O, dear Jo,
It’s a lazy Sat. morning while I drink my coffee I decided to revisit some past issues of WWC. You truly are my (& sure many others) “art soul sister.” In reading “From My Kitchen Table” issue Aug, Sept. Oct. 10′, you ever so eloquently put in words,my soul. Is it the artist spirit you touched or a “fellow 60 yr old women?” Who by the way is happy to be in the place she’s arrived! How fortunate to be a woman today to have this freedom to become whatever she wants. WWC is an awesome publication and re-energizes creativity & “wakes up” women to live the creative life!
~Shelia Sheets
Jo,
These quotes are always so inspiring, I’ve made a few art journal pages using the quotes and inspiration you send.
I just bought the latest issue of WWC at Hobby Lobby, as usual it’s an inspiring magazine because not only do we get a peek into the studios of these women, but their spirits, souls and inspiration. My daughters who are 9 and 11 love looking through them as well, picking out bits of each room that they aspire to have one day.
The ladies you feature are beautiful, so are you…I loved your letter regarding the men in your life. I took a look at the men in mine with happiness, some with sadness, some with anger, but realizing I wouldn’t be who I am without each and every one of them.
~Crae Nelson
Dear Jo,
Things have a funny way of working out…so that is the reason I am writing this letter to you…
I recently gave a talk at a Women’s Spring Brunch, in which I talked about your inspiring magazine and what it had done for me….
I received a lot of wonderful feedback, but most of it was wanting to know more about your magazine and was I going to write to you and let you know my story.
So, here it is… I do have a story and I wanted to share it with you…
I have included a copy of the talk I gave, but here is the background information so you can fully understand it.
On June 9th, 2010 we buried our 20 year old son, Ethan who fought an epic battle with cancer. He was and is a ‘rockstar’ in our opinion… he taught us so much about life and how to make every day count. This was his third battle with cancer; the first two took place when he was just three years old.
That shifty disease came back when he was 19 and on top of the world. You would think that he would be angry and feel cheated, but not so…. Ethan told me that he had lived a wonderful life.
Our family of seven faced this battle united, with lots of support from family and dear, dear friends. Ethan felt that the Lord was either going to heal him here on earth or in Heaven and he was okay with either way.
We had the most amazing, cheerful and colorful funeral (no black allowed). We celebrated a life well lived!
My story however, is about healing. My story is about how beauty and creativity play an essential role in the healing process.
Your beautiful magazine is so full of life and encouraging words… one cannot help but to be touched in a deep interior way… page after page of eye candy, story after story of encouraging one another… what a thoughtful and refreshing concept!
Thank you for helping me in the healing process… I just thought you would like to know that if this is what you are trying to accomplish, you have done a great job, indeed.
Thank you again from the bottom of my heart.
Best regards and many blessings,
Nancy Mills
Here is what I shared at the Spring Brunch:
This sharing is about possibilities, opportunities and about simple beginnings…
This sharing is about God The Father, as the Master Creator, The Master Artist who made all the animals on the earth, all the fishes in the sea, the snow caped mountains, the green hills, all the stars in the sky…
He is responsible for every single color that we appreciate in the flowers, the trees, the fruit we eat…
It was He who invented beauty, the concept of it, the glory of it…
It was God who knew that humans would so need His beauty…
It was His beauty that would bring us back around to Him…
God knew that women would love beauty… He knew that we would revel in its magnificence… that our hearts would respond to it and that there could actually be healing in it…
After Ethan died, I was just so incredibly sad… nothing seemed to be able to touch it…
I tried to pray it away
I tried to sleep it away
I tried running away
and although all those things helped a great deal… I still had this enormous gaping hole in my heart.
In my misery, I cried out to the Lord to send me a lifeline… and do you know what… He did it…
my lifeline was not just one thing… it was actually several things…
It was daily Mass.
It was ‘front porch’ girlfriends not excepting my “Oscar” quality acting skills,with me saying… “Oh yea yea… I’m doing just fine”…
My lifeline also came in the form of a brand new magazine on the market called “Where Women Create”.
My sweet sister, Monica, just on a whim, sent it to me, cuz she thought I would like it…
And finally the last lifeline happened to come in a random conversation I had with a dear friend…she said the most simplest thing, but it was as if she had a megaphone pointed right at my ear… We were conversing on facebook and I was asking what she was up to and she said, “oh, it’s a crafting day”… she said “you know, I’m always the happiest when I’m making something”.
I sat there and looked at my computer screen for the longest time…
I remember thinking… “Oh,Ethan has been hard at work, I see… he’s been working on getting his mamas heart healed…
You see, Ethan loved artsy-fartsy things… He was my biggest fan when it came to making things or trying new techniques… he knew I loved creating stuff…
… so I said good-bye to my friend, turned off my computer and just sat a while…
I started piecing things together and saw that this whole thing was beginning to make sense…
I said, “Okay, Lord… I’m beginning to get the picture… (No pun intended)…but, am I understanding you correctly… that you intend to heal me through stickers, and tape, and paper, and scissors, and glue and paint”? I mean, who am I to question You… but really?… :)
So, I got up, went to my craft cupboard and decided it was time to unpack a few things…
The first thing I saw was that magazine that my sister, Monica sent me… I figured now was as good a time as any to sit down and enjoy it…
I opened it up and to my extreme delight, it was filled with beautiful, inspirational pictures of artists, their work, their stories and the places where they create…
I was overjoyed with what I was seeing…
My heart, at that very moment, started to fill up, started to heal… I was actually happy… really happy… I remember saying to myself… wow… this is awesome!”
As I read all the Artists stories… I realized that their stories were really not that different from mine…
It seems that sorrow, grieving, and sadness must find a way to exit the body… and it seems that there are all sorts of ways for those emotions to do this…
what happened next really took me by surprise…
I started crying…
You need to understand that during my life, I was never much of a crier…I just didn’t do it… I remember that I never cried at all when Ethan had his first fight with cancer at age three…and over the last year of Ethan’s life, I was too busy being brave and strong for Ethan and everyone else… so no crying then…
As I was reading this magazine,which was so full of beauty and inspiration, the floodgates opened and I wept for hours… I cried about everything I could remember, for every single little thing I could think of… when no more tears would come, I was so exhausted that I slept for the entire rest of the day.
Beauty and emotions are related… one effects the other..
since then… I think I have cried every single day… I allow the tears to come as they may… so be it…
So,as the sorrow and grief were finding their way out … the desire to create was finding its way in…
I kept saying to myself… “what on earth am I going to make?… what is it going to look like?… is it going to be dark and morose?… ugly and sad?… pitiful and pathetic?…”
I decided to be brave, to explore the possibilities and to simply…begin….
what came out of me was amazing… it was bright, beautiful, cheerful, happy, positive…
there were moments that my eyes were just watching what my heart was telling my hand to do… I felt like my hand and heart knew how to paint, but my brain didn’t…. it was an amazing experience…
it was then that I started feeling the warm, peaceful, quiet, healing process and it was wonderful.
The thing that I had in common with those artists in the magazine was that “something”, some issue, situation or experience in their lives brought them to a point that they must create something. It was a restlessness in their spirit or a small voice telling them that it was time… they felt compelled to create and in doing so… helped the Master Creator heal what needed healing in their lives.
Creativity encourages happiness and happiness encourages healing.
When you create, you feel calmer, happier, more reflective , more in a position to heal.
I know it was the Holy Spirit, guiding me.
I know it was Ethan’s prayers… so wanting his mama peaceful and happy again…
In preparing for this sharing, I found this quote…
“When our eyes see our hands doing the work of our hearts, the doors of our souls fly open and love steps forth to heal everything in sight”.
In closing…
Is your spirit sad like mine was?
Are you experiencing a restlessness deep inside you?
What is the Holy Spirit saying to you?
Is He calling to you?
What matters most is that you listen,that you pay attention to that small quiet voice deep within you and then simply… begin….
