Co-Create with spirit and create with energy and confidence.

My husband and I had a weekend holiday up in Brisbane to enjoy an art weekend visiting galleries. It was my birthday and our anniversary. We walked into the exhibition of art by Sally Gabori.

Her paintings had so much spirit that it had me in tears quite unexpectedly.

Knowing she started at aged 80 opened my heart and reminded me:

We are creative beings who are timeless and ageless when it comes to expressing our creativity.

[bctt tweet=”We are creative beings who are timeless and ageless.” username=”aesha108″]

The other thing about her work is her embodiment of the land and how she expressed it. She knew the lay of the land from within herself and she painted the land as if she was in an airplane looking down from above. But of course she never did this. She never had that physical perspective of looking down. Yet topographically her paintings were spot on showing inlets and rivers as if she was looking from above, but not in a representational way. It was in a totally feeling intuitive way with blocks of colour respresenting the topography.

It made me think about how we all have this capacity to see from a different perspective.

We can connect to that ability and know something on a deeper level without seeing it with the eyes.

Her work is looks abstract. But to Sally a stroke of a brush in one of her paintings represents the local fish swimming in that area.

And the brush strokes were made with energy and confidence.

I stood looking at that energy and confidence and I had a strong sense that the energy and confidence comes when we have a strong spirit connection, whatever name you call it.

You can see in Sally Gabori’s application of paint that she wasn’t concerned whether it was good enough, or if the lines were perfect, or anything like that.

Energy and confidence to express what’s inside comes when we work as a team along with spirit, whether that’s conscious or not.

When we let go of the ego concerns of being liked, good enough, accepted, and instead work with a bigger energy that spurs us on, we co-create what’s inside with something larger than the tightly controlling ego mind.

In the yoga sutras of Patanjali the practice of Isvara Pranidana is the last of the Niyamas or observances. I bring it up in relation to expressing with energy and confidence. The essential meaning of Isvara Pranidhana is acknowledging a bigger reality and surrendering completely to this larger creative universe and our connection to it.

Isvara Pranidana is a practice to embody the understanding that all that you do, all your efforts and outcomes comes from a larger source. As such, you offer up any ownership of all that you do back to source (the divine, god, whatever you call it) and also to humanity. You are an instrument for the divine to work through you. This may be the hardest of all the practices of yoga. We are so habituated to feel like we are in control, or need to control everything in our life.

Letting go and surrendering to something bigger than our individual self dissolves the ego that contiually questions, is this good enough, will they like me, will this be successful?

I can’t imagine Sally Gabor painting with thoughts like that. She embodied her country, was deeply connected to the spirit of her country and gave expression to it in her way.

Daily practice of surrender and connection to spirit

• Practice accepting what “is”.

Be open to how life is unfolding for you right now rather than trying to force an outcome or manipulate the reality to be something other than it is. This fosters self-acceptance and love and helps to accept others for who they are without the need to make them different.

• When things feel challenging – Offer it back to the divine, ask for guidance, be open to receiving. Take time to be alone and in solitude (even for 10 minutes) to strengthen the channel between you and the divine.
• Practice surrender in Yin Yoga practice. Long holding stretches invite you to go beyond the “monkey mind” chatter into the stillness that is there behind the noise.

Nuggets to nurture your creativity

• Embodying co-creation – Connect daily to spirit, the divine, or whatever you call the creative energy that manifests all around us. Make quiet time alone essential, even if only 10 minutes a day.

• Seeing with eyes open – look at what you see without the labels and descriptions and instead simply notice shapes, shadows and light, colour and feeling. It might be something you see everyday, but you can “see” it in a whole new way. Use an “artist” eye to see things in a new way.

• Seeing with eyes closed – During your daily 10 minute meditation, sense what it you feel and where it is in your body. Imagine it as shapes and colours. Do a 10-minute sketch using the colours and shapes representing the feelings you experienced. 

• When you get ideas write them out. Ideas are like individual seeds of potential that are bestowed to you. Spirit sees you as a potential curator to bring those ideas into fruition and into the world.

With love and gratitude,