Flowing with Synchronicity

Obstructed for years,

Creative juices now flow

Finding their way home.

A few weeks ago, a friend asked if my husband and I wanted some of the left over wood from the construction of her new house. She wondered they could sell it at the thrift store my husband manages. We loaded his truck with scrap wood of various shapes and sizes. With my friend’s blessing, I saved the pieces that wanted me to paint on them. I like to use the knots in the wood as faces or halos and to look for wings and things in the grain.

Close up of an angel I painted a few years ago.

The following week, I had just left the local bookstore in a shopping village downtown, when I was drawn into a new store that only sells locally made arts and crafts. Entering this store for the first time, I felt good vibes. Much of the art hanging on soft yellow walls was painted on or cut out of wood. I showed the manager photos of my art from my phone. We scheduled a time to bring in my work to show the owner.

Then, on that same morning, I went to a yoga class I had not been to in two weeks. After the class, my book came up in conversation with one the studio owners who happened to be there. She asked me to do a book signing there this summer, maybe along with a workshop.

The next week, I met with the owner of the local art store. She  liked my work and agreed to hang it. I just needed to set prices – not an easy task.

This morning, I dropped off 24 pieces of my art ready to find new homes. It was like sending little pieces of me out into the world – uncomfortable, yet exciting. It helps to remind myself that they weren’t doing anybody any good collecting dust in my spare bedroom studio.

I call her Umbrella Angel

Now, I seem to be finding all kinds of things to paint on at the thrift store – wooden trays, boxes, and wood cut outs to be re-purposed into “canvas.”

All of these opportunities are things I did not consciously plan. They were not on my list of strategies to build my creative new life.

Yet, at the end of last year, I made the decision to quit my long time counseling career to focus on art and writing full time.

I believe the universe is conspiring, as commissioned by God, to work on my behalf. At the same time, I’m going with the flow: walking into that gallery I had not planned to go to, going to the yoga class on that particular day and time….

(It’s the same flow my high school sweetheart was going with when he found me 39 years later.)

Sometimes these things take a while. I loved art and writing as a teenager, but chose a different career path. Now, at the age of 61, I’m finally coming back home to my art.

 

“The Gift,” which I painted on an old wooden box top two years ago, has been waiting patiently.

If it can happen to me, it  can happen to everyone.

Never

give

up

on

your

dreams!

Thirty Years is Enough…Almost

I was planning to write my mid-week post about the synchronicity of my first writer’s conference coming the week before my leap of faith into semi-retirement and how that reinforces my goal to spend more time in creative work.

But then I read this  NPR article about the hope and controversy of medication assisted treatment for opiate addiction, and I decided to share my experience on this topic. After working as a substance abuse counselor for roughly 30 years, about 20 of those years working with clients on Methadone or Suboxone, I’ve learned a few things.

The most important thing I want to pass on about Methadone and medication assisted treatment, is that the medication is only one piece of the recovery pie. I’ve seen clients who did not change their lifestyles and thinking, did not learn new coping skills, and were not successful on the program.

I’ve also seen clients who followed recommendations and worked hard on their recovery, mentally, emotionally, physically, socially and spiritually. For those people, the medication combined with counseling and lifestyle changes, has worked amazingly well, and often better than other treatment modalities they had tried. These are the clients who have kept me working in the field for thirty years, along with the ones who I didn’t think were going to make it, but they surprised me and turned things around. God gets a lot of the credit, too. I couldn’t have hung in there this long without my H.P.

Now, it’s time for me to step back. Because I’m tired. Not so much tired of working with people who suffer from addiction. I can understand and accept that some people are not going to do the work, and that hurting people hurt people, including themselves. That’s part of the misery of addiction.  It’s the @#*!… paperwork that I can’t keep up with anymore if I want to have a healthy life. I’ve watched the amount of paperwork (now it’s computer work, but we still have to print a lot of it out and put it in a chart) grow and grow year after year. There have been times when I’ve felt emotionally buried by the paperwork.

I believe I’ve done my share. But I still don’t want to let go completely. Next week, I go to the writer’s conference, and the week after that, I’m cutting back to just one day a week at the job that paid my bills for 30 years. The other days will be for me – for writing, art, my home and my relationships. I think I’ve earned this time. I’m so grateful to have this chance, thanks to my partner who you can read about on my about page.

Perfect Timing strikes again!

(Thanks to Pixabay for the photo.)