Musings Archives < Arwen, Professional Joy Seeker

What Does Perfect Mean?

Today’s card is a Zentangle from April. My Zentangle anniversary just passed so I wanted to celebrate it a bit. For those of you who are familiar with my addiction, thank you for sticking around. 😀

I haven’t looked at this one in a while. Now I see it in a different light. I love the trapped look of the wavy things under the pointy things on the left. And the trippy tunnel effect on the top right? 😀 Yeah,it makes me grin.

What I really like is how the thing has depth. That’s the hardest for me….depth in these. I just play around with them a lot. Sometimes it works. Parts of this one work for me.

I find Zentangles work on my perfectionist button very well. I have to step away from “I can’t do it because it won’t be right. I have to let that go. It’s good to let that go.

Humans aren’t perfect. Many aboriginal people have practices that include intentional mistakes. Did you know that? It’s because Deity is the only perfection in the world. To be perfect is to insult God in some cultures.

How fabulous is that for an excuse?

“I’m sorry but I had to screw that up or it would insult God.”

I think I’m going to leave it at that.

Yep, that’s your journal prompt for today.

“What is the meaning of not perfect in your world?”

Zentangle, Stephanie Arwen Lynch, 4/2013

Seek joy, y’all. Pass it on.

Will I Fall or Fly?

Today’s card is not a Tarot card. It’s a Zentangle. It might be a Quotangle, but since it is only one word–not so much. I had a great deal of fun doing it. I started with this video from Suzanne McNeill.

The hardest thing for me was starting. I was scared I would mess it up. I thought I might do it wrong. I had to stop and wrap my mind around the idea that there is no right or wrong in Zentangle. It’s one line at a time. Just focusing on that is the point of the art. What comes out of that focus? Well, that’s a beautiful by-product of relaxing my mind.

I did start, obviously. I also finished. This would be correctly called Zentangle Inspired Art since it uses a recognizable shape.

Fly.

One simple word that goes hand in wing with a bird, yes?

But go back to my hesitancy in starting. Consider this. If I’d never taken that first stroke, the bird would have never had wings.

What in your life are you hesitating over? What has you parked on the edge of your safety zone, your nest if you will, peering over the edge? What has you torn between the terror of making mistakes and the joy of doing something that calls to your heart?

Fly, darlin’, fly.

If you want to tangle with me, bring it. 😀 You can learn more here. All you need are:

Zentangle Bird, Arwen Lynch, 2013

#seekjoy, y’all. Pass it on.

How Much Do You Bend?

Today’s card is the Universe’s way of teasing me, I think. I pulled from the gorgeous Magical Times Empowerment deck by Jody Bergsma (USGames) this morning. I didn’t focus. I didn’t meditate. Just grabbed the deck and pulled. And snorted when I saw the card title.

Flexibility. Gently flow through the turbulence. Life has the ability to shape you. Bend, don’t break.

This echoes a phrase I saw yesterday. It’s one I’ve heard (and said) a lot. The willow survives the storm because it bends.

Life throws a lot at us. We have to think on our feet. We have to negotiate seemingly endless bumps and turns. We have to actually live.

Life isn’t meant to be a straight line, y’all.

We set goals. We have to change those goals or alter how we get to them all the time.

That’s not failure. That’s life.

It goes back to that other saying about giving thanks for unanswered prayers. Our today selves aren’t fully cognizant of what our next year selves will need. We make goals based on today’s self so it’s okay that things change as we move through life.

Be flexible but more than that? Be gentle with yourself when you realize a goal needs to be moved or reshaped. It’s okay. That’s life.

Flexibility, Magical Times Empowerment Cards, Jody Bergsma, USGames (aff)

Seek joy, y’all. Pass it on!

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Enjoy The Blooms

Today’s card is not a card. It’s a flower. 😀 It’s a late afternoon hibiscus from my hibiscus plant. In the morning it’s a soft tangerine but fades to this peach by the end of day. I love looking down into them.

It’s a reminder to me to find the beauty. This could have been a dandelion. I would have still found the same sweet peaceful joy in looking at it.

How often do I go about my daily agenda without ever glancing out the patio door. And that’s all it takes, y’all. Just a moment to glance out…to see…to seek. How often do I forget to do that?

This is my reminder to me to enjoy the blooms while they are here.

That’s all.

Just enjoy the blooms.

Seek joy, y’all. Pass it on.

Hibiscus, Stephanie Arwen Lynch, 7/3/2013

How Do I Add To My Burdens?

Today’s card is from an oracle deck by an artist I love. Her work is so lovely. She has a new oracle out that I reviewed a week or so ago. This is from an older deck that I have only recently gotten.

Bears are power animals to me (and many others). I love that the Spirit of the Wheel Meditation deck (by Linda Ewashina, illustrated by Jody Bergsma) use Bear here for the card called Cleansing. It’s an important message for me personally as well.

I’ve recently had a personal upset. I’ve been let down in the financial arena by someone I trusted. I’ve been let down in the friendship arena by someone I asked to be honest with me.

Both those things weigh heavily on my mind. The first in several ways since the money helps me pay my bills. The second hits my heart very hard.

But this card tells me that I need to work on releasing burdens. I should detoxify my world. I need to let my energy flow in clean, pure channels.

When I over think things such as “why would X screw me this way,” I bring my own angst into it. I color it. I, if you will, stir the energy with a shit-coated stick. Yeah, that’s a lovely image, isn’t it. Sorry ’bout that.

But stick with me. (I hear you groaning from here!) Burdens in life are inevitable. How much crap I toss in is on me. If I simply see this sizable debt as someone else’s burden, it helps. I step back and acknowledge that, while it does affect me, in the long run, it is weighing the debtor down far more than me.

Same with the friend who lied to my face. That is their burden to carry. That is their knowledge to live with. That they were given a chance to come clean…to tell the truth and they chose to lie. That I found out about the lie within an hour is chance. Or is it? Do all lies get uncovered? Can you live with lies? Can you live with liars?

Truth is something sacred in my world. Now, don’t get me wrong. I get that not everyone will always tell me the truth. I get that I will be the fool some of the time (thanks President Lincoln.)

But when I find out that I am the fool? Then I get to make choices about how I react. What energy I add to that burden. You feel me?

I am culpable in the burden when I jump into it. When I don’t step back and think, “Okay. That was shitty. I need to make room in my life for those that will tell me the truth.” I need to let go of my need to figure out why someone would not pay an agreed to debt, tell me the truth when asked.

Cleansing. I need to do some.

Today I release the burden of needing to know why. I detoxify my life by letting go of those who choose to live lives that don’t match my own paths. I open up the channels. I allow pure,clean energy and people into my life. I seek joy to replace the pain. I cleanse myself with the Spirit Bear of the North today.

Cleansing 29, Spirit of the Wheel Meditation Deck, U.S. Games, 2007 [aff]

Seek joy, y’all. Pass it on.

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What Was Your Moon?

Today’s card is not a card. It’s a zentangle with a poem. It’s not my poem. And, if I am going to be precise, it’s a haiku. It’s by this guy who knew how to wield a pen and a sword. It’s by a samurai named Mizuta Masahide.

What you see in this zentangle is an alternate translation. This is what I found as an original or closer version.

Barn’s burnt down —
now
I can see the moon.

Both are lovely but I find that I prefer the visceral punch of the second one. It’s so raw but the lyrical hope at the end makes me teary.

The samurai competed in so many things…are you surprised to learn that one of those was also poetry? How completely opposed is the art of war and the art of poetry?

But I digress. What I wanted to say is this. This poem is the Tower card.

Have you have ever lost your barn (metaphor,darlings, metaphor)? You know…those catastrophic, “my life as I know it is completely over and I shall never see Tara again” moments? [Whoa! Hold on as I whip you from 17th century Japan over to 19th century Georgia!]

Do you remember when you first realized you could see the moon [metaphor again, darlings]? That instant when you realized not only were you going to survive, but you were going to be a stronger version of the you pre-burnt barn?

Yeah. That moment right there.

That’s the moon moment.

Take 180 seconds today to recall that feeling when you realized that you could see beautiful new things even though you’d lost something you thought so precious. Even though you thought you couldn’t go on, you did.

For me, that barn? Well, I’ve had my fair share of burnt barns–the kind that are long and smoldering (the death of my mother), the kind that are middle of the night “Pa! The barn’s on fire” (break up that I thought I’d never survive), to the kind that are like a wildfire took down your barn, your house and your other house too.

What were the moons? After Mama died, I realized that there is a lot of her in me. I hear her come out of my mouth in so many ways. Used to make me cry more than laugh but now I laugh more than cry. That’s a moon.

So what about you? If you care to share what your three minutes brings you, I’d love to hear it.

Seek joy, y’all. Pass it on. See the moon.

Zentangle, Arwen Lynch, Poem by Mizuta Masahide 1657-1723, 6/17/2013

Here is a set of books that I listened to recently. It mesmerized me. It is, in its simplest form, the saga of the Samurai as told through the journey of one boy and one Samurai lord. It’s far more complex than that of course. I highly recommend this series–>Tales of the Otori. It still haunts me.

Let’s Switch It Up

So today I am totally switching things up. I’m a bit stressed because of my MRI tomorrow. My mind isn’t on writing fun stuff for us. 😀 So forgive me?

What I want to do instead is have you dive into one of my Zentangles. Tell me what you see. Tell me what it makes you feel like. Do you hear a song?

Just relax and let go. No one is judging you.

Oh. The 15th is the cut off for the early bird price on my five week class. It’s online so you do the lessons at your convenience. For my readers, here’s a secret. If you set up a payment plan with me, you can get the early bird price as long as you pay the first payment by the 15th. 😀

Seek joy, y’all. Pass it on!

Zentangle, Arwen Lynch, June 12, 2013

Who Is Your Enemy?

Today’s card reminds me that the enemy is not in my mirror. The enemy is not in my head. The enemy is not in my heart.

The enemy is not me.

How often do we hear some version of “Oh don’t think that. The enemy is in your head.”

Well, here’s a thought. How about if we don’t call those negative thoughts “the enemy” or “bad things” or any version of that?

How about we agree that it’s just a difficult pattern we are working on?

A challenge we are in the process of reframing?

any other more positive way of saying, “Yeah I get it. I’m negative sometimes but you know what? I’m working on it so stop telling me I’m bad even when you are trying to build me up.”

Grin. It’s a process, darling dears. Once you realize you’ve made it, you too can say you were an overnight success–it only took me HOW MANY years? 😀

Yeah. Overnight.

Thousands of them. Literally.

Don’t worry if you slide. Please don’t measure yourself against anyone but yourself.

And even then measure the way they cut fabric.

GIVE YOURSELF ROOM FOR MISTAKES.

You know that’s why they are generous when they cut fabric right?

Yeah.

So aren’t you worth a few extra yards?

I think so!

Seek joy, y’all. Pass it on.

Oh, that picture? Yeah. That’s just one of the beautiful Lisa Hunt drawings in my Fairy Tale Spreads eBook.

Would You Let Them Say That To Your Friend?

Today’s card is one of my Zentangles. Is it from an upcoming oracle deck? Maybe. You never know which way you go when you just follow your heart.

There’s a recurring theme in the Tarot talks I have with folks. Over and over, the same cards show up. It’s not so much a particular card as it is a theme in combinations. So many of us have been so horribly beaten down by life, love and other factors.

Factors that should be our support but have been turned into our own constantly playing old tapes. Now. Listen to me carefully, my darling dears. Or read me carefully. Read this out loud.

I don’t think most of our old tapes were put there by intentionally cruel people.

The one that says I’m not good enough unless I weigh a certain weight? That’s my mama, my grand-mama, my aunt and every female parent of every friend I’ve ever had.

But who are they quoting? Yeah. That’s right. It goes so far back. It’s so ingrained in our predecessors and theirs that it is a waste of time to track it back.

What we need to do is to stop it. Stop replaying the old tapes. Stop it.

And isn’t that hard to do?

How about this. I’m going to give you one of Arwen’s rules of life. Rules of engagement. Rules of living a joy seeker’s life.

Ready?

If you wouldn’t say it to a friend, don’t say it to yourself.

Yeah. That.

So when I realize I forgot to buy the right kind of tomatoes and have to substitute with salsa, I have to say, “Well that’s very clever of you, Arwen, to think of the salsa.”

I can’t tear me down.

Plenty of others who are vying for that job. Grin, or some days it feels like it.

So, for your 180 second challenge today, look at yourself in the mirror. Hold your own gaze (harder than it sounds). Praise yourself as if you were your best friend having a down day.

Seek joy, y’all. Pass it on. Please.

Zentangle, Arwen Lynch, 6/10/2013

By the way, there are still seats available in my online class. Want to learn to read Tarot intuitively? Want to hang out with me and laugh yourself silly? I’d love to have you.

How Do You Row?

Today’s card is not a card. It’s a tangle. At work, my desk area is plastered with quotes. I find ones that speak to me then put them on unlined note cards. Then I pin or tape those cards all over my area.

“If there is no wind, row.”

It is a Latin proverb according to the little calendar I found it in. And it speaks to me. Sometimes I feel as if I’m not moving. I have to remember that I move myself. I cannot always depend on others to help me get where I need or want to be.

So how do you row when there is no wind? How do you invigorate yourself? How do you motivate? Or, as I am fond of saying, motorvate?

Today’s affirmation is:

Today I will focus on the bright things. I will acknowledge both sides but my focus will remain on the joy. I will move with comfort. I will move with ease. I will navigate today with a joyful outlook. I am loved and loving. That is enough for this moment. Seek joy, y’all. Pass it on!

Zentangle Art Journal Page, Arwen Lynch, 2013

Seek Joy, Y’all. Pass it on!