Self-connection through art.

New work in progress.

I have no art journal at the moment. The one I created on Rhomany's course a while ago is full up and I've got a pile of new beautiful papers lying here waiting to be bound into a new journal, but I can't find the time to bind them together. And I don't just want to buy a journal as none of the ones they sell have the exact paper I want! So I'm doing art journalling pages on separate sheets and considering adding them to my Life Book at the end of the year! I'm realising that I really need to do more art journalling. Art for the sake of processing emotions and I don't get to do that a lot lately.

I get so much out of just arting and letting the colours & paints speak my feelings. It's so therapeutic and soothing. I'm a poor processor of emotions, per default I don't process them well, but through art I do. So, I'm back to trying to make sure I do a bit of art each day, for my psychological and emotional health! :) But of course, with 2 babies, trying to run a business and no husband around I don't have a lot of time. But I really am committed to just take some time out each day to self-connect through art. Yes yes yes. :) 

The magical husband is back in 8 days! Whew, what a couple of weeks it's been without him. It was our 7 year anniversary yesterday! 7 Whole years of Andy and Tam. Wow. Amazing. They have truly been the best 7 years of my life. There has been so much beauty, love, transformation and growth in my life because of Andy. We have an incredible depth of connection. I consider myself so so lucky to have him as my soul mate. It's incredible. <3

Things have been chaotic yet really fun and manageable too with the 2 boys. Elliot is still pretty easy going though he's also had more difficult days. He likes 'not being bored' and is starting to need more entertainment now, though today he pretty much slept throughout. On other days, he's awake a lot and won't lie still by himself for more than 5 mins.

Dylan is incredible. He's 2.5 years today exactly and I often look at him and wonder how and when this little person started to get so independent already and is completely already 'living his own life'. I thought that would happen later. Like, when they are so tiny and still babies, they are simply an extension of yourself, they are, of course, someone else, but also not, they are mostly still part of you, and then all of a sudden, they turn 2-ish (or something) and they are so very much their own person, someone who is so independent from you, it's so odd. And it reminds me of the quote of 'the prophet': 'your children come through you, but they are not from you'. And I've always known/ believed that, but didn't think that that would become so obvious so early on in your child's life.

It's like Dylan, at 2.5 years old, is already half "leaving the nest".

On Children
 Kahlil Gibran

Your children are not your children.
They are the sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself.
They come through you but not from you,
And though they are with you yet they belong not to you.
You may give them your love but not your thoughts,
For they have their own thoughts.
You may house their bodies but not their souls,
For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow,
which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.
You may strive to be like them,
but seek not to make them like you.
For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.
You are the bows from which your children
as living arrows are sent forth.
The archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite,
and He bends you with His might
that His arrows may go swift and far.
Let your bending in the archer's hand be for gladness;
For even as He loves the arrow that flies,
so He loves also the bow that is stable.