Messages and Portents
The paper ‘critter’ still drying on an embroidery hoop frame.
Returning to work this week felt like a bit of a let down. Of course it’s work that I love, what’s not to love about making art and inspiring other creatives to make art too. However after 6 weeks away I had that despondant feeling…The one you have when you get back home and nothing seems to have changed. Or has it ? Not outwardly but inwardly.
It was me who had changed but I couldn’t see it because it was all inside of me. I had grown, in my thinking, in my doing, in my being. But the outward skin I was wearing still felt the same.
A couple of things happened to let me know that the universe is at work in our lives, albeit mysteriously. A sign arrived from a non-human messenger. A snake at the back door. Quite a venomous snake as it turned out. So the snake catcher was called out for a home visit. Trouble was the snake had slithered away in the night and needed to be located again before our friendly local snake catcher could find it.
The next night I was in my studio, running my online Liberate Your Creativity workshop when this snake was spotted again. I was oblivious to the noise and commotion, totally absorbed in talking to creatives around Australia and on the other side of the world. It was only later that I heard the story.
The snake was at the back door again so the snake catcher arrived to take action. The snake was carefully monitored as it disappeared into a wood pile. It slipped out from there but was finally located not too far away.
Guess where? Right under the Hollander paper beater I had been working at the day before to make paper pulp. I used that pulp to make a lucky (virtual) door prize for the workshop participant whose name would be drawn out of a hat. This prize was a strange paper ‘critter’ like ones I had made during my artist residency.
I hadn’t really realised the significance of the snake until I sat down to write this Sunday blog. I was going to write about how I was trying to recapture that feeling of freedom and breakthrough I had experienced at the artist residency. Then as I started typing the words about outgrowing my skin, I realised what this message was all about.
It reminded me that snakes shed their skin when they grow. That snakes are often dormant (like creative ideas) they need warmth to draw their energy from. Making that little paper critter for the lucky door prize meant I was outside in the studio creating again, in a small way. I would need to spend some dormant time reshaping my ideas to my fit my home space, but now I had a shiny new skin, new techniques, increased confidence and the ability to shed my old ways of thinking that had held me back.
I know that such occurrences can remind us of finding meanings and portents in everything. That not everything that happens is random. That looking at the world with curiosity and sensory awareness allows us to open ourselves to receiving messages from the cosmos. This story of course ends well. The snake has been relocated safely to a new home. The dog (or any of us) did not get bitten. I got to write this blog post and you got to read it. Look out for your own messages, they are worth receiving.
Making black pulp in the Hollander under which the snake was found.
And here is the real thing - I didn’t realise that they had taken a photo of it. Black like the paper pulp!
