Announcement:  Due to the Victoria Day weekend,  the 13-Step Painting Day, “Gathering the Shards:  Restoring the Light into the Shattered Places” is rescheduled for Saturday, May 7, 2016, from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. You will be led through an Intentional Creativity process of pondering, visioning, writing, and painting, to complete a painting on canvas which reflects YOUR ways of restoring light and hope into shattered places of your life and in your soul.  (The above painting, which I’ve posted before, was my first attempt at this Gathering of the Shards.  Our painting on May 7 promises to be quite different.)

One of the stories from the Kabbalah is that the Divine Light poured itself into various spheres of Light in order to create this world.  The Divine Light was so magnificent, so large, though, that it shattered the spheres which could not bear the holding of it.  Our task as human beings is to look for and gather the tiny shards of Divine Light which are hidden in all aspects of creation and in our own lives, and gather them together so that the Divine Light might be better able to be seen in our world, in the days and situations of our daily lives.

Most of us,  by the time we’ve reached adulthood, have been shattered in at least one way by something way too big for us to hold.  Do any of the shards that are left hold any light, any hope in them?  Let us gather them together, in words and in colors, to restore as much light as we are able to.

All supplies included.  $100, or pay what you can.  Questions?  Details? Contact me at catcharissage@gmail.com.

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Also, a 4-evening exploration in  “Walking in the Dark:  Finding, Questioning, Claiming, Following Our Intuition” will be held from 7 – 9:30 on Thursday evenings in May.  May 5, 12, 19, 26.  Using Intentional Creativity through journal prompts, guided discussions, and paints, we will create an image on watercolor paper which will explore the story of Vasalisa and Baba Yaga as told by Dr. Clarissa Pinkola Estes in her book Women Who Run with the Wolves.

All supplies included.  $100, or pay what you can.  Questions?  Details?  catcharissage@gmail.com.

 

Sometimes we are thrust into the dark woods.  Sometimes we go willingly, to find our story.  But we need not go alone.  We have knowing, and guidance — let us use it!

 

Muse Now (c) Cat Charissage, 2016

Dear Friends,

Here on this New Moon, I dedicate this poem to all of us who sometime forget the insights that have been so hard-won, to all of us who also need some reminders and some guidance from that which/who is deepest within:

 

Know what you know.

Know who you are.

Know that what is in your heart is growing, showing, moving outward.

Let go of what has never been your responsibility,

of what has never been your fault.

Let go of the fear that you are not allowed to survive,

or thrive.

Remember that you are as the sunflower:

beauty among beauties,

exquisite, unique;

nourishing, useful, spreading seeds you cannot know where will grow

to offer sustaining nourishment, help, beauty.

Remember the blank page, the empty canvas,

and all the possibilities.

Hold your compass of eight directions,

your heritage of mysticism within the wholeness of the circle of all.

In the center know the rose of mystery, unfolding,

and the seeds of nourishment, possibility, abundance.

Know that you are so loved.

Know that you have never been alone.

There is more, more than enough, more than you can imagine.

Always.

 

With much love,

Cat

The progression of Muse Now:

Detail: