what if it was okay to
acknowledge how much it
matters to need and to have
a little more room to
breathe now?
Morgan Harper Nichols
🦚💖 [August: looking up & over] ➡️ Suleika Jaouad shared an invite for a “month-long Artist Residency for beginners, dabblers, and the creatively curious”—so, yes! Of course! I’m in! 😎
My containers for August include: my Ko-fi booklet + templates from Beginnings; my wellness journal and conscious-living journal + a deck of playing cards for art-card making.
Having specific containers helps me to maintain continuity. Especially this week, as I savor the moments and making memories with my son and grandson! 😎
☀️ Summer months have always felt like a sacred🕳️portal—a paradigm shift in how I see my-self. 🙆🏻♀️ This summer has been an especially significant shift.
💞 Lots of family time, lots of health issues + medical 🏥👩🏻⚕️👨🏻⚕️ appointments for my partner and me.
- It has been a time of healing and resolution ❤️🩹 as I remind myself that nothing is forever—that Life cycles in ever-widening circles of change and loss. 🪦
- And—that transformation is beautiful … 🦋
“It feels messy, overwhelming, or hard because that’s how it works: it is always going to feel this way when you’re trying something new, making a change, or building something.” -Stephanie Harrison
I am dealing with the very real challenges of [re-entry]. Re-entry, sort of. (Because I still have radiation treatments scheduled for this month that must be completed before my breast cancer adventure concludes.) 🙃
- So I am makin’ my choices as best as I can, and 🪇 dancin’ between hope and powerlessness and trusting intuition—and always on the look out for secret messages and oracles. 🥠🔮🪬
- August Ko-fi download theme: [meaning & personal values]; co-creating with Spirit to determine meaning within honoring my personal values. 🩵
- August Lunar 🌙 prompts focus on narratives, values and the stories we tell ourselves as we make our dreams real …
Years ago, I adopted this bit of Lynda Barry’s wisdom: “Let the thing you are doing be nothing…just keeping your hands in motion, putting one thing down and then the next thing down and sometimes 😢 crying in between.”
Hey there, sunshine, it’s been a while
Since I have seen your face
It ain’t all blue skies, ain’t all alright
But for the first time, I’m okay
I’m gonna be okay 🎶
“Hey There Sunshine,” Little Big Town
➡️ I am gonna be okay because I am consistent with my right brain planning practice. A practice that is more about self-compassionate expression + processing than planning; art as mindfulness.
➡️ I am gonna be okay because I am allowing my pages to be “nothing” … and I know I am okay because “I feel the spark that used to burn in me / I feel the dark slipping away” (Hey There Sunshine lyrics), and I am willing to feel everything again.
“The consistency of the process is where the magic is.” -Emily McDowell
Because this year has been such a 🎢 ride, I decided to create momentum with back-to-back 100-Day Projects. Today is ✅ Day 74/100 of my second 100-Day Project (theme: Benevolence, Wonder and Meaning).
This theme has enabled me to maintain consistency despite obstacles, with self-kindness, staying curious and making meaning; to be willing to feel everything once again. 💖
✅ Right brain chronicles (jotted notes, 🌈 color vents, ✂️📐 collage and 🖊️ doodles of our 💭 ponderings and 🗓️ dated mental wanderings) are the data + a map of our living, serving as a tangible record of:
- questions and 🪄 wishes
- keywords and phrases 📝
- daydreams and nighttime dreams 💤💭💤
- what we feel and think 🙃😐😣😜
- what we want to experience ❤️
- what we need to foster our well-being ♻️
- what we want to discover and learn about 🧠🤓
- sky meditations + phases 🌙 (everything cycles)
✅ Right brain chronicles can become a sacred 📿 space for 🌀 processing what we need and desire—space where we 🔎 observe and process the data of Life; and to ♻️ empower us to make 📊 choices (and prioritize) what matters most to us. ❤️
Thank you kindly for your presence here, Braveheart. 💗
I appreciate your interest and support.
~love & good wishes~
⭐️ I am an artist and curator; I am one who communicates with color, found words and collage, inky marks and doodles as I cycle like the moon (as my calendar), chronicling oracles and abiding with the sky as a meditation.
⭐️ I host creative communities, safe spaces for gathering and sharing. I choose love and creativity for coping with the ongoing challenges of this world and I go to work—not because everything is fine but because I believe art heals.
❤️ Braveheart, as the Creator/Artist of Right Brain Planner I am ever-grateful to have the opportunity to share my creative work online + support other creators! 🎉 For almost 20 years I have had the privilege of sharing my art and writing about right brain planning while also hosting kindred 👭🏽💞👭 communities. ✨ I consider it an absolute 🤸 delight to continue this portion of my creative 📝🖌️✂️🫧 work (even as I retire from full-time work).
- This is possible, in part, by {you} and your presence here. (Thank you!) 💗 But also because of the support of my Ko-fi patrons and the other member/subscriber communities I host (via their presence, input and paid subscriptions). 🫶
- 💁🏻♀️ Other ways to support my work: ❤️ continue to read this blog + follow me on Instagram. 📲
If you already have your own system of creative journal-planning, but are interested in financially supporting my creative work, you may do so by making a donation:
- Artist’s Statement 😊🔮🔎📝🖌️🎨❤️📊
- Make a one-time contribution in any amount via [this link]. (Thank you!) ❤️