Beginning the New Year with Introspection

At the beginning of every year, I schedule time for reflection, introspection, and goal setting. This year, I am re-doing Hello Soul Hello Business, with many of my classmates.

 I just finished the excersizes on peak experience and on people, and compared them to when I first took the class. Last January I used a sailing experience as my Peak Experience, and what jumped out was adventure, freedom, independence, and service. I found that the spiritual dimension is more profound this year, as I have been blessed with some wonderful experiences, both with nature and with other people.

I used my Solstice visit with the Bard (Barred) Owl as my peak experience. It was an inward experience. I had gone into the Place of 5 Cedars with my Love, feeling broken open and extremely vulnerable. Visiting with the owl made me feel honored, connected with the Divine Force that imbues all of life. Trust for my Love who guided me there, trust for the Divine, the owl's trust and openness to us, allowed me to open more fully to experiencing and serving that Spiritual Force called Allah, or Jehovah, or Yawha, or Jesus, or ?

 Compassion, courage, and service are still top. Family is still important. Creativity and intelligence are high. Intuition. Wisdom. 3 words were definitely NOT enough to capture what is important to me.

Now to focus on creating and on business for the next few days--and on family and self-care. My hands have a lot to do!

Journey Through Stories

 I'm basically a storyteller. I fell in love with stories and illustration as a child, and lately my paintings on silk all have stories.

Butterfly Lovers print available on etsy

I began painting on silk late in 2009, when I returned from China with stories to tell. The first stories on silk were Chinese folk tales and poetry, then stories from my life began to appear, and friends' stories: the loss of a child, that glorious walk in a magical madrona forest with my beloved, the death of a husband, the first days when a newborn comes into the family. 

On Friday, January 11, from 7pm-9pm, I will tell you some of these stories -- casually, as people show interest-- at the Pninney Center, 6532 Phinney Ave, Seattle. 

January 11

7-9 pm

Phinney Center, 2nd floor

6532 Phinney Ave, Seattle

Real People: Joanna Weibe

Joanna is wearing one of my shibori dyed silk scarves

 I want to introduce you to some of the people who inspire me, people like my good friend Joanna Last-Wiebe.

Joanna Last-Wiebe is a woman who centers her life in Love and Spirit while working in the corporate world.  She's been through some hard times as a single mom, when food for her children was not a given. She's had her years of living wild, as a young woman. Now she is a home owner whose work as a graphic designer of web sites is seen around the world, and a fantastic artist!

Joanna says:
"There was a time when I was a lonely, scared young woman who had dropped out of college to give birth to a baby I had decided to give up for adoption. Eventually I finished school and became one of the first designers for the World Wide Web, and designed software applications that are used around the world. But I value most of all that I have had a chance to practice the skills and principles of loving and being loved with many people over the years, including my son, with whom I was reunited in 1996. My book, BIrth Mother, is available at http://amzn.com/1463729375"

View from the Top

--Top of the mast, that is! Sometimes a woman has to do what a woman has to do; in this case, go up to the top of the mast of my Catalina 27 to see what kind of hardware manages the halyards, so that I can replace them.  That's Jim below, pulling me up in the bosun's chair with the jib halyard. Jim was my boat partner on another boat.

So how does a woman handle all this? I'm sole owner of an older sailboat in need of maintenance, developing my business as an artist, creating a new committed relationship with a true hearted man (Rifaat), and trying to be available for an aging parent and injured brother. How DOES one manage all this? Darned if I know. If you have any ideas, let me know!

Solstice Visit with an Owl

Appocolypsis, says Michael Mead, embodies both the breaking down of the old and the birth of the new--simultaneously. I think I'm still in the breaking down stage, with pieces of hope here and there. Or breaking open.

Last night I celebrated "the end of the world" with a family whose grief spiraled into such negativity that I felt completely broken open. I was shaking by the time I left. I felt devastated! Walking out onto the city street at night, I HAD to have some nature. I clung to the nearest green leaves on someone's fence trying to bring some life back into myself.

My Love took me to his prayer place, a place of 5 cedars. As we stood under the boughs trying to make sense of the experience, an owl landed just above us. I always feel so honored when wild folk come near!

After a bit, we moved on to another tree--and the owl followed!  We moved again, and the owl called, "Hoo  Hoo-hoo-hooo! ("Who cooks for you?")  It was a Bard (Barred) Owl!  I answered him, echoing his accent and pauses as well as I could. Three times we spoke this way, then the owl came to sit above us again. What joy!! The owl washed away my emotional exhaustion and renewed my spirit!

I have since learned that the Bard (Barred) owl is the most vocal of owls, and the might symbolize using one's voice more. All over the world, owls are connected with wisdom, intuition, seeing that which is hidden, knowing the Truth. Perhaps the owl is asking me to speak my truth more openly?

This visit with the owl made me feel honored, and connected to Life/Spirit in a new and deeper way.

Why do I paint? I am pretty darn value driven, and if I don't feel I am doing someone some good with what I am doing, I lose interest pretty fast. So why do I paint, and why on silk?

I paint because I am in love with this island, where the orca play, where purple starfish cling to the rocks at low tide, and where one might stumble across an octopus, or a red jellyfish as big as a platter, while walking on the beach.
I'm in love with the the way the evening sun lights up the orange/gold madrona trees, on this island where the great blue heron waits patiently for his supper to swim by at the tides edge, where the black bear visits in autumn, where eagles circle and seals come to watch us doing qi gung on the sand. I paint because I want to capture this magic.

I paint on silk because the luscious shine, the fluid colors, and soft feel best express the wonder and joy I feel when I walk on the beach or in the woods,  or sail over the waves.

I open my studio for the Studio Tour and I show up for Saturday Market because I want to share this magic with you!  Tomorrow is the last day of the Vashon Island Artist Studio Tour; my studio will be open from 11:30 until 4:00 pm. Next Saturday, December 15th,  I plan to be at Saturday Market at McMurry Middle School on Vashon.

If you have a request for a scarf, pillow, or curtain in particular colors or an image for a loved one, I can take orders through October 15th and have it finished for you by Friday Dec 20th.

Contact me at leigh.suzanna@gmail.com
206 463 5255

Our Bodies

I love this video by Melanie Wiedner:




Her art is amazing, and her spirit feels like a sister to mine.