The Space Between

“Basking”. Lucy Clark/2022

The Space Between

The space between leaving and what is yet to come. The space of becoming, acknowledgement, and knowingness. The space between the inhale where anything can happen and just before the exhale where life is complete.

All of this invites a big, deep, undulating pause.  It’s not so much about the leaving and the arriving as it is about the space between.  The place we can get caught in fear and trepidation, uncertainty and anxiety or deep bull shitting denial.  A place that speaks like no other of the void.  A space that yearns for growth but may be too full of fear to reach for it.  A niche of enlightenment with darkness at the edges.  

I just returned from 5 days in one of my most sacred spaces in this Universe called Santa Fe.  I, at this very moment, am inhabiting the very surreal, ungrounded slightly askew space between.  In years past, I would be concerned for my future.  The trip, so incredibly enchanting and delightful, has stirred up my longing for what’s next.  What will I create, where will I go with it, how I can be more “me” in the process?  All those things that used to scare the light out of me and now, without me even being aware of it has softened into a comfort of unknowing.  

I have ridden this horse enough to know that all will be revealed in its own languid time.  Without force or effort.  Without worry or stress.  I have realized that what is leaving is leaving and what is to come will find its way to my door.  People, places, things, and time have always been and will always be as temporary as a firefly on a warm summer’s night.  

I bow to the space between the word and the world.  The place where magic can happen with a flick of fate and where, in the end, we will always find our way home.

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

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

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 ❤️

Moon Angel

Moon Angel; Lucy Clark 2020

In the shape of night, we can see what our deepest desires implore.
The brightness of a half-full moon shining into the shape of an Angel.
An Angel of lightness and hope
Of loving and forgiveness
Of moments and lives cherished
Of lifetimes honored and embraced

In this light there is a delicious ease in laying down the sharpness of our fears.
The battles we fought
The words we flung
The hate we have embellished
The bruises we inflicted
And the causes we have forged.

For, if we are to be IN the light and OF the light
We must relieve the darkness for which we hold
And reflect the stellar sky within our hearts
Shining fiercely toward a brand new day.

LC Photo and Writing

The Setting of the Sun and The Rise of the Moon

When the Sun and the Moon Meet; Lucy Clark 2020

The Setting of the Sun and the Rise of the Moon

As I look back on this year with the eyes of a weary traveler, it feels like I have lived in a world created by Salvador Dali. At any moment I’m pretty sure the clock in front of me will start melting on a piano floating in the sky and I will simply think……..Hmmm, I wonder what I’ll cook for dinner. Like the ability to make this shit anymore surreal was just about impossible.

And then, I saw this.

I saw, with my very own eyes, the rise of a blessed Full Moon and the setting of a divine, fiery Sun. In that precious moment, it felt like a portend of the future and a putting to bed of the past.
Like the heat of this year was slowly fading and the cool, wispy beams of the Moon were set to take center stage, calming our fears and comforting our souls.

Yes, I’m hopeful. Yes, I’m tired. Yes, oh Yes, my fellow soul exhausted lovelies, I am still here. And hopefully, so are you. Battered, but awake. Soul shot, but healing. Loved but with the aching sense of loss and renewal.

I choose to believe that the best; mine, yours and ours, is yet to come. For in the moment of destruction comes creation. In the moment of death comes Life. And in this very moment, of all moments, comes another breath of a chance to capture the joy that has been waiting there all along.

I bow to the New Year with just a little more humility than I had before and knowing more than ever, all we have is Now.

From a Sprout

From the Beginning; Lucy Clark 2020

The very beginning. The beginning, from a seed to a sprout to a mountain forest and all that grows in the in between.

To me, the definition of Life.

It is the verdant, unreasonable, furtive hope that we will grow into ourselves and encompass that whole of who we are. All of our aspirations laid within the cellular structure of this beautifully designed, almost imperceptible, breath of a wish called a seed.

The netting laid down with the mastery of sacred geometry, holding upon the earth our shared missives and dreams of what’s to come next. Of what could be. Of what we so longingly yearn for. Life abundant, prosperity unparalleled and love unbound.

The resilient trees and masterful mountains in the background to remind us of what could be, ever changing; of the possibilities that might be, of what we are destined to be if we only allow it.

Within each of us is the greatness of our true selves just waiting to be uncovered but playing small will never do. For we have the strength of the seed within us and the glory of the mountains to become. Everything in between is the journey of 1,000 roads to be adored.

Writing and Photo; Lucy Clark 2020