In the spring I started a women’s circle called “Healing A Woman’s Heart Through Writing and Art.” That program is now a closed and very small group of women that I love dearly and who have become family to me, and what I started, what I wanted to do, was to teach them this magical thing… the healing power of writing and art, the transformational tools that can lift someone up and show them the beauty and wonder of their own life, a process where all of the odd things, the imperfect things, become the glorious things, and how we can come to deepen our relationship with ourselves and find true compassion, and kindness toward our wobbling, trembly, human hearts with a pen or a paintbrush in hand. I did not know, when I began, that the project that I started wouldn’t grow into what I had hoped, but what it did grow into, and what I was trying to say, would save my life.

It has been a very hard year, the hardest of my life. And yet I have found this incredible thing, a way to share, as I have always wanted to, what it is like to live as a woman with Bi Polar disorder and a host of other oddities and to share how the pain and uncertainty of life can be managed through these mediums.

All this has led me to writing a book about writing and art and life for those of us who just don’t or can’t live in the world in the usual way, and in the process I am beginning to find out amazing things about myself. I am reading, writing, and drawing non-stop and I am finding a healing and an ease that I have never really known.

What I want to say, right here, and right now, is that if you have always wanted to write, to draw, to make any kind of art, and something has held you back, why don’t you join me right here on this blog. As I write about my process and my journey, as you see Tallulah and Georgia develop and grow (Georgia’s ears are too long and her fur is too dark. I am still learning how to draw her and I have a new little paint set on the way because I didn’t have the right colors, but that’s okay, I adore her, and it’s fun learning, and I have four pugs to help me along and advise me!) and you can leave comments after my entries here on the blog and you can answer one another. I read all of the comments but my energy often flags after I write a post so that I revel in the wonderful comments and whisper “Thank you” on the wind and hope you know how much I love you and appreciate the time you take. But I promise that just coming here and making simple declarative statements (or more) “I am finally writing about… (Or drawing, or whatever.) creates bountiful energy inside of you to get you going and keep you going. Be brave, do it for YOU, no one ever has to see it, but it can change your life.

Me? In the bi polary way my days go I have not yet eaten dinner and it is past 11:30 p.m. My days are all inside out and upside down but as long as I keep moving forward, getting enough rest, and take care of myself I let my days be what they will. Learn to love yourself and your days and your bits and parts and celebrate them every way that you can.

I will end here and make a little dinner and do my end of the day unwinding things. Tallulah and I have great talks late at night and I write it all down in my journal. And little pug pictures are peeking around the corners of the pages, and I have entered Tallulah’s world to help make sense of mine. I hope that someday her story will help others too.

Love from Dragonfly Cottage to you wherever you are, and do come on back and and share what you’re up to in the comments. I’d love to cheer you on. It’s going to be a fun time ahead…