it beings with a colour :: contrast

This week’s challenge presented by Erin at apples for poppy anne was to be on the lookout for contrast.

She writes:

Today I thought about contrast. 

I thought about how nothing in nature rushes, though everything is accomplished.  I thought about how when we take life one step at a time all things are manageable.  Just look at how roots of a tree can crack and destroy concrete foundations or how a steady drip of water can, over time, bore holes and trenches in impossible places.  Vines and trees devour walls and fences.  Nature won’t stop, not even for a moment, to consider how to remove the barrier to its growth. It simply keeps growing until whatever was in its way relents, compromises, bows, cracks, bends, opens, and surrenders.  And so, if we decide to take a lesson from nature, we learn that slow and soft persistence is often the ideal route when faced with the seemingly impenetrable.

This week, I encourage you to find contrast in your life and in nature. 

I was excited to receive this challenge but quickly found myself getting way too focused in my head about it…trying to force visualize the perfect photo and then go hunt it down…reminding myself how I’ve proven time and time again that this mode of operating doesn’t work for me…deciding maybe I would just skip this week’s challenge since I’m just so busy anyway.

And then on Friday afternoon, in the midst of a absolutely magical visit to our CSA farm, I turned around after taking this photo of a pregnant sow and spotted this tiny ladybug. As I snapped the photo, I smiled at the beautiful contrast Mother Nature had presented to me, not when I was searching for it but when I was simply following my Bliss.

I am grateful for this experience that reminded me what works for me:

:: Politely asking my hyperactive, monkey brain to be quiet, step aside and allow my heart lead.

:: Letting go of my insistence on how things “should” be and finding the beauty – however small it may be – in what is.

:: Getting lost in my Bliss as often as possible, in as many ways as possible.

:: Allowing the magic to unfold.

These are things I have been learning and relearning about myself and my creative process for over a decade (before that I pushed ahead, perfect idea in my head and now, with clenched jaw and knotted stomach, I will make it happen – a way of being that nearly destroyed me).

And this I believe is the ultimate contrast. The softness of inviting, allowing and appreciating versus the intensity of demanding, forcing and criticizing.

It was a long hard road for me to get here. But I am so grateful to finally be here in this more peaceful place, catching myself when I start to slip down my old perfectionist roads, and sliding back into this gentler, softer way of being.

And I am grateful for kindred spirits who follow their Bliss, sharing their creative products and process with the world and encouraging me to do the same.