I woke up at 3AM with this message in mind: Transformation Takes Time.

I got out of bed to write it down and wrote the following:

Shouldn’t I be further along in my career?

I’ve been at this for a long time.

Maybe I’m a slow learner or a slow changer or a slow beginner?

Am I “there” yet?

How much longer will this take?

Well, that depends on how much further you want to go.

Do you feel “cooked”?

Do you feel “done”?

There is no “there” to get to.

There is only now, and you’re looking pretty good from here.

Do you want to be “done”?

Do you feel complete?

What’s the rush?

If you stopped now, would you feel Satisfied?

Would you be Happy?

Would you be “good enough”?

Transformation is a process, a journey, not a destination; and it takes time.

Go back to bed. Go back to sleep. In the morning when you wake up, greet your new day with a renewed sense of self. Let the rest be up to us.

Trust. All is well. 

You’re on “target” (as if there was such a thing!)

Breathe In
Breathe Out
Move On
(The last three lines are Jimmy Buffet’s, but they came to me at that perfect time and place so I included them here.)

Imagine a beautiful, colorful stained-glass window, 30’ long. Now imagine a stone has broken one of the panes. 

Rev. Margaret Stortz recently wrote an essay on this subject and noted that even though the broken pane was small, and not brightly colored, its shattering was deeply felt by all who saw it.

So too when one of us dies (transitions, passes, choose your verb), those of us left behind feel the loss deeply.

People die everyday and we will too. 

When I was almost 25, my brother Ricky died in a car accident (if he were still with us, he’d be known as Rick).

His death was devastating to me and to my family. I went from being one of six kids in the family to one in five remaining.

Never before had I understood the vast difference one number, one person can make in the fabric of our lives.

Yes, It’s hard to “lose” someone to the inevitable. Yes, our lives are forever changed when a loved one dies.

Yes, I believe in the value of then feeling that loss, of remembering the good of that person, and the lessons learned as a result of their presence in our lives.

I am so grateful to Ricky for teaching me so much about life and death. Of course I’d rather he not be the one who taught me, but I’m glad to have learned them.

A broken pane in a stained glass window can be repaired and replaced. The space left when a loved one dies isn’t reparable. It’s something we live with forever more.

All of us are touched by deaths of people we love. Death is part of the continuum of life. It’s not death we abhor, it’s the feeling of loss, the sense that someone vital to our life is missing.

Yet as long as we can deeply feel their presence in our heart, they are never truly gone.

The time it takes to mend our shattered hearts is equal to the importance those deaths hold in our lives.

I’m sending this out to you on my Birthday, a day I love to celebrate (seriously, I still love it as much as I did when I was seven years old!). 

Why am I sending a message about living and dying on my birthday?

Here’s the thing. No matter who we are or what we do with our lives, each and every one of us matters to the fabric of the world. 

We are transitory, just visitors on the planet, yet each of us makes a difference. 

We never know how our lives affect those of others. Whether or not we know those other people, we are connected. 

Our lives affect the fabric of life. 

What difference do you want to make with your life? Is your star shining?

What difference do you see yourself making? 

Are the answers to those questions the same or at least similar?

What can you do today to nudge those two answers closer together?

How can you brighten the star that you are?

These are thoughts to have on occasion. We see ourselves in a mirror every day, yet reflection is a tool we often take for granted.  

Pausing to reflect on life, and our place within it, is a tool used to craft a life that matters. We want our life to matter to ourselves AND let’s remember that it matters to everyone else (even just a teeny bit to those we don’t know).

Today is a day of finding incredible beauty. Keanu found a dead monarch butterfly in the garage; I brought it with me to the studio this morning so I can enjoy its form.

On my way to the studio, I found some fallen banana flower petals and knelt down to pick them up. You guessed it; I brought them along to the studio with me.

Once at the studio, Rebecca pointed out a large moth resting on the screen. I took a photo so I can appreciate it longer.

Yesterday Rebecca, Sue Stagner (organizer extraordinaire), and I spent the day cleaning the studio in preparation for Open Studios this weekend. Apparently we made enough room for me to start bringing new found objects back into the space!

Participating in Open Studios is one way of ensuring the studio gets a goodcleaning at least once a year. (Hey! I work here I don't live here.)

Better yet, it's a time for me to share this wonderful space with all of you.

Come see what I've started to paint, what paintings are finished, and which ones are more or less studies. See if you can "connect the dots" that become my paintings.

Often we think that if we "felt better”, or if we "felt like painting", that our painting time would be more fun, or more interesting, or our painting “turn out" better.

Actually, we will feel better about painting (and the resulting painting) after we paint!

Rather than waiting to feel better before taking action (starting to paint), it’s important to know that our attitudes follow our actions. This means that we often feel better about doing something AFTER we’ve done it.

Whether it's painting or going to the gym or some other task, it helps to have a habit or practice in place so the decisions to act are made ahead of time. That way our resistance (fear) doesn't stand a chance of stopping us from taking action. 

When you hear the phrase “stand up straight”, whether it’s said to you or to another, do you “stand up straight”?

Did you just sit up straighter when you read, “stand up straight”?

How’d that feel?

Aside from the annoyance factor, did you feel a tiny bit better for having straightened your spine from the “I-didn’t-realize-I-was-slouching” position you’d been in?

When we don't use our creativity muscle regularly, it slouches. It goes slack. It goes limp, and gradually we “lose the juice”, the “fire in our belly” that fuels our creativity.

Nike’s famous slogan “Just Do It!” is a great start for any new action we want to cultivate.

“Just Do It Again!” is an even a better mantra to recite.

Doing something once is a start. Doing something regularly is the way in which we create a habit or a practice.

If you want a habit of feeling good or happy with yourself, figure out which of your actions produce those feelings, and then Do Those Actions Again and Again!