Today is the first day of 2019. I love the feeling of a new year. The hope and creative energy it brings. The idea that this year, this year, is THE YEAR. The year things are really going to take flight and be what I always wanted my life to be.
I am 38 years old and have had many of these new years day mornings and revelations, however this year truly does feel different. You see I have spent most of my 30’s in a deep healing space. If this doesn't make sense to you its ok, because it means many things to many people, but to me, its meant one thing, shedding the many layers of bullshit and fear that i have collected over my life to reveal the beautiful pearl sitting in the middle of my heart.
This pearl is my GENIUS.
And my intention for 2019 is to spend some time with this new/old friend of mine.
I’ll call her Guinevere, because that is who she says she wants to be called.
Gwen is everything beautiful that comes from my hands and my voice when I allow her to take the wheel. When my ego of fear steps aside and she takes center stage in my heart.
When I was a child Guinevere was my best side kick. She showed me the sun and how good it felt when it warmed my skin, she showed me how fun it was to dance and sing and play dress up in my mother’s clothes. To laugh with buddha like joy at jokes my friends would tell. To cry when i needed to. To get lost in coloring for hours without a care in the world. She showed me presence and how good it felt to be present to all of nature’s wonders. Getting lost in the woods exploring, not really caring that it was getting dark outside. Digging holes “to china” and dreaming of far away places.
However as time went on and society’s rules and regulations set in. As I began to put up walls from the pain and sadness i would feel from others in my family and in the world. As i began to have an understanding of the world outside of my own imagination and the safe space Gwen provided. I slowly began to lose sight of her. Ever so slowly as if it wasn’t actually happening she began to fade into the background and the walls around my heart keeping her prisoner got higher and thicker. As I got older and set out into the world, I would catch glimpses of her again. When I went to art school and lost track of time throwing pots on the wheel, there she was, smiling in my presence, only to be squashed out again by deadlines, critiques and this heart wrenching desire to “Be better than” the next person in my class.
When I became an art teacher I could feel her again, when the class was immersed in the project I gave them, I could sense her inside of me playing delightfully with all of my students, who were in that very moment allowing their geniuses out to play as well. These moments were few and far between, but when they happened it was like fireworks of excitement exploding. But then the number of kids in each of my classes would inevitably be too large and the paperwork would pile up and the ego would take over needing to be the best teacher possible, which inevitably led to burn out, because honestly who can live up to perfection.
No one.
So I quit teaching after 8 years.
It was liberating and my Genius was excited at what was to come, my intention was to use the new time that had opened up to create ceramics, which i did and i created some very beautiful things, sold a few things and even had a few shows where i got to share my work with others, however I was still squashing Guinevere out. I squashed her out by worrying what people would think, by a need to be perfect in how I executed not only the work I did but the time freedom I now had, but worst of it all I smashed her out by wanting, needing to be better than. Better than my counterparts….simply speaking better than, cause if I was better than then I was worthy and that deep dark hole in my heart created by years of building walls, wanted nothing more than to feel filled up, but no amount of worth no matter who was dolling it out would fill this void that had been created over years of suppression and hiding.
It took time, learning meditation and getting back to basics to start peeling back the layers that were covering up my genius. It took having children and so desperately wanting them to nurture their own genius that made me stop and think if I was doing the same for myself. It took being in a healing journey for most of my 30’s to get to this point.
So here I am at the start of a new year, ready!
Ready to reacquaint myself with my old friend Guinevere❤️
