Synchronicity...

... walking, trusting to The Universe, and creativity

As I write this, it is a Thursday afternoon and Canberra is showing its best winter skies of a deep pale blue, washed with sunshine. There was a frost this morning, and I rushed out to check my newly planted hardenbergias. The pair I planted earlier this season succumbed to the frost so I was a little bit nervous, but this pair were a little bit further on and I had blanketed them with mounds of pea straw.

So far, so good.

They’ve had a couple of mornings of cloud and light rain since I put them in, so hopefully they’ve settled well. At the moment they are a brilliant burst of purple at the back of the garden, and I look forward to them taking over that portion of the back fence in time.

I just popped out to take a photo for you and captured this busy little bee hard at work. So glad my new garden is doing its job already!

Anyway, we have blue skies, sunshine, and warmth — a whole 16˚Celsius!

Heavenly.

I’ve just made myself a cup of Organic Ceylon Orange Pekoe from Adore Tea. I’m almost out, but I’ve just booked to dine-in with family fairly soon, so I’ll do some shopping then (there will be plenty of people there to rein me in!). It (the tea) is advertised as having sweet undertones and an aromatic oaky body, and, as always, it’s living up to its hype.

Not actually me… or the room I am in, but we can imagine, right?

Please join me, sipping a delicious cuppa in a sun-drenched room.

Do you believe in synchronicity? Morphic resonance? Chaos? Or do you put eery coincidences down to, er, coincidence?

At the moment there seems to be an unending stream of people I know, now up to six sets, both personally or via The Ether, who have spent parts of this summer season (in the northern hemisphere) trekking around Iceland. None of these people have any connection to each other. I, as far as I know, am the only link.

Icelandic horses - just love their wild manes and no-nonsense personalities…

A somewhat long time ago, horse trekking in Iceland was on my list of things to do one day. My abject inability to stay on top of horses followed by developing significant allergies, not to horses, but to the dust and pollen they collect around them, put the whole magnificent idea of riding a tölting Icelandic horse across sweeping volcanic plains a bit on the backburner.

Even when I got the idea that I’d return to horse riding – via some lessons and a good dose of antihistamines – I fell at the first hurdle without ever getting near a horse when it turned out that no local establishments were able (willing?) to take on an over-60s learner (because insurance!) – the whole dream remained a bit distant and vague.

But now, thanks to my vicarious travel via facebook, articles, and conversation, I find I’m itching to add a hike in Iceland to my walking-wish-list (bearing in mind, however, that being able to walk is right at the very top of my walking-wish-list at the moment while I still struggle through recovery mode after an ITB stress injury care of some over-enthusiastic Nordic walking), with the option of seeing some beautiful Icelandic horses in action.

Also not me…

Not sure where it sits on the list: before or after one version or another of the Camino de Santiago; practically everywhere in England, Ireland, Scotland, and Wales; or various places around Australia, care of doing The Big Lap in an old campervan (which I don’t — yet — own).

I’m thinking of creating a vision board, or a whole vision album maybe, and adding to the woo by putting it all in the hands of The Universe and seeing what happens.

Do you have any just-too-far-away to quite reach travel plans? Or have you got plans in motion and ready to roll? Leave me a comment. We can either commiserate or I’ll feel wildly jealous. One of the two.

Talking of putting things in the hands of The Universe, having discovered that my forays back into a creative spring (as opposed to the winter I’ve been experiencing of late) have been sporadic, to say the least*, I stepped away slowly, seeking a different pathway back to the muse.

*NB: although I do have a junior fiction story awaiting a good solid edit that I feel I’m almost ready to get stuck into and a picture book text also glaring at me to do some editing.

I can’t look at my artwork for my planned reboot of Trouble at Home without getting a strong dose of what’s the point? and this is awful! And, to be honest, I haven’t had the heart to get back into the Picture Perfect course or even do anything requiring getting my watercolours out, so I told myself it was time for something different.

So… I dusted off the iPad I’d requisitioned from my resident young adult, charged the Apple Pen, and jumped into Skillshare. I was going to master this digital art thing now… or never.

I needed something really – I mean, really – basic. Something that blended making art with how to use all the clever features in Procreate.

I’d played before, but on a very superficial level. That’s okay, I was ready for some superficial as a starting point.

What I got was a very clever blend of building skills gradually over forty (yes, forty) short classes. These classes were supposed to be one a day over eight weeks (two four-week bootcamp cycles) but I got a bit obsessed and completed them in just over two weeks.

I won’t remember all the tips and tricks, but that’s okay, I can always go back for a quick review. The important thing is, I’ve made some (copied) art and had some fun, and I have actually learned things.

And… and, and, and… as my reward to myself, I moved on to follow along with the stained-glass window effects course by the same tutor.

Oh. My. Gosh.

So complicated, but soooooo much fun.

I love stained glass (and would love to do the real thing at some stage) and I loved the way these fun pictures were turning out. I went beyond the provided tutorials and resources and have, so far, come up with a couple of my own designs.

The first was a stylised red capped robin from an illustration I’d done before (you might have seen it if you follow me on Instagram or Facebook).

The second was an equally stylised and slightly artistically-interpreted version of the tea cup I had sitting in front of me when I sat down to do some work this morning and accidentally opened up Procreate on my iPad instead.

It (the cup) held my morning brew of English Breakfast tea (which went cold) and took two hours and two quick checks with the tutorial to remind myself of some of the steps.

I’m thinking of doing a (simple) stained-glass-a-day until I get the process down pat… but, at some stage, I will find my way back to my writing and get a bit of editing done.

It’s not that I don’t love editing – I actually quite enjoy the process – it’s more that I know the JF lacks something but I’m not sure what* and the PB is, as always, way too long, but I like the rhythm of the words and don’t want to lose it as I cut, cut, cut to get down to a reasonable word count.

*NB: my intuition is saying magic, but I wrote it as a response to my recent books being rejected by my publisher as being too fantasy, so magic was never intended. It has horses instead. That’s pretty magic, isn’t it?

I’m trusting to the process that I’ll come up with the answers organically while I do the something different.

If not, well I can see some designs for this year’s Christmas cards coming up instead.

Ah, well.

I’m not rushing it. I’m waiting for The Universe to give me the nudge in the right direction that I need.

Oh, and I’ve submitted my too-fantasy-stories to a couple of different publishers and crossed my fingers. Let’s see where that takes us!

What sort of things do you do when you’re not doing anything?

I’d love to hear.

‘til next time, stay creative,

ps you can get a free month of Skillshare on me at this link

and the courses I have been doing can be found

(Disclosure: if you then choose to sign up, I also get a free month off my next renewal)