Picking Up Where I Left Off...

I left the gym and walked to my car last night and glanced up into the sky as I walked. The moon hung low in the eastern horizon. It was huge and deep pumpkin orange. I wanted to take a picture but didn't have my camera. I wanted to savor the moment so I called my good friend Mary and told her she had to go outside and look at the moon. Being a good friend, she obliged, put on her slippers, went out in the cold and shared a moment of awe with me. I wonder how often the moon appears this way and I simply don't notice it, preoccupied with other thoughts and tasks.

As we begin to transition from winter back into spring shifting our clocks ahead and preparing for the spring equinox I feel very aware of cycles and changes. In recent months I have been returning to hobbies and unfinished projects, that for one reason or another got left behind again. I pick them up and realize I see them with new eyes this time.

Life comes in phases and cycles and with those cycles come and go my creativity, my inspiration, my affinity toward certain activities and expressions. For so long I saw this as a personal flaw or weakness. Why do I take an interest in something only to let it slip away again? I told myself I must not be very committed. Now I see I've been too hard on myself. Why should I expect consistency from my thoughts, my feelings or my behaviors every day when almost nothing in this world works that way? Not on such a microscopic level.

The sun may rise and set every day, the moon goes through monthly cycles, the tides rise and fall. While there is consistency in that - there are patterns and predictability - there are also ever changing elements. The sunrise doesn't happen at the exact same time every day. Each day of the year is not precisely as long as the next. These subtle shifts add up and make quite an impact over a long period of time but when experienced gradually, from one day to the next often go unnoticed. If I do not judge the sun for changing it's position in the sky as the Earth tilts and rotates around it, then why should I judge myself for my ever fluctuating levels of passion, inspiration, creativity and energy? It only makes sense that all these thing should shift gradually along with the rest of the world.

Among the ebb and flow of my life interests are my art and writing. These two elements are ever present in my life, even when I feel I have forgotten them. I am excited each time I rediscover them. I realize I have not forgotten them after all, just set them aside to settle, to process, to maybe pick up a grain of sand that will become a pearl for when I next return to them.

Both my art and writing have taken new direction in recent months. I had set them aside again - though I have taken turns paying attention to one or the other at times over the years, neither has played a central role in my life since I completed my undergraduate degrees. Now I am happy to see I am bringing them back, not only for myself, but also with the desire and intention of sharing them with others through my blog page (images coming soon). Who is to say how long this new motivation and ambition will last but I embrace it while it is here, as I embraced the beautiful orange moon as it hung in the night sky yesterday. Just like the moon I know I will continue to cycle and grow.