mandatory for our growth as an individual riding around the Universe in this human form.

If we are to believe, I mean truly and effortlessly believe, that we are worthy, we must first slog through the bits of bobs of unworthiness and selfishness. Such strange bedfellows but I have seen so many times the two go holding hands while walking down the street of my own delusions.

The ego is a wonderful survival mechanism – one that in my darkest of times has saved me from utter internal destruction. But a great gift can also be one’s most pointed liability. For if we feed our egos more than our authentic personage, we are doomed to being asleep at the wheel. But, if we pay our true selves just a bit more than our blubbering, boastful hobbit of an ego, we begin to see who we are starting to become peep through. And, I gotta tell you, it’s a whole lot easier living with the love of oneself than the condemnation brought on by believing we are unworthy of prosperity, love, adoration and forgiveness.

I am in the middle of transformation and, truthfully, it always comes with a side of fear, uncertainty and doubt. But, if I am to release from the Chrysalis of my own making I just gotta trust the process. And, my friend, I hope you do, too.

See you on the other side……

The Knock at the Door

The Knock at the Door: Lucy Clark 2021

To have Joy 

And invite her in.

To feel Sorrow,

And do the same.

Happiness

Anger, grief and apathy

All deserve a place, too.

To invite each one in

When it knocks at your door

Offering them a seat at the table

And a cup of hot tea

To expand our table so vast

That it holds All that we are

And all that we can be

Without morphing Blessings into Worry

Is the exact moment we can find solace

That accepting ourselves

Is our only salvation

And exactly what we have been waiting for.

CCC Camp Calling

Sunset @ CCC Camp; Lucy Clark 2020

CCC Camp Calling

Of steeples and churches and buildings made of steel
None can compare to the eroded doorway 
Staring into the bliss 
Of the arid unknown.

Quietly tucked into the land 
Known for commitment and second chances
Through chaos and longing, 
I come back again and again.

To the quiet place within
A doorway built for shelter
From a camp made for work
Tethered among cobblestones of hope.

Tell me the sunset isn’t spectacular
Illuminating the future
And I’ll tell you to gaze
Until it quiets your interior.

And whispers, ever so softly
With heart shorn wide open,
The kindness put aside
Replaced by fear, worry and disaster

Everything is temporary
Everything is but a wish
Everything will be fine
If only given time.

Photo/Writing Lucy Clark 2021

When the Mirror Falls Away

A Single Bud; Lucy Clark

When The Mirror Falls Away

Our hand losing its fierce grip

Begging a different version of ourselves

That we reflect outward to the skies

But internally find deep dis-ease.

The mirror that tells us to be somebody else

Anybody else

Because who we are now

Lacks the shine of a story

We can never own.

What will we do with the empty hand of our own judgment?

Will we pick up the fractured glass and pray we can piece it together?

Or will we simply stretch our tendons,

Knowing that the time has come

To shine as ourselves.

Without reflection

Without Distortion

Without Blame

Alone, knowing

We are ready to face

Unencumbered

Forward.

Losing Track of Letting Go

QUIETUDE; Lucy Clark 2018

It can happen with a nod of time lost;

Of details in abundance;

Of mind work replacing soul work.

And one day, you look around and just know,

Without a shadow of gray in the early morning light,

That, YOU are lost.

Lost to your own voice

To the din of the “to do” list

To your souls yearning,

And your hearts Desire

But, there is always this moment

A moment of recognition

Of reflection

Of renewed committment

To YOUR Life seed

Sprouting from the soil

That you placed there

When you were Aware.

And then there is Now.

The Germination of All Things

“IN THE BEGINNING” Lucy Clark 2021

While walking within the mist of a mountain morning, I saw this beauty. I know, I know, it isn’t much. It’s just a cracked seed fallen from the mother tree above. But the gift it gave me is priceless.

I have been struggling with the absence of my creative work. With the success and expansion of the gallery has come reduced time to be in my studio. It has laid heavy on my heart and on my shoulders. A feeling of missing an old friend where the dance of our time together had become comfortable. Expected. Routine.

This little gem of a seed gave to me the realization and reminder that all things, even preciously adored things, have a chapter. And those chapters can either repeat in the future or they have an ending. The emotion we put on those chapters that have come before are of our very own choosing. No one else’s.

And, it is so, once again, in my evolution as an artist. Even though I may not be creating as prolifically as I once have in the physical form, I am still, very much a creator and purveyor of beauty. It has just taken on a new expanded perspective.

And, just as the seed needs to crack itself open with water, light and shadows, so must we. To see that what is before us may not be what has come before. But, it could never the less, be beautiful indeed.

Lucy

Photo/Writing Lucy Clark 2021

The Muse and the Moment

I remember reading an interview by Mary Oliver who was talking about her writing Muse. She would be out walking in the woods and the Muse would suddenly strike; the words were floating in her head so quickly that she would have to run back as fast as she could and put them to paper before they flew out into the ethers and be lost forever. The story struck me when I read it because I had experienced the same thing from time to time. I would wonder, having missed chances to pay physical witness to the thoughts escaping my stream of consciousness that those precious baubles were lost forever. And, sometimes, they were. And sometimes, they would come back around because I was the one chosen to deliver that particular message, on that particular speck of time dust in this ever turning world we call our own. It is in the spirit of returning that I offer this.

If breaths make up moments and days make up weeks which eventually are all packaged up into a life, what gift have we made? What gift for ourselves, for our humanity, for our people? Have we left them with a gift of untold care and blessings? Or, have we played the game of “living” so well that people look upon us and mention the phrases, “Bless her heart”, “that’s so sad” or “she could have been something”?

As I sit here at 5:45 am on a chilly late May morning, woken by my Muse who I haven’t recognized in nearly a month, I am struck by this moment, among other seemingly mundane moments. A moment of the mountainscape revealing herself once again; of the seemingly endless bird sounds creating the soundtrack of their morning rapture and of my mind, words and heart coming together in a brief moment of recognition of the present moment. The “now” and the “before” and of futures not needing attention or worry. Just the breath and sounds and state of my heart. Just the warm mug of coffee and the cold glass table top beckoning my senses to step into another day filled with all things just as mundane, and yet, just as temporary, undulating and precious as a rain drop on parched earth.

If you are in a place of pain, I encourage you to turn and stare at it down “between” the eyes. Taking your “unseeing” physical eye and see it for what it is. Temporary. If you are confusion, take a deep cleansing breath and feel the movement produced by a sure, unconscious pattern that your body makes when it inhales and then lets it all go. If you are in a place of love and reverence, BE with it. Roll in it. Get dirty, muddy and blissful with it, allowing every ounce of it to make its mark on your skin.

Sitting with pain can be the easy part. It can be as natural and normal as first light. But, my friends, it is in the luscious, abundant good times that we can question our worthiness to the moment. Stop it. Don’t do it. Let it wash over you like a lover’s touch that has long been absent. Like the soft, caressed breeze of a new morning sky. Like the last gasp of your heart yearning for safety. For if we don’t acknowledge and wrap our arms around the beauty that Life HAS offered, why would it have any interest in returning to us once again?

If we are unwilling to acknowledge and bow to the unbidden gifts from our lives, we will be unable to encourage more of them. We will be numb to lightness and always look for the dark to return. Honestly, almost willing it to so that we can sit in our self righteous stupor and ask for more of the same.

Feel the enraptured spirit of Joy unbound, if only for the briefest of time. Now, after you have, think about this. What if we could transfer that moment into a day? What if we could recognize the light just a touch more than the dark? What if we finally decided to receive the gifts that we have longed for as long as we have been alive? Imagine what that would bring to the door. Recognition, acknowledgement, reverence, love and limitless light. And though we know it’s temporary, I can assure you it will return.

The Path Toward Us

In the Morning; Lucy Clark 2021

If I could tell you one thing it would be this.

Outwit your doubts. Give them a maze of self care and love that is so vast they simply just peter out, give up, throw up their hands with the hard, gritty work of getting you to make yourself smaller and wander off to doubt themselves.

And one more thing.

Take your inner critic out for a leisurely drive and show them all of the places, faces, crevices and refracted sides of your lovely soul. Let that miserable fucker see the beauty reflected in your eyes and deep within your heart until it simply cracks in to a shattered mess of butterfly wings, flying off to find the love it so richly deserves, just like you.

And lastly.

Show your anxiety the lushness of a single, solitary flower petal. Ask it to slowly brush its fingertips along the roads and byways of its visible veins allowing the softness to seep into your hands as you walk through a veil of mist from your future worry into the present moment.

And then…..be Whole ❤️

Photo/Writing Lucy Clark 2021

Sleeping Around

In Communion; Lucy Clark

A few days ago, I was asked in jest whether I had been sleeping around because I sure was getting a lot of press and recognition for the gallery and myself. I rolled my shoulders back and responded with clarity and kindness and moved on with my day; but the comment struck deep and I finally realized that it was partly true.

Like many small business owners, for the past year I have had my hands all over mine. In early April of last year, as I stood alone in the gallery that encompassed my heart, I had to make a decision whether I was all done or all in. I worked, worried, loved and ensconced myself with the act of coming through this surreal time with a beautiful space that could welcome the weary eyed and bring light to their life; and for the most part I’ve been pretty successful.

As the jest drove me deeper toward introspection I decided to come up with a list of items that I have slinked around with, both day and night and I am finally ready to confess.

Here goes………..

I slept with my Integrity; waking up each morning and checking to make sure I was standing deep within it. My own integrity, answering to my own standards and acting from a place of clarity.

I slept with my intentions to consider the angles and undercurrents; those misguided and needing reflection and repair.

I slept with my big dreams of a prosperous art business where the work that I created and those I represented were loved and supported.

I slept with my concerns and hopefully woke to discernment and direction for exactly how to work them to a place of calm decisiveness.

I slept with my husband and my dogs knowing when morning came I would feel comforted and blessed.

I slept with a clear conscious that I did my damn level best at every given opportunity and if I didn’t, I awoke with the full intent to be a better person than I was the day before.

I went to bed with the beautiful mantra that I am thankful for what I’ve been given but also for what I could give.

You see, I’ve been sleeping around like crazy and I do not feel one ounce of guilt or shame. I am imperfect, crookedly self critical and committed to taking responsibility to the life I am incredibly blessed to call my own.

So, dear one, I have been sleeping around the Universe and back again and the best part is, I’m still faithful and slap full of wild abandoned joy to my Life and my calling.

And so it is……….❤️

The Space Between

Breathing the Sky; Lucy Clark

What will you do when the world goes to seed?
When all of your hopes and dreams have been nudged into reality; when all of your fears are finally laid to rest.

Will you dwell within the confines of this world or will you be elevated to the space between?
The space between your breath and your heart;
To the moment inserted where the before and after dance;
To the place where the pause is more urgent than the forging.

I can look back on my life and know that I have not honored this most sacred of places. I have allowed the “what’s next” drug of choice to encapsulate my well traveled bones and push me swiftly to run past my accomplishments and head long toward another goal, another challenge, another learning curve.

As a creator, I soulfully know that “a creator must create.” But what if, as a collective, we shifted our perspective on what that actually means. What if creating space meant that we saw it as our angelic obligation to allow ourselves to breathe between the finish line of one race and the start of another. What if we imagined a flow of still points that encompassed our lives as much as our ladders of success. What if, my lovely ones, we took it within ourselves as a form of our highest good to believe that everyone is doing the very best they can and that the “very best” shifts moment to moment and from inhale to exhale.

With suspicion running rampant like a tornado across Kansas, there needs to be a time where all goes quiet. A place where a breath can simply be a breath; a step forward is a loving act of kindness and judgment is left behind in the trash barrel of things no longer required.

I simply must believe that this world exists. For without it, we are doomed to frolic in our co-misery of this life and relegate light, breath and space to the confines of illusion.

Be kind. Think the best of those around you and when you look in the mirror and see the person shining back at you, tell them once and then again toward eternity……

I see you, I believe in you and I fucking adore you ❤️