Do April Showers Bring May Flowers?

As I reflect the month of April the Words “Whirl Wind” circulate through my thoughts!  I found myself “Playing with Paint” from my heart home of Fort Worth, taking my mother along side down to the grape vines of the Florence Vineyard then with my daughter in toe over to meet what I’ve titled “The Longview Ladies”.    As I loaded up my car and headed out I was unaware that my journey would be more than facilitating a painting class.  More than providing an opportunity to access creativity and have some really playful fun!   April was the start of a lifetime love affair of my own.  I fell head over heels in love and I’m forever a changed woman.  This April, the celebration of my 38th year, I had the privilege to share myself and “The Playing with Paint Class” with 30+ women.  What I learned is simply this……I LOVE Women!  I loved meeting all the new women at the painting class.  Seeing those old birds that keep coming back for more, and all the behind the scenes women.   Those women who when I stand in front of the room no-one else sees.  They are the women who’s shoulders I’m standing on as I speak about passion and creativity.  Those Women who played a role(s) which supported me to stand up and share my gifts.  Like the one friend who challenged me outside of my really comfortable box and asked me to declare the new show that is now up and hanging at The Vineyard in Florence Texas through June.  Or my other Grand Friend who got on the phone and personally helped build my Inaugural Art Class at P’s Gallery in Longview.  Let me not stop before I mention my Frister, the one who changes her flight and comes home early from vacation to attend my class and brings friends!  These are just the icing on my already delicious cake.  It has also been the women who courageously come to class ready to intimately expose themselves to a room full of strangers.  They shriek and they shrill but they continue to paint and see what the next stroke will be and expose of themselves on canvas.  And…they laugh!  Women laugh at themselves and it’s beautiful.   It has been my honor to have kept the space for so many lovely souls.  My heart yearns that we all will cross paths again and play with paint another day.  Until then I hope that I’ve given away the inspiration I have received this month.  I am clear now “The Class” is not mine and it’s not for them…it’s ours.  It’s the souls who show up and open up and create together!   So we head into May, the month of mothers.  I’m reminded As I watched Mother Nature whirl around the country whipping her force and removing all that stood in her way, of feminine energy.  I too felt my feminine force starting to build momentum and preparing to remove all obstacles that stand in my journey of expansion.  Our country mourned loss of life as our southern neighbors lost loved ones they also lost the concrete structures of their communities.  Driving down Main Street looked like loss and devastation.  I too had loss in April as I said goodbye to a relationship that has been my “Main Street” that relationship I’ve built by life around even my art around.  And then I wonder…Do we ever really have loss?  The women in my painting class have found out that a canvas holds many paintings, sometimes the best painting get’s covered up and sometimes it takes many disappointing strokes before the beauty is revealed and in the end the world only sees the painting on top and glimpses of the ones that layered the surface.  As women we sometimes are standing in front and sometimes were the ones holding up the one standing in front.  We have many layers ones that are disappointing and others more beautiful.  Sometimes we need the force of Mother (Feminine) Nature to encourage us it’s time for a NEW Beginning.  Embracing my own feminine energy circular, fierce, whole and complete on it’s own.  Inspires me to Build Again.  In my heart April Showers do Bring May Flowers and this month I’ll be celebrating my love for women and that will be the Inspiration you’ll find me chatting about at “Our Class”!