I lived next to the Source when I was 20. The body of water that fed the Nile (Lake Victoria). This mass of water is the literal life source for the community, home to fish and plant life which fed the people and the water source for all. You go back to its shores over and over to be nourished. But the calming effects that mass amounts of blue have on us and the open air that gives our minds rest offers a different kind of nourishment—one for the spirit. It’s often that spiritual nourishment I’m craving, and I‘ve come to learn it’s closer to my home in Colorado than I thought.
There are many other names for this close to home source, some might call it The Divine or God, but after leaving the church years ago those were words I couldn’t include in my vocabulary, at least for the time being. I needed distance from the theology that wounded and instead started forming my own spiritual practice, one that recognized Source long before I had the language to call it that.
To be clear, I never saw my art practice or the things I read (Greg Boyle, Clarissa Estés Pinkola, Robin Wall Kimmerer and Caroline Myss) as a spiritual practice, but the deeper I go now and the more I crave spirituality, I see how these have become my own roadmap. Together they taught me about love, healing, and our deep connection to nature—one more source to return to physically. They brought back the roots of a religion I still loved but the waters had been polluted. Even the deep conversations in my 1:1 Source Sessions were spiritual. I knew that they meant a lot to me, but I didn’t see them as spiritual direction, just creative direction, and now I know they are one of the same.
For years I have dreamt of becoming a wise woman, someone who guides and heals often using herbs and nature’s wisdom. To me, this is the next step on my spiritual path, my way of healing, being close to nature, and offering something back to the world. What I never imagined was I could be a wise woman through art. Using color and story to guide and heal—My own personal maps to help other women find their way back to their Source.
Like the life-giving body of water in the heart of Africa, the Source is where you find life, sanctuary, and a deep knowing and art is your guide back to that place, already inside of you. Through visual story, color, and of course, nature, each piece is a reminder of your interconnectedness to the world and the deep connection you have to the wellspring of life inside of you. My paintings are a daily reminder on your walls that you are spiritual even if you don’t have a name for it, yet. And by sitting with this art long enough, it might just lead you back home.
Studio Update: Next week’s Greenhouse painting workshop (we paint inside of a greenhouse at a local flower farm) still has a few seats left. If you’re ready to come home to your Source through creative direction, I’d love to have you there. Save your seat here.