The Friday Five - Truth, Beauty and Goodness for your weekend

Lessons from insects; Uppercase Magazine; 'Creative Breakthroughs' from a fellow Substacker; Boundaries for your soul; Vision boards; God-winks and Creative challenges

My vision board from a workshop I held in 2019. Many of the themes I included on this board are timeless and still speak to where I am today. Notice in the middle at the top: ‘Becoming Like Christ’…that is why I began my Substack - to write about how we are all *becoming*.

A personal note

Hello and Happy Friday! Last Friday, I was not able to send out my weekly newsletter because Friday afternoon, as we were driving home from a beach trip and I was finishing up the newsletter, our family was informed of yet another traumatic incident that happened within our family and it has been all-consuming this week. For the time being and out of necessity, I am going to need to make a change and begin posting my newsletter every other Friday.

I had about 2/3 of it finished and that is what is coming to you today. I’m still processing this trauma with an entire team of professionals and need to figure out how and where it has a place in my writing. That may take time. In the meantime, I just want to express my gratitude for your being here and choosing to read my words. It has been writing these words that have helped me through some of the darkest days. Some I share, many I don’t. But I’m grateful for a place to share what I do and for you being here. Trauma has a way of whispering lies into my heart that say my words don’t matter. But I know writing them helps me and I have heard from some of you that it helps you, too. I do hope my words bless and edify you all.

The beach trip last week was timed perfectly. God’s timing never ceases to amaze me. He knew we would need a little break, a little rest and relaxation before another storm would come through - again. This storm, a new trauma, uncovered some old trauma and now we are walking in unchartered territory - again. To add to it, shortly after receiving this news about our daughter, I also learned that my brother had had a stroke.

There was a moment this week, after all of this news had time to settle in, when all I could do was be still. I wasn’t intentionally trying to be still. I just couldn’t do anything else. I couldn’t think. I didn’t have words to say or type. I didn’t feel like crying anymore. I didn’t want to do anything but be still.

“When God places a burden upon you, he places his arms underneath you.” - Charles Spurgeon

I wondered, if in my weakness, that stillness was the strength of the Holy Spirit taking over for me. Stillness was exactly the thing I needed. Stillness was a holy invitation to breathe. Stillness was a holy invitation to be held. I wouldn’t have felt held had I continued to hold on to the overwhelm. Had I continued to hold onto the overwhelm, my circumstances would have gotten the best of me, instead of allowing God to get the best of me.

Why does it come so naturally for me to turn to overwhelm and anxious thoughts when I know I am at my best when I am abiding in his peace and presence, and not leaning on my own understanding? I am now quite experienced with trauma and CPTSD¹ and experienced with turning to the Lord and leaning on him for refuge and comfort. Yet, I STILL struggle with my emotions - fear, anxiety, grief, discontentment over my circumstances…

This is all part of the great BECOMING. And I wonder sometimes if the Lord will continue to give me these storms until the day I can walk right into them, knowing I am held the entire time and have peace, despite the storm…I will just have to trust his timing on it and my becoming.

“One of the great lessons learned by any true pilgrim of the narrow way is that God will go to the greatest lengths and spare no expense to make his children holy.” - Paul Washer

A tool I’m sharing this week that serves as a visual reminder for ‘the best of me’ is a vision board. I’m also sharing a book that I’m beginning to work through on how to set much needed boundaries when trying to heal from trauma, anxiety and CPTSD. I pray if there is a brother or sister here reading this going through something similarly that it can help or bless you.

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1. Lessons from Class Insecta: How beetles, butterflies and other wonders of nature play a supporting role in my life

I have thoroughly enjoyed gathering these small essays about my insect encounters and hope one day to put them all together for a memoir.

2. Have you heard of Uppercase magazine? It’s a creative’s DELIGHT!

I first learned about it when I joined Sketchbook Revival for the first time this year - which, by the way, was also a delight as it introduced me to new ways to fill my art / creative journal by tutorials from artists all over the world. (Be sure to check that link out, too)

“UPPERCASE is a quarterly magazine for the creative and curious inspired by craft, design, typography and illustration”. The beauty of this magazine and all the goodness it contains deserves its own spot on The Friday Five this week, but it’s filling up two spots because in the most recent issue, Issue #58, there is an article by another

Substack

favorite of mine,

Meera Lee Patel

- see #3

3. Meera Lee Patel,

Dear Somebody

, and her article in the latest issue of Uppercase

Meera Lee Patel - artist, writer, book maker - sends out a weekly newsletter from her Substack,

Dear Somebody

with ‘five things from this week that I’d like to remember’ and I have thoroughly enjoyed reading what she shares. Last week, she shared a quote that resonated and I couldn’t wait to read her article ‘Creative Breakthroughs: shaping your visual voice’ in the latest edition of Uppercase magazine (click the link and turn to page 10).

Here is the quote she shared…

“A mistake I continually made throughout my career was expecting myself to produce work without rest or creative input. It’s impossible to evolve your work, or your voice, without allowing yourself to be inspired or moved by the environment that surrounds you. Although the foundation of my work is rooted in emotional well-being and healing, I found myself prioritizing work over friendship, production over creative intake, and relying on old skills over experimentation. As a result, my work remained stale, almost forgettable. Each painting was missing a spark, the essence that would imbue it with meaning. To light the spark, I had to first give myself room to breathe.”

Does this resonate with you?

She also has a new book out that is on my list to read - as soon as I can finish a couple of books I’m reading right now 😜:

How If Feels to Find Yourself: Navigating Life's Changes with Purpose, Clarity, and Heart

4. Book - Boundaries For Your Soul: How to Turn Your Overwhelming Thoughts and Feelings into Your Greatest Allies by Dr. Alison Cook

I’m doing some hard work right now with my therapist and family² and a lot of it involves creating boundaries. I didn’t even realize boundaries were something I needed to establish to heal and thrive because I know how to say no and protect myself from overcommitting. However, I do need help with establishing boundaries around my emotions - particularly fear, anxiety, sadness and discontentment.

This book was recommended by my therapist and I will be working through it. I can’t speak to how it’s impacted me yet as I have only just started it, but I’ll let you know how it goes.

According to Goodreads, this is a quote often highlighted from the book,

“Burdens of shame do not define you. Whereas these lies say you are unimportant, God says you are decidedly well-known and deeply loved. And you can be real because you are his. You are the light of the world—and shame has no place in the light.”

However, I did go to the author’s website and discovered her popular podcast: The Best of You. To date, she has 63 episodes and there are several that I am interested in listening to. I started with episode 40: 5 Steps to Healing Painful Emotions & Why Parts of Us Get Stuck in the Past. I will say that a lot of what she shares in this podcast is what I’ve heard from my therapists in the past…

“But here's the thing, when you focus on an emotion, an unwanted feeling, a negative thought, about somebody else or about yourself. What you're doing is what psychologists call differentiating from it. When you become aware of an emotion and you name it, it's almost as if you bring it out in front of you. You get some distance from it. Instead of that emotion just taking you over and being what you feel…

When you focus on a painful emotion or a negative thought and get curious about it, you can give that part of you the leadership, the wisdom, or the care that it needs. And if you think about a doctor or a surgeon who's working to heal a wound. How can she heal that wound, that's acting out in some way, or causing pain in some way, without first finding it, focusing on it, and seeing it clearly?”

Cheers to doing the hard work! Anyone else in this boat right now? I’d love to hear if you are - we can encourage each other along the way.

“Therefore encourage one another and build each other up, just as in fact you are doing”. - 1 Thessalonians 5:11

5. Vision Boards & Creative Gatherings

I spent the entire drive to the beach last week, all 4.5 hours, cutting out words and images from magazines in preparation for an upcoming art workshop I am planning. Although the goal was to gather words and images, it was also surprisingly very therapeutic, searching for words that I liked and imagining ways they could be used creatively. I love words and this was a fun way to engage with them.

I’ve always had a desire to create safe spaces for creatives, or those interested in being creative, to have a place to play and explore. In the home that we had to escape³, the terrace level of our home was devoted for Wonder and Create Art Studio. That art studio had my heart and I loved gathering with anyone who wanted to create in it. I’m looking forward to doing it again, on a much smaller scale, in our new home here in North Carolina.

One of my favorite gatherings was a vision board workshop. Vision boards are wonderful tools to keep you motived and inspired toward specific goals, or to have a visual reminder for your values and passions. As I mentioned in the intro, it can be a visual reminder of the ‘best of you’ because, let’s face it, sometimes we need that reminder that we are wonderfully and fearfully made. I had my vision board hung in my walk in closet, in a prominent place that I saw as soon as I walked in. My closet was also where I prayed so it was great to have theses visual reminders nearby during deep prayer sessions.

For the workshop I held in Wonder and Create Art Studio, I had precut images and words and laid them out on a table. I had piles and piles of magazines available for my guests to look through to cut images out that spoke to them. I asked my guests to preprint/cut and bring with them any specific things they knew they might want on their boards that they might not be able to find in a magazine, such as a scripture, or particular word or picture.

We had music playing, the diffuser providing energizing aromatherapy, a few women brought wine and enjoyed a glass or two while we chatted, dreamed, thought in silence, prayed, and created alongside each other. It was lovely.

If you think you might want to plan one of these gatherings, this is a great low fuss activity. You don’t need to prepare a lot of supplies - everyone can do their own cutting when they come, or even provide their own magazines - nor provide a lot of instruction.

Supplies Needed:

Magazines; preprinted specific images, words, phrases or scriptures

Scissors

A stretched blank canvas - size is your preference

Sponge brushes

Mod Podge glue

Bowls to pour glue into - the plastic take out containers from restaurants, lids and bottoms, make a great bowl; even plastic cups can be used

Instructions:

• Cut out enough material to fully cover your canvas; lay it out over your canvas before pasting it down to position everything the way you like it. Take a picture from your phone after you’ve laid it out the way you like it so you can use it as a guide when pasting everything back down.

• Layer the entire blank with a thin layer of glue using the sponge brushes. Be sure to include the sides for paper corners that might fold a bit over the edge of the face of the canvas.*

• Lay the larger pieces, or your background pieces first; then, continue layering, adding a thin layer of glue in between each layer

• Once you’ve finished, add one final thin layer of glue on top of everything, including the sides if anything was folded over the side.

• Allow it to dry for at least 24 hours

• Hang it up and enjoy!

Tips:

It might be helpful to have a resource available to help think through what you’d like to include, like any of these, or just be led while you’re flipping through images and words and cut out anything that speaks to you. You can always edit before pasting anything down.

As mentioned above, if you know you want to include a specific word or scripture or image, print/cut it out ahead of time because you might not find it in the magazines. Keep in mind, some home printers have ink that will smear when the glue is layered on top of it. You may want to test a small area before you use something printed from your home printer.

*We worked on plastic fold out tables and I didn’t cover them. The glue is easy to wipe up from plastic tables with a wet rag. You may want to have a few wet rags handy for quick wipe ups of the table and for your hands. If you don’t clean up the glue soon after the mess, it’s also easy to scrape or peel once dried. If you are using a wood table, you may want to cover your workspace with a plastic tablecloth.

You can add water to the glue to thin it out. I provided a bowl for each guest. It helps to have a wider bowl opening.

This is another small one I made that year based on my word for that year: prune.

Here is what the back looked like.

Are you feeling inspired to gather your friends and have a vision board workshop in your home or church? I hope you will. It’s always a beautiful, sacred time when people gather in the name of the Lord. Amen?

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Book Update: When Women Were Birds by Terry Tempest Williams

I recently discovered this wonderful book while looking for a quote that I shared in my last Friday Five. I was intrigued by the story she teases out - that her mother gave her all of her journals with the promise that she couldn’t read them until after she died. When Terry finally received the journals and opened them up, she discovered that shelves of these journals her mother had kept, were all empty.

As she shares stories of her life, she explores her thoughts about what these empty pages mean. For her. And for her mom, needing to guess from the memories and clues she recalls. I was surprised that this book is loaded with stories about nature and her love for it - that was a bonus for me as a naturalist.

One of the themes that has stuck with me is her relationships with the women in her life, her mother and two grandmothers - maternal and paternal, through snippets of memories that paint vivid illustrations of their bond; the safety, the trust, the love…

She shares an excerpt from a journal she kept in the summer of 1970, when she was 14:

Mimi and I stepped out of the cabin ready to experience and observe the secrets and thrills that can be found in the world of nature. We walked with binoculars in hand so we could view the slightest detail…We could feel the warm sun filtering through the leaves of the aspens.

We seated ourselves on an old knotted log that had been struck with lightning many years ago and listened, listened to the silence. I heard nothing but a beautiful silence.

I am inspired to write about my grandmothers and what they taught me or modeled for me. I’ve had grandparents on my mind a lot lately. I have a feeling I’ll be sharing more on this topic soon.

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Creative Corner: Inchie Challenge begins soon

Last year, my kiddos and I participated in the inchie challenge through Amy Maricle’s Mindful Art Studio. Amy is a true delight - so encouraging, inspiring and talented. She is a licensed art therapist, using her skills to encourage others to engage in their creative practice to find peace and calm (not therapy, but I personally find all of what she teaches us very therapeutic) and to learn how to play again.

The inchie challenge takes the pressure off of creating a large piece of art that takes a lot of time and commitment. Instead, we create on tiny squares of paper, 2 inches x 2 inches, and mostly, it feels a lot like play. We had so much fun with it last year. If you want to add a little fun to your creative practice, are in a creative rut, need some creative warm up art to get ideas flowing for your larger pieces or just want to join along, I highly recommend this challenge and getting to know Amy.

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From the Glossary of ‘Boundaries for Your Soul’

Comfortable Distance: the outcome of maintaining healthy boundaries with the parts that compete for power inside your soul. Being too close to a troubled part leads to feeling stuck, overwhelmed, and lacking perspective. Being too far from a troubled part leads to being vulnerable to the part ambushing as it seeks to take over the soul. Being at a comfortable distance leads to a sense of lightness and peace.

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A God-wink that happened last night on the heels of a really hard day

Do you use the term God-winks? I define it as an experience or event that takes place that is so personal and so perfectly timed that it could only be a token of God’s love and affection for us in the moment it is provided.

After some really hard days this week, I was looking through my photos on my phone for a specific photo last night and I received a perfectly timed God-wink. I have 152,194 photos presently so looking for a specific photo is no easy task.

Instead of finding the photo I wanted to find, I found a photo of my husband and I on our first anniversary in Paris. It’s a photo of a photo and I had taken it when we threw away all of our belongings after our home was deemed unsafe from the hidden toxic mold that was discovered. Paper things, like books and pictures, are extremely porous so we got rid of all of them, even wedding photos. We got rid of all of our belongings.

Anyway, I love this photo. It’s precious and reminds me of a time when life was so much less complicated. When I used to get fancy and we were foolish with our money. We look like BABIES here.

We were in a really neat restaurant in Paris - Laperouse. It’s been called the House of Pleasures since 1766 and the basement of the building was once used as a shelter from German bombs during WWII. The website has this to say of some of it’s famous guests…

“Zola, Maupassant, Baudelaire, Proust… the great Victor Hugo, famous novelist Colette (of “La Chatte”), Serge Gainsbourg (who met Jane Birkin here), Woody Allen (who later chose Lapérouse as the setting for an iconic scene of “Midnight in Paris”), Orson Welles, Winston Churchill, Ernest Hemingway… if these walls had ears! The literary icons and “men of the world” who have flocked to our famed Salons since 1766 are joined in spirit today by the stars of fashion and cinema, making each memory at Lapérouse an unforgettable moment frozen in time.”

The restaurant is lushly and lavishly decorated in velvets and rich embroidered tapestries with gold fixtures. We had a private dining room covered in scarred mirrors said to be the originals when it was one of Paris’s most frequented brothels. We had to ring a bell on the wall to get service and it was the first and only time we’d ever had a 7 course meal. Very fancy!

So, I stumbled upon this photo and called all of my boys, including my hubby, to come and take a look. Everyone had comments to make (Luke said I looked older then than now and Daddy looks waaaaay younger; LOL). But I realized while we were reminiscing over this photo, our Amazon Alexa was playing the song that I walked down the aisle to on our wedding day - Songbird by Eva Cassidy/Fleetwood Mac. I cannot tell you the last time I heard this song! It’s been ages. What a coincidence God-wink!! It was fun to acknowledge that moment and give thanks and praise to our God who sees and cares.

Agh, I just listened to this song again and fall in love with him all over again. He said something the other day that I had to record in my notes on my phone because I loved it so much and don’t want to forget it (yes, honey, I’m sharing it….)

“You just bring me so much joy. Just hearing you slurp your coffee from the other room gives me the willies.”

I am truly blessed. Thank you, Father, for this man with whom I share my life that you gave to me. He’s a gift.

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A few shots from the week

A nature journal page I completed to help me remember the abundant osprey.

These sea lettuces were all over one beach we went to. They were so interesting to touch, not slimy and creepy, but light and fresh. I found out that they are edible. The brown is called succulent seaweed and was also very satisfying to touch - rubbery and bouncy.

Andrew took my phone and took about 100 shots during this embrace. I’m glad he did. I love these candid shots.

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1. What is complex PTSD (C-PTSD)?

2. I write often that I am living in a season of long-suffering, which involves repeated trauma and PTSD. I struggle with feeling discontent with our current situation, as well as with grief over the life I thought I would have but don’t, and over the the family-picture I worked so hard to cultivate but it’s not turning out that way. I am forever grateful for my faith and relationship with Jesus, and lean on him as often as I can, but it doesn’t take away the pain, the trauma and the hard circumstances we have to live with.

3. We had to escape that home because of hidden toxic mold, the very thing that made our entire family, including our dogs, very sick. We got rid of all of our belongings, including every art supply I had in the art studio.