an oldie but a goodie
cartoon © 2009 Jean Burman
If ever verification was needed for the power of positive thinking… positive action… and the extreme benefits of taking the leaps of faith I have had to take over the past 14 months… I now have it.
Just climbing through 19,000 feet… [okay my love of flying is officially now legendary - say no more] I have been away for nearly four weeks. How did a week turn into four I wonder? I am now winging my way home to pack up and move south. I know I know… I said I wasn’t going anywhere for now… but the Universe apparently has other plans for me!
Funny how things happen when you let go… and say yes to pretty much everything [within reason of course]. I can’t begin to tell you how much my life has changed over the past year… and how many opportunities have come my way since I began saying yes to the Universe instead of fighting it every step of the way… which I’ve now realised is something I have pretty much done all of my life! [Grin]
And this especially includes saying yes to a whole range of opportunities and experiences that I might otherwise have thought were not for me. I’ve now learned not to do that… for things are rarely as they seem at first glance.
We all have limitless potential but first we have to get over our limiting beliefs to realise it. All I can say is…
TAKE THAT LEAP!
The only downside to this move [if ever there could be one] will be that I shall have to relinquish… for now… my beautiful tropical northern Australian location… my good friends [if they don't come visit! grin]… and life as I had re-invented it. But that’s okay for now.
Nothing is ever for nothing… and nothing is ever forever!
ahhh… I love this place… [insanely hot here at the moment tho]
What it does mean though is that for the time being I shall have a home on my own terms… and a definitive place from which to go forward. And the very best thing of all is that…for the first time in over a year … I shall have a dedicated creative space from which to work!
Oddly enough this one requirement has become more essential to me than breath… so urgent is my need to simply get on with the work at hand. My creative process has been the one sure thing that has sustained me throughout this transformational period of my life. And it’s this process that shall finally have my utmost priority over the next few months as I adjust to my new home.
At last I shall have somewhere to do what I love to do more than anything else in the whole wide world… when… where and however I want to do it.
Write. Paint. Create. Plan. Dream. Go forward… and move on.
It’s a sensational feeling… almost as exhilarating as those first few moments of flight! (((chuckles)))
With the stars aligned… and God willing… I may [at last] be the master of my own destiny and the architect of my own dreams.
I would have once said “I can’t wait”… but of course… I now know that I CAN [wait] and that now anything… absolutely anything… is possible.
The sky might be the limit.
But the Universe knows no such bounds!
Hope to see you all on the other side… watch this space for updates on my new space! Coming soon.
One last coffee – for now – at the Port Bookshop
[but I'll be back]
Daybreak Port Douglas
The Friday before last I received a totally random phone call from the photographer who did the photo shoot for my website back in January this year. He wanted to know if I would be interested in doing a television commercial for one of the major airlines. “Hmmm… this was a first!” Casting was the following morning at 10 and I had other plans. But in the spirit of my recent pledge to say yes to my Universe… I changed them… and agreed to at least go along to the casting.
Long story short… I left not expecting a call… and thought little of it again as I am already more than busy keeping up with my life as it is. But as fate would conspire to have it [yep you guessed it] the call came to tell me to be ready and waiting at the designated spot at the ungodly hour of 3.30 am the following Thursday morning for the transfer by bus and boat to the location for the 12 hour shoot.
Bus AND boat? “You’ve got to be kidding me”
Low Isle – Great Barrier Reef
By now major regret had set in and I consulted a couple of good and patient friends by email who were able to knock me seriously back into shape. I then packed the beach bag bathers hat and sunscreen and very early next morning jumped in the car and did the standing quarter mile to the rendezvous point for the bus. I had left a little later than planned and was grateful [at that hour] for the empty roads and the lack of a police presence to get me there in time for the bus. Ohhhh… but I do so love to drive fast!
The bus trip was uneventful except to say that I just happened to randomly sit next to the sister-in-law of a girl [from Melbourne] whom I had worked along side [and got to know well] at last month’s MusoMagic Workshop in Townsville. I wrote about the workshop recently under Standing on the Edge. The chances of us being on the same assignment.. my choosing that particular seat… or how/why we happened to be talking about it in the first place at that ungodly hour of the morning while everyone else was asleep… seemed incredible to us both.
It occurred to me then that there was more to this adventure than initially met the eye.
A wet start onboard Shaolin
At the Port Douglas Marina we boarded the Shaolin [a replica Chinese Junk] for the 2 hour transfer to offshore Low Isle. The island is deserted except for a caretakers cottage and an unmanned lighthouse. There were a few rudimentary palm frond shelters along the beach… but not all that much shade from the sun.
Leaving Shaolin
It was an odd choice of location I thought… and the shoot would have been way easier to manage back on the mainland… but where on earth would have been the adventure in that?
After a wet and windy voyage… the Shaolin dropped anchor just offshore from the island and in a major display of unparalleled efficiency… cast crew and equipment [the full catastrophe] were ferried across by dinghy to the beach where filming began in earnest.
The full catastrophe
Fortunately or [unfortunately]… it rained lightly on and off all day which kept the beach either humid and wet… or humid and downright hot. But at least we weren’t in full sun. Either way it was humid… and some of us seriously needed a hair straightener by about mid morning but without 240v mains power we soon realised we were not going to have our curls coiffed any time soon.
Ohh shoot…
So it was back to bare basics… singlets sarongs and barefeet… hair wild and windswept as we were filmed strolling up and down the beach… gazing out to sea from under a colorful umbrella… and being interviewed pretending to have just stepped excitedly off an imaginary flight from Bali with a total stranger we had only just met. It sounds easy. Let me tell you it’s not!
Lovely light on Low Isle
But it was a lot of fun.
and a lot of hard work… Grin.
And I met and spoke with a lot of different people about a lot of interesting things.
Debbie & Jeannie [sitting around on a coconut]
I met a woman with a profound fear of water… who would never have taken the assignment had she known she would have to be surrounded by so much of it. Once there and confronted with the situation… she realised it was meant to be. [Incidental to the day those present were privileged to witness her metamorphosis through fear toward empowered sea mariner!] I got talking to her and learned she was an artist, actor, costumier, healer and counsellor who had an active interest in the field of Emotional Freedom Technique which is something I have been studying. I wrote about it recently here under Blocks Blanks and Barriers.
Back at Four Mile Beach Port Douglas
I also met a great couple [I had not known before] and spoke at length with them on the boat coming back. I casually mentioned that I had been out at Ellis Beach the previous Sunday setting up to paint and taking photographs and how windy it had been. I wrote about it here The Bright Side.
She shot me an astonished look and said
“Hey… I think we saw you! We were driving back from Port Douglas and saw you setting up your easel and thought… how nice… someone’s painting on the beach!”
Almost too much serendipity for one day! (((chuckles)))
a couple of roasted almonds on the way home
Reef Girl 1
Watercolour 1/2 sheet
Copyright 2009 Jean Burman
This week… in what can only be described as a series of seriously serendipitous circumstances… I became Artist in Residence at the Sebel Reef House & Spa in idyllic Palm Cove. This entails painting there three days a week and so far the experience has been hugely rewarding.
I mean to say… who is able to paint each day in such an idyllic location? I get to meet and talk with people from all over the country and around the world [which of course I have been lucky enough to do here online for a number of years... but that's kinda different... grin]
Most people are really friendly. Many are inquisitive about the painting process… so I have had to quickly become used to people watching me work! But for the most part they are very forgiving… and keen for me to get the washes right first time. And sometimes I actually manage to do that [grin]. Reef Girl 1 was painted on location there this week… and has gone to be scanned and reproduced on paper as well as stretched canvas. Reef Girl 2 is still out paddling… but I will post her here as soon as she’s done.
Funny how life has a certain bitter sweet quality right now. There is a real sense of the old giving way to the new… and the sweet sadness that this evokes. But along with it comes the stirrings of excitement about the future and the experiences and adventures that no doubt lie ahead. At last the Universe has begun to open up… offering a small but promising glimpse of the way forward.
I have always thought of life as a long corridor of possibilities and opportunities. Along the way… some doors we open… others we choose to leave closed. I have on occasion looked back with a sense of regret at some of the unopened doors along the corridor of my life. Whether through obligation to others… or a serious lack of commitment to myself… for one reason or another I had sometimes let the chance go by.
My friend Judith recently described it like this. Life’s opportunities are “floating by”… and we get to choose which ones we will grasp onto and float with. I like that analogy. It has a real sense of optimism and hopefulness about it!
Interestingly though… just lately I have noticed that the opportunities I had thought were lost are in fact still there… albeit now showing up in a different form. It now appears that some opportunities are apparently endless… determined only by our willingness to [at last] open the door… or to grab onto the chances that are still [incredibly] floating by after all this time!
There is also the possibility of course that I have been on the correct trajectory all along… simply biding my time… gathering the knowledge wisdom courage and strength to do whatever it is I am destined to do!
Slowly I am beginning to understand that life is a mystery… a maze of unfolding possibilities and unlimited potential.
Right now I am open to whatever comes.
I need simply to breathe and go with it.
artwork Copyright 2009 Jean Burman
Hello Everyone.
Back in February 2008 when I wrote of change I could not have known how blustery the winds of change could be… how fast they could blow through a life… and how far they would eventually sweep me!
I know we should “be careful what we wish for” but I must confess… I’d been secretly hoping for change. Nothing big, mind you. Something small and manageable would have been good. A gentle nudge even… perhaps?
But no… when change finally came… it was far from the gentle breeze I had anticipated. It was a maelstrom. A veritable whirlpool of changing events that played out so fast and so convincingly I could only deduce that it was “what was meant to be”. The universe had intervened. A hapless bystander in my own life… there was no avoiding any of it.
“The moving finger writes; and having writ moves on. Nor all thy piety nor thy wit shall serve to cancel half a line; nor all thy tears wash out a word of it” from the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam.
But I am happy to report that I have “lived to tell the tale”. Not that I am going to tell it here! (grin) Suffice it to say that whilst my life has irrevocably changed… I have never been better. Yes it has made me sad… but I am no stranger to that. And I shall no doubt feel it again before my days are over.
But viewed in a prudential light my troubles have been few. I am not facing death, sickness or bankruptcy. It is simply time to say goodbye to a part of my life and move gloriously on! It’s only “change”… and I can do that! (grin)
I’ve emerged stronger and wiser than I could ever have imagined. The things I knew to be true yesterday are no longer an issue. The things I now know were false all along no longer matter.
I am brimming with optimism for the future and feel a deep sense of “rightness” with my world. Most of all… I know in my heart that the best of my life is yet to come.
artwork Copyright 2009 Jean Burman
So finally… at last… Happy New Year everyone! Despite all the bad news in the press… the doom and gloom on every page. None of it really matters. It’s all beyond our control anyway. The only thing we can control in life… is our response to it.
And the really good news is it’s still an incredibly beautiful and all encompassing world. We have art. We have music. We have words. We have life. We have each other. I am still working on the joyful bit… but I can feel it in the wind… though coming on a gentle breeze this time… curling quietly round the corner!
Thanks for waiting.
I’ve missed you all.
