Sunnyside Up 2013 by Drea Jensen
Even though it often seems impossible, sometimes we have to force ourselves to see the glass as half full and remember that there is good in almost everything.
http://dreajensengallery.artistwebsites.com/featured/sunnyside-up-2013-drea-jensen.html

“Hello, sun in my face. Hello you who made the morning and spread it over the fields…Watch, now, how I start the day in happiness, in kindness.”

~ Mary Oliver

Devotion 2012 by Drea Jensen
Following what we believe in always ends with a positive outcome. Dedication and passion generate beautiful structure in our world.
http://dreajensengallery.artistwebsites.com/featured/devotion-2012-drea-jensen.html

“A bird doesn’t sing because it has an answer, it sings because it has a song.”

~ Maya Angelou

Transition 2012 by Drea Jensen
The movement of change can be smooth and effortless, but can also be hidden and blurred.
http://dreajensengallery.artistwebsites.com/featured/transition-2012-drea-jensen.html

Dive For Dreams

By E.E. Cummings

dive for dreams
or a slogan may topple you
(trees are their roots
and wind is wind)

trust your heart
if the seas catch fire
(and live by love
though the stars walk backward)

honour the past
but welcome the future
(and dance your death
away at this wedding)

never mind a world
with its villains or heroes
(for god likes girls
and tomorrow and the earth)

Oracle 2012 by Drea Jensen

Coming together as a group can help you see what is to come.

Graton artist and school teacher, Drea Jensen, in efforts to raise money in memory of 12-year-old Cameron Varnell, is putting Oracle 2012 up for sale, with 100% of her proceeds going to fight childhood leukemia.

http://dreajensengallery.artistwebsites.com/featured/oracle-2012-drea-jensen.html

Prayer for Cameron 2013 by Drea Jensen

Spiral

BY RODDY LUMSDEN

These years lift over coldly now: Aprils
and Augusts are gifted to ice, or sprawl
into mid-summers or year ends—pillars
of lesser standing. Still come no replies

to boyish queries, how the belly sleeper
buoys, begins again, becomes poor soul
or bull of appetite; why when the pearls
drop, no spool dares connect the ripples.

goddess of abundance
refuse subordination
deep dark wisdom
transformation after death
lotus flower blossom
fertile heart

Inspiration by Rosemary Allen

Mystical Migration
by Rosemary Allen

The verse opens up
And I find myself floating.
I see my soul.

Not waiting for an invitation to fill void or a need
Not today
I am hungry now for more than food and shelter.

With Desire propelling me forward
With the force of Gravity
My large wings spread wide lifting my heavy loads;
Lingering sorrows, self doubt, guilt

Transforming their illusion of safety
Into a distant memory of lack
(Or were those struggles my fertile void?)

Now, I glide through an open expanse
Bathed in my few found perspective
A star dome of abundance always before me
Dark energy now seen,
Turns to Insight

I rotate my twin tails
Letting my intuition, skills and love hold my heading
And with gratitude, I soar

http://fineartamerica.com/featured/inspiration-rosemary-allen.html

Heart Place 2013 by Drea Jensen

The Invitation

By Oriah Mountain Dreamer

It doesn’t interest me what you do for a living
I want to know what you ache for
and if you dare to dream of meeting your heart’s longing.

It doesn’t interest me how old you are
I want to know if you will risk looking like a fool
for love
for your dreams
for the adventure of being alive.

It doesn’t interest me what planets are squaring your moon…
I want to know if you have touched the center of your own sorrow
if you have been opened by life’s betrayals
or have become shrivelled and closed
from fear of further pain.

I want to know if you can sit with pain
mine or your own
without moving to hide it
or fade it
or fix it.

I want to know if you can be with joy
mine or your own
if you can dance with wildness
and let the ecstasy fill you to the tips of your
fingers and toes
without cautioning us to
be careful
be realistic
to remember the limitations of being human.

It doesn’t interest me if the story you are telling me
is true.
I want to know if you can
disappoint another
to be true to yourself.
If you can bear the accusation of betrayal
and not betray your own soul.
If you can be faithless
and therefore trustworthy.

I want to know if you can see Beauty
even when it is not pretty
every day.
And if you can source your own life
from its presence.

I want to know if you can live with failure
yours and mine
and still stand on the edge of the lake
and shout to the silver of the full moon,
“Yes.”

It doesn’t interest me
to know where you live or how much money you have.
I want to know if you can get up
after a night of grief and despair
weary and bruised to the bone
and do what needs to be done
to feed the children.

It doesn’t interest me who you know
or how you came to be here.
I want to know if you will stand
in the center of the fire
with me
and not shrink back.

It doesn’t interest me where or what or with whom
you have studied.
I want to know what sustains you
from the inside
when all else falls away.

I want to know if you can be alone
with yourself
and if you truly like the company you keep
in the empty moments.

Truth of Creativity 2013
by Drea Jensen

“I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word in reality. This is why right, temporarily defeated, is stronger than evil triumphant.”

– Martin Luther King

Georgia O’Keeffe Bleeding Heart 1932

The Bleeding-heart
by Mary Oliver

I know a bleeding-heart plant that has thrived
for sixty years if not more, and has never
missed a spring without rising and spreading
itself into a glossy bush, with many small red
hearts dangling. Don’t you think that deserves
a little thought? The woman who planted it
has been gone for a long time, and everyone
who saw it in that time has also died or moved
away and so, like so many stories, this one can’t
get finished properly. Most things that are
important, have you noticed, lack a certain
neatness. More delicious, anyway, is to
remember my grandmother’s pleasure when
the dissolve of winter was over and the green
knobs appeared and began to rise, and to cre-
ate their many hearts. One would say she was
a simple woman, made happy by simple
things. I think this was true. And more than
once, in my long life, I have wished to be her.