the last day. Prompt: Imagine our shared challenge experience has been a literal path marked with stepping stones…one for each person who participated in whatever fashion. What does your stepping stone look like? What would you wish us to receive as a gift related to what you most enjoyed about collage?
when i thought about stepping stones i thought Slate. so the stones here are slate. Variations. but slate. This has meaning, i don't know what that meaning is.
there was no hesitation. A circle of Us.
I have never before participated in a "challenge". Or anything involving a Prompt. The "information" i had about that is that i wouldn't be able to. That i would freeze at what felt like a requirement. But again…..i trusted Acey already (for no reason, just because she's Acey) and i thought she would open a crack in this "information" i have carried about myself, that it would be at least OK. as in, i would at least do ok. and when i say that…do ok, I guess it meant i would not be totally disappointing TO HER. Interesting, huh.
Well.
Turns out, it didn't have anything to do at all with performing well enough, Nothing. My response to the prompts were independent of anything other than some truly Beauty Full process of translating word to spontaneous image making with pieces of paper. This was Collage.
i found myself deeply involved in an internal conversation of no words. I made mySELF pictures of things. Almost always a surprise. …..really, i can say, ALWAYS a surprise. And this is the most beauty FULL thing for me about this experience, that it was not in Any Way repeating things to my self about my self about my sense of Anything. Although many of the images and themes were and are familiar, i was able to see them as NOT MINE, but things i have loved for a lifetime. So this has shown me that the Love i feel for things comes from way beyond me, outside of me, BIGGER than me. i am simply a…..uhhhhh….. handmaiden. I smile as i type that word. Brows knit. What? handmaiden? Yes. i am a handmaiden. Not sure what that term generally means, but i use it here. Handmaiden.
The other part of it all is being a part of a Circle of those who participated openly. How i so much look forward to how they might respond, how i took those responses In and sat among them. I loved this too. More and more, this formation of community has meaning. Here, for 3o days…but not really. We were a Circle. And that Circle will ALWAYS remain.
again. I never think these posts through before i sit here and charge up the battery and begin. What i write here is always free association to the day. So…this is what has arisen on first thought at the end of this last day. There will be a LOt more, i know. I will wake tomorrow morning and there will be no prompt. How will That Feel? What will i DO? What now?
almost forgot. The stones i had to put to weight the paper. I'd used so much water on the Inktense that the paper began to curl. So, stones. I also got "bold" as my daughter says…oh, Bold, mom ……, with a slitty eye smile, eyebrows flicking, yes…Bold and put the Inktense pencils to use. So…that's a clue for the Now What.
My GREAT and HUGE THANKS to Acey for this and to all who participated in whatever way they did. Thank YOU ALL so so much. Everything is different now. Love and Love and then well, you know,

Leave a comment