Tag Archives: consciousness

The Energy of Asking: How to Create Opportunities

10 Aug

A Field Guide for Possibility

How about an ontological approach to requesting, inviting, and creating flow? – (this from deepdown in the back 80 acres of my mind, where I’ve been away vision-questing for some while now. this being prompted by the Soul Collab I’m co-facilitating with Andreas Mannal. It makes sense to me, but/and I am very conditioned by the Old Mode. hard to shift old habits: teaching causes me to learn: sharing results in dialogues of possibility. That’s pretty much my end-game. We get some new energy going around all the things.)

Well, isn’t that special?

1. The Old Mode: Why Fear & History Don’t Work

When we ask from lack, fear, or “historical data” (past disappointments, proof it won’t work, stories of failure), we:

• Narrow the field of possibility to what has already been.

• Invite resistance (in ourselves and others).

• Unconsciously signal I already believe the answer is no.

Ontological translation: Being “history-bound” is being closed. The world can only show us what we have already known.

2. The Shift: Being Before Asking

It’s always very matchy-matchy… the people, situation, circumstance or event vibes along the ley lines of the energy you bring.  (plant tomato seeds=harvest tomatoes, garbage in, garbage out, etc.)

The same is true of any “ask.”

The ontological order is:

1. Be — step into the stance of openness, curiosity, and invitation.

2. See — perceive from that stance (possibility, not probability).

3. Speak — let the words carry the energy you are already being.

Your “ask” is simply the spoken surface of an already existing energy field you have stepped into.

3. The Stance of the Ask

Think of three energetic postures before you open your mouth (or type your words):

• Possibility: “This could be a doorway to something we haven’t seen yet.”

• Generosity: “This is an offering, not a demand.”

• Adventure: “Let’s find out what happens when we say yes to the unknown.”

These stances change the feel of the ask from “take from you” to “expand us both.”

4. An Ask Formula (Ontological Edition)

Step 1 — Declare the context

Name the shared possibility you’re standing in.

Example: “I’m exploring ways to bring more [beauty / connection / transformation] into the world.”

Step 2 — Invite participation

Frame the ask as a co-creation, not a transaction.

Example: “I’d love to explore with you how we might…”

Step 3 — Leave space

Don’t load it with expectation or attachment to the outcome.

Examples: “What comes to mind for you?” or “Does this feel like something you’d be excited about?”

This creates an open field rather than a binary yes/no trap.

5. The Energy Check Before You Ask

Ask yourself:

• Am I trying to get or am I creating an opening?

• Does my body feel tight or expansive?

• Am I speaking from now/future or from past data?

If the answer is “past,” pause, breathe, and re-enter the stance of possibility.

6. Why This Works

When you are being the possibility, the ask is no longer a test of your worth — it’s an extension of the reality you’re already inhabiting. People, the situation, circumstance or event (all the things) respond differently because:

• There is an invitation rather than cornering.

• There is space co-creativity.

• The energy is light, not needy. Resonant. Redolent. Radiant.

7. A Practice to Rehearse

Before each ask, speak this to yourself silently or softly aloud:

I am the opening
I invite adventure
I release history
This is an invitation to create what was not possible until now…

Then make the ask as if the possibility is already real.

Let me know how this goes for you. I’m in curious/wondering, just because of the possibilities. And, since it’s the Full Moon, and I’m all about that, here’s a mandala I drew, for the full moon. Download and print onto card stock, then color. (There is for sure some shadowing, my erased guidelines. Once colored over, I didn’t notice them anymore.)

“Doing” art is an ancient and rather proven recipe for calming (tf) down. Have at it.

Janet’s Full Moon Mandala Download

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Exploring the Myth of Medusa: A Personal Journey

25 Feb

Well, my art, i find, at the end of the day, is really very much all about myself, in the sense of some former me shining a light into places I’m meant to explore a little deeper… and sometimes it takes absolute years for me to meander ’round to an earlier excavation site.

So I find myself re experiencing the Myth of Medusa. Another Teaching Story, meant, like all good stories, to capture the Imagination of the child and thus allow the latent seeds of transformation to hitchhike, and eventually unfurl, far along the trajectory of a life.

I don’t remember what year it was when I drew this particular Medusa, but hey, she’s resonating with me presently.

The journey for me is already years-deep into the Forest Primeval, apprehending an ancient wound that disfigures boundaries, self- worth and my current purpose. How else to say it? Idk. My mind, when I’m inspired to draw, typically prefers to show what it cannot say.

  I think Im implying that if a picture can paint a thousand words, you can then imagine possibilities. This also is the eternal  beauty of myths. There really is no ‘right’ answer. And Wonder and Curiosity are close cousins to not knowing/being open.

Like Delphi, this open-ended brand of wisdom mainly leaves you to play in the gardens of your own fertile Imagination. And is this not the unconditioned mind? The crossroads where it’s very appropriate to allow yourself to wonder “What if…and then wait for direction. It’ll come. Yours. The direction meant for you. Not what your supposed to do. The direction you’ll walk in, the very present path life is offering you. Who you will become?

So there you have it. Medusa. I wonder what she says to me now? And, the wondering itself shows me a path I haven’t explored fully.

Buried treasure? Probs.

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Capturing Hidden Moments in Art

29 Dec

Work in Progress:

Work in progress

I am working on another large contemplative piece- 12 x 16 inch Fluid hot press watercolor paper.

🌚☔️The mood is suiting the grey reflective December day. Funny, I started this in the late summer, and all those colorful zinnias were my models. Now, I’m compelled to add the many small hidden things that lurk around in the background, only venturing out when it’s safe to be seen,   and that’s not usually in the bright light of day, summer or reason…
It’s lovely out in the woods today- 🧸🐻🧸🐻

(Haven’t counted them yet, knowing there are more on the way. Dr. Sue- you’re counting I bet.)

🖍👩‍🎨My intention for this is a full color, water-color, and colored pencil extravaganza. That’s my style/technique challenge for myself to improve my skills set.
❤️My other intention, the one that eternally motivates me, is the creation of a space that can quietly open a door. A space that can lead to wonder, ponderings, curiosity, and maybe a little healthy lostness. That’s my experience anyway. Entertaining  new possibilities in whatever form they may take verges on the adventurous.

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Embrace Your Inner Artist: Tips for Creative Expression

17 Nov

Nothings been coming in for awhile…no forests in my head, been working on other things.

For instance, I’m turning my Graphite Toolkit class into an online course- it’s been so successful in helping other artists that I’m like why not? (Cause it’s a lot of work, that’s why not), but now I’ve got lesson plans, videos and I’m also teaching it ‘live’ on zoom one more time, to iron out the wrinkles. I really really really love teaching , so despite the hard core organization, technical difficulties, massive learning curve – this is SO worth it to me to put an effort towards.

AND! I’m putting together a draw-along video class for kids (you and your grandkids, etc,👩‍🎨)  download and print, follow along lessons you can do free on YouTube.

I’m telling you all this because this is happening for one reason, many moons in arriving. I am (finally) allowing myself to *just* be my crazy-ass artist self. It’s been a long road to get ‘here’, which is really only a very tiny shift in my perception and allowing of myself.

I tell you this as well. Joseph Campbell was correct when he mused, “Just do the thing that lights you up. And when you do, the whole world opens up to you. Unseen hands reach out from all quarters.” I paraphrase him – simply meaning that the help, opportunities, and connections are extraordinary in the sense of their ability to astound and delight me. I believe firmly we all have this inner spark- meant to jump start us when we most need it, to leap out of us and alight somewhere out there- a reflective collaborative Muse with our name on it.  Inspiration. The top-secret ingredient in a really glorious life. We’ve always known this, whispered it to each other across countless ages. Allowing yourself, as you, reach that tentative, tremored younger, gentler, more adventurous self out into this modern world

Get to know yourself again. Look around you and see what inspires you now. What takes your breath away? Stops you in your tracks. Feels wonder-ful. That sense of aliveness. This is the gift of The Muse. Not a drawing, a book, a song, or any creation, but expression.  The expression. The fuel of creativity. Creativity is a hallmark of humanity.

Get inspired.

Get to know yourself again, out in the world. Your reflection. I bet you find, like I am discovering now, all my friends accept me for exactly who I am. I’m the only one denying myself here. Bet it’s the same for you.

I think of the cave painting- the handprints of our distant ancestors on cavern walls- binding us in our individual expressions.  That spark that makes you, you – the differentiating part of us that allows for our individuality – our unique handprint. What inspires you to do what you do? Find that and you’re golden. No one can take it away, it’s like nothing else in the world, it’s for sure magically delicious and it’s the inner core of your be-ing-in-the-world. You can truly be none other than who-you-are.

Come act out in the world in the way that suits you best, the way that makes you happy, and the way that best nourishes your soul. The response for me has been not easy, but delightful, one I wish I hadn’t waited so long to experience.

I express myself through my art. That may not be the way you have chosen to express yourself. Coolio. Art isn’t just for artists. Inspiration is you in action. The Muse does not rest on her laurels often. She is come and gone. You’re the one that actually takes the next inspired step. She merely gets your attention with some possibilities. Then, when she’s gone, or maybe a little before, I pick up my pencils and I begin working on getting a little more of myself onto paper, out in the world, some graffiti for the collective walls.🙏❤️👩‍🎨

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Fierce Mother Love: A Meditation on Presence

11 Dec

That’s my working title anyway.

I saw/received/ had the idea for this drawing last week and sketched it out in the margin of some notes I was taking. I originally saw a bat in the central spot where the face is now. An upside down bat, like a gargoyle – I was thinking Gothic Cathedral, Notre Dame style gargoyles.

And now…a presence. This Presence. Oh my.

Certainly she’s been called a bat, a crone, a hag, an old lady. Probably worse. Most definitely worse.

All I know is that from where I sit, those word concepts do not jive with this Lady. This is fierce Mother Love. A uncompromising Love for Our Planet and Every Thing that dwells there upon. All encompassing. All devouring. All embracing. The prevailing wind.

That’s what this place, this cathedral forest seeks. Lovers of change, of motion, of life in the tumultuous moment. Those still centers that can witness Life in its endless cycling; unafraid.

Nurturing, holding, keeping, supporting, restoring, preparing, sustaining, soothing, reflecting: being with.

I am held. My new mantra.

I’ve finished two more forests and will post them soon-ish. These Forests are meditations, I think. Guides coming through? Hands/help reaching/piercing the veil. There are better metaphors maybe, but these work for now. For me, this drawing feels/confirms that I/we are not alone. And today, that is a very kind and welcome thought.

🙏❤️

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Transcendence in Art: Embracing Limitations to Create

18 Sep

The River and Its Banks: On the Art of Creation and Flow

There’s a place every creator knows — that weightless space where time folds, thought dissolves, and something larger begins to move through us. We call it flow, inspiration, communion, consciousness. Whatever name we give it, it is the same ancient current — the one that turns imagination into form, and chaos into beauty.

We talk about the flow state — that peak experience where artists, athletes, dancers, poets, and dreamers lose themselves in the act of creation.
Michael Jordan on the court. Billy Elliot in his dance.
You, me, anyone who’s ever forgotten themselves inside the moment of doing.

In that space, limits dissolve. Doing and being become one.
As Billy Elliot says, “It’s like ’lectricity.”

Something else becomes present in us — a current that soothes the edges of our limitations.
A new form begins to shimmer into being, and we are lighter for it.
There is joy. Participation. Communion.

It feels like a meeting — between what we call the ego, the form-maker,
and what mystics have called God, Spirit, or now simply Consciousness.
An invisible intelligence, a shared awareness,
an elegance threading through all things.

Evolution itself may not be the blind mechanism we once imagined.
Even Darwin suspected a purposefulness,
a trajectory bending toward meaning

Sri Aurobindo, Thomas Merton — mystics across centuries —
speak not of an absence but a presence:
an intelligence that whispers through form,
inviting us to collaborate in its unfolding.

So I search for form.
A structure that can hold what I perceive in my imagination —
a container for the vastness that wants to speak

Without form, imagination is a flood.
With form, it becomes a river.

For me, that form is often a portrait.
A face. Eyes, nose, mouth — the shared agreements of human recognition.
Style, medium, skill — these are my tools, my chosen banks.

Within that boundary, I wander freely.
The imagination roams the open field —
and when I begin to draw, it is as if something taps me on the shoulder.
A nudge, a whisper, not always words —
more often a feeling, a texture,
like the sense of coarse cloth suggesting how a shirt should feel.

I listen.
Dark here. Light there.
And slowly, the formless takes form.

The ego chooses the shape — based on what feels true,
what I’ve learned, what I love.
But what in-forms the form is not me.
It moves through me.

This is why I prefer the word consciousness to unconscious.
It shifts the image from something hidden below
to something vast — all around —
the field of potential made visible.

Physicist Amit Goswami calls it quantum thinking:
two levels of mind —
the conscious mind of actuality
and the unconscious (or quantum) mind of possibility.

This is the creative dance.
This is evolution made personal.

Today, when the world feels uncertain,
when the old music no longer fits the steps we’ve memorized,
we reach for old structures — familiar hooks to hang our hats.
But that won’t work anymore

What we need is not more problem-solving.
We need transcendence.

Transcendence lives in pure potentiality —
the space where creators walk, barefoot and brave,
to bring something new into being.

Creative acts are born of limitation.
A hard-won truth: I have resisted limits all my life.
Yet I’ve learned —
a river without banks is only a flood.

The creation process is not separate from you.
It is not outside you.

It is your body, mind, heart, hands, and soul.
You are the form-maker and the field,
the river and the banks,
the current and the course.

You are it.

You have IT.

IT is…in you.

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Balancing Light and Dark: Lessons from the Moon Cycle

29 Mar


A little project of mine since forever.
In the cycle of the moon, it is the First Quarter Moon.
half light half dark
Balanced
Poised…
a choice point.
Tomorrow, I will walk out into my world under a Gibbous Moon, ideally, with a sense of wonder, delight, desire and adventure.
The word commitment is often paired with the1st Quarter Moon and for me it’s becoming a conscious commitment to the practice of ‘getting my heart in the right place’ – opening up and out to the World.

I’m making a deal with myself today, that I will try to pull back on my knee-jerk fears when they come up, and exchange fear for blessing- seeing what is in front of me, the situation, the person, the thing, each event, as it IS. I bless what is; unconditionally.


In theory, this attention will help attend to my shadow, in the moment, as it presents itself. My shadow side doesn’t respond well to the bright light of day, analysis, or reason.


I’m practicing this unconditional self love, figuring that this too is a skill that can be learned. So, the practice. Swap fear for love. And the deal is, it’s just for a lunar week.


And, the picture is Telephoros. An important symbol for this half and half day. He’s Part of my Anam Cara picture- from ages ago. He’s speaking to me again, bringing a soft glow to all the hidden bits.


Link to my post about telephoros: https://janetbalboa.com/2014/09/11/dwarfs-illumination-and-knowing-that-everything-matters/

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Art Inspiration from Puerto Vallarta Tapestry Scarves

23 Mar

I think she’s here. Have another layer of white pencil to do- that’s it for her face, I think. It for now anyway.

Excited for background- purples, fuschias, lime greens…

Have these gorgeous tapestry scarves- I photographed them in the airport in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico. So some inspiration for the foliage on black background.

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Elevate Your Vibration: Change Your World

4 Dec

Can we change the world? Or is it our perspective that needs changing? I created this presentation to try to clarify for myself how my external world and internal world are elegantly fused and insanely intertwined. How change in ‘my’ world affects change in the ‘outside’ world…

As we change our mind, practice a higher vibration, fall in love with our intimate beautiful selves, I believe that the world will reflect our attitude right back to us. All things change when we do. 
I’ve used images and words to help shift conscious awareness from local to universal and back again. Let me know what you think. 
Here’s the meditation that accompanies the slide show as a practice after watching:

expanding-awareness-meditation_change-the-world7

Please click the link below to watch my Change the World presentation:

https://www.canva.com/design/DADKNKM00T0/view

This was our discussion last night at class – a slide show on changing the world.

Whew…three weeks since our last Monday night class. Snow days, Chicago film screenings, lots of happenings! 

Great to be together in the same space again  : ) 

Much love,

janet

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