sharing

dreaming, mixed media artwork,
collaborative project by me & my big sister


The beautiful Swirly Girl posed the potent question:

How does blogging - whether writing your own, reading others, leaving comments, etc. - feed you?

I began reading blogs a few years ago and fell in love with the instant access to new thoughts, inspirations, movements and creations.

I live in Australia, and up until the last few years was living in a remote rural area, far removed from any "culture" or art or the excitement of inspiration. My access to it was through the slim pickings of musty old art and poetry books at our local library.

The books were many years out of date, and yet they still sparked lights inside of me. Small Chinese lanterns ablaze, drifting in the twilight. I hungered for that and longed for that. I wanted to be that : I wanted to have that : I wanted to create that : I wanted to live life like that.

When I was 20, I moved to a large city with some of Australia's best museums, libraries and galleries. Every weekend I devoured them with my lover, saturating myself in all the newness, the colours, the promise, the ideas.

Finding the land of blogging was a similar kind of feel as that move. Whilst libraries and galleries are incredible lands to explore, they can also lack a certain freshness. Their energy can feel stilted for a few reasons – the creations contained within them are carefully selected and arranged on white walls and numbered bookshelves. The gestation period from the seedling of the artist's first idea, formation and creation; to its editing, publishing or production; then to its eventual sale to gallery or library where it is then displayed in a collection.

When I turned onto blog reading, that same feeling of Chinese lanterns being lit in the twilight breeze was the same. Small cataclysmic sparks of possibilities. The surge of finding artists, writers, photographers, designers and souls all around this globe sharing their work with the world, unencumbered by time, distance, editing, availability. Can you imagine that – at a click, you have access to the very latest beats of inspiration. I felt great surges through me. Collages I have never seen the likes of before. Photographs so whimsically captured. Writing so honest and brave and real. Artwork so vivid and personal. You could see what others were doing, what they were inspired by, what caught their breath. You could find out their process, see what their studio looked like, how it felt to make it. You became witness to the struggle and the soaring flight of being an artist and attempting to encapsulate your highest truth. It felt real and alive, like the first glimpse of a great breathing beast in the forest.

Then, when I joined my first women's circles, I fell in love with the goddess story. The story of each of us ~ our lives and our days, our truth and our pain. I came to see those women who surrounded me as divine and as a teacher to me. In hearing their sharings, my whole inner world changed. I grew strong. I grew to love my own truth. I collected a catalogue of stories in my heart cabinet so I could feel all of life. When life situations arose, I could look into my catalogue and remember the soul who had been there, and the way she traversed through it.

Blogging is like an extension of these women's circles. Everyday I can read the sharings of women all over this globe of ours, travelling their journey as best as they can. We are growing together, as we speak and listen, press each other's buttons, connect, inspire and activate. As the Chinese proverb rolls ~ When sleeping women wake, mountains move.
And when sleeping women share, we awake.

The community extends from beyond our physical landscape to those souls just like us everywhere. We uncover our own tribe and revel in our own uniqueness.

We are changing this world. Step by step, post by post, artwork by artwork, word by word, thought by thought. We are creating our own lives.


~ Share *your* experience of blogging here.