Fresh perspectives on life ...

The last week has been quite a whirlwind with a trip to Sydney to attend a site visit for Sculpture by the Sea, and having to consider a new location for the piece.

Bronte beach was suggested, but there wasn’t a good spot there for it.

The day after the site meeting I was at Watson’s Bay, and stumbled upon the perfect location for Cloudscape.  It feels perfect in every way.  The location faces ‘the Gap’ .. a cliff with rocks below where many have ended their life and a place I visited often as a child.  Since I see Cloudscape as an antidote to the desire to end our life .. as a symbol of hope and an opportunity to look at the world from a different perspective – this feels even more perfect.

Also, since I’ve been exploring the idea of boundaries, and living on the edge, this feels like a very meaningful place in lots of ways.

I am proposing to submit the scale model for Cloudscape into the Sculpture Inside part of the Sculpture by the Sea exhibition.  It would be an opportunity for the public to imagine the piece.

This year I am focusing on building the 1:20 scale model, a virtual model using Rhino (which I’m just starting to learn) – and the then a 3D printed version of the piece, and connecting with all sorts of people for feedback and suggestions.

Lots of shifts are happening in my life.  I’m moving back into the flow.  Through action the path becomes clearer.

Onwards ..

This year, maybe more than any other year, I have been studying hard.  I’ve only ever wanted to be a student and I have taken that to every extreme.  But I have immersed myself in so much study that I’ve found myself drowning but in a healthy, dissolving sort of way that is having me look at my priorities in life to see what I will continue to take on and what I have to let go of.  I’ve been finding being involved in so many things and the intensity of putting myself out there has brought me back to life .. and at the same time I’ve been doing so much self study, from so many angles, and I’ve reached a point of over saturation where the messages are loud and clear and my myriad studies start to become a maze of clutter I am dealing with on top of everything else .. a reinforcement that I don’t know what I’m doing and I need someone else to tell me.  But I need to own the fact that I know what I’m doing and get present to the ride rather than caught in my headspace.

I’m starting to connect with other people more and more and it is such a blessing.

I need to keep breathing.

Breathe.

Time to let go.

Release.

I feel like I am caught in a dumper at the moment.

Interestingly, that feeling was the inspiration for Vortex.

I think the biggest gift in ’embracing the thrash’ is the necessary letting go.  The surrender.

Things feel pretty amazing at the moment.  I’m stepping into Life in a big way and have been building momentum so there is no turning back.

Cloudscape has been accepted for Sculpture by the Sea Bondi 2016 .. so October 20 is the opening date.

It feels like the stars are aligned.  I’m creating a ‘Cloudscape Manifesto’ today to help spread the word and gather supporters.  And as I dream it into existence it starts to become real.

The thing I have to keep remembering is .. Breathe.

In Gratitude.

This blog post really represents a big part of the journey I’ve been on to transform my life.  Exploring is how I like to learn and my massive challenge has been ‘exploring’ in the public eye.

I have spent my life trying to hide.  Even now I tend to wear mostly black, and I have a desire to slip into the shadows and go exploring.  It’s how I’ve lived my life.  And it has been fun.  I’ve imagined I’d have made a great spy.  I love to ferret information, to develop theories, to examine, the cross examine, to twist things around in every possible angle and interpretation.  But of course all that takes time and energy .. so I’ve had to be very particular about what I’m studying at any one time.  And yet it feels like there are multiple studies happening in the background at any one time .. a process of discernment, observation, appreciation, cataloguing .. and I think in recent years my system started to overflow and was in meltdown for a while.  So the meltdown was my ‘soul soup’ period of really getting clear on what I was going to do with my life.  I’m still very connected to that soul soup – it was like the culmination of a lifetime of searching and letting go and trying to find the gem in amongst it all.  I feel like I’ve been swimming underwater for a long time.  I feel a bit like an amphibian, crawling onto land, taking breaths of air, feeling the ground beneath my feet, feeling exposed, feeling brave, letting go, opening up, transforming.

In a chance conversation today I got the message that I need to speak up, for people like me who feel like they are alone in how they feel .. in feeling weird or like there’s noone else like you .. in feeling bad about wanting time to yourself, in feeling like you don’t have a purpose on earth and what’s the point, in wondering what contribution you are making and why does it have to be so hard.  I could keep on going .. but the point is .. we are never alone.  There is ALWAYS someone out there who thinks like you, or feels like you, and as much as you may feel like an alien who has been placed here from another planet, trying to make sense of this crazy civilisation, YOU ARE NOT ALONE.

So that is my message.  I can promise you with certainty.

And if you feel alone, send me a message, and I will respond and be your witness.

So in full circle fashion which is the flavour of my life at the moment, I will conclude this post with what message I’m getting from what I have written above ..

We all need to be seen, to be acknowledged, to feel like we exist other than in our own minds.  But being seen is really scary.  It means being open to attack.  It means needing to have a strategy for responding to whatever comes at you.  Yet coming out of hiding opens up the whole world, opens up opportunities for connection, and opens up the possibility of moving forward to something different.

So, in short, this blog allows me to open up my life to connection (or attack), it forces me to stand open (and exposed) to the world, and it helps me to take action which then begets more action .. and slowly, but with increasing momentum, a path of action is taken and the world starts to expand, and more things start to happen .. and well, I’ve got a way to go yet .. but I’ve been feeling like I’m on the right track, and that’s the main thing.

Onwards.