Winter Harmony- Welcome Indigo Carlton

The Winter Harmony blog series is our gift to our beautiful community to help inspire and support you to live in harmony with winter. Join us and some amazing guest bloggers M-F during the month of January. Click here to see all the Winter Harmony posts in one place.

Get your own Winter Harmony Mandala to bring a little peace and joy to your winter season this year and see what message it has for you.

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I wonder if being an introvert contributes to my love of winter? The colder weather and shorter days are an excuse to stay home, hunker down, go within, and tune into my inner creative spirit. It could also be that I live in California so the winters aren’t that challenging! But either way, I love the excuse winter gives me to stay home and paint.

Painting for me equals self-care. The more time I spend putting paint to canvas the better I feel about myself. Expressing myself through my art is my meditation. However being a mother and working a day job doesn’t always leave much time for this creative outlet. Yet I can feel it so acutely when I neglect this practice. Wintertime feels like the perfect season to nurture my creativity, and therefore myself.

Getting started can sometimes be the biggest challenge. Making a ritual of painting and self-care helps me to get grounded in the moment. I’ll make a cup of tea. Light some incense. Turn on music that fits the moment.

...And then drift over to the computer to check email, pet my cat, or pick up my phone to see who just messaged me... Okay. Yes. I have to be careful that the ritual doesn’t itself become a distraction!

The easiest way I find to approach a blank canvas, is to start with words. With an intention.

Looking within - creativity seems to naturally lend itself to this process. Yet I find I need to remind myself that this reflection needs to be expansive, an invitation to really listen to my heart, and to trust my intuitive voice. It can easily turn into an avalanche of shoulds, of self-criticism, and an onslaught of negative feedback from my inner gremlins. Getting out of my own way is the key!

I also give myself permission to have fun. To not worry about creating a certain image or idea from my head. I try to approach each painting with a sense of adventure and awe, wondering what will appear as I smear paint all over the canvas, usually with my hands as I get started.

I never know what will turn up, what colors will want to be chosen, what symbols will want to emerge... trusting is easy at the beginning, there is no wrong way to get paint onto the canvas. I let go, and play.

I continue to seek the images hidden within, hiding in the paint and in my heart. Some seem so clear and obvious, others more obscure. I allow myself to discover the mysteries of my soul that are wanting to be expressed. I know, I feel, that when I quiet the inner mind chatter, transformation happens!

Inevitably, I come to the stage of a painting that I call the “ugly adolescent stage.” Where there is a mish mash of colors and images, not a real cohesive whole, where the painting and I are trying things out, seeing what works, but lacking direction. It is for sure the hardest phase for me. It is here that getting up and walking away from the painting is so easy. Distractions call loudly wherever I look. It is here that my faith in myself is being challenged.

Yet when I keep going, when I listen to my heart, when I trust... I know that diving into these inner depths will reveal such beauty and clarity. It may take a few days, it may take weeks... but again and again, I’m blown away by the results. If I just stick with it. And remind myself that it is at this point that I need to turn on the self-love with full force. That we - me and the painting - are beautiful and full of grace. That whatever emotions - or images - are rising up and being felt are held gently in a warm embrace. There is no wrong. It is all part of the process. The process of creativity. Of life. The process of being human.

I also need to remember that it is so easy to focus on the faults rather than the exquisite details. I don’t want to forget that it is not a final result that I am seeking, but the ability to appreciate the beauty of the moment, of the power of a brush stroke, of the uniqueness of who I am in each and every breath. To honor all that is within me bit by bit, piece by piece, step by step.

I feel winter is a perfect time to tend to my soul and to my heart. In all it’s perfection. And imperfections too. Quieting down to listen. To really listen. Remembering who I am.

Thank you Michelle and Jill for including me in this inspiring series. I am so honored to share my journey here, and to be part of this wonderful community of inspiration!

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Indigo Carlton is an artist, risk taker, and dreamer. She weaves her dreams into reality from a small rural town in northern California with her son, her two cats, and a tribe of awe-inspiring women thanks to the magic of the internet. She shares her art, her inner journeys, and tidbits of her life at expressive-souls.blogspot.com. You can also learn more about her artistic path at indigomoone.com. She has an online gallery of her paintings (for sale, just email her!) here.