Springtime Renaissance

Spring comes to us with a purpose. We can choose to embrace her and propagate some serious growth. Ren·ais·sance, a renewal of life, vigor, interest, Ren·ais·sance, say it with me now!

One of the creative artsy modalities I use for healing is photography. I have taken pictures of abandoned buildings to demonstrate my feelings about abandonment, and to represent the horror of being raped in a motel. I take pictures—a plethora of pictures documenting my life, moods, my children’s lives, my art, nature, our animals.
Ren·ais·sance originally means the activity, spirit, or time of the great revival of art, literature, and learning in Europe beginning in the fourteenth century and extending to the seventeenth century, marking the transition from the medieval to the modern world.
Renaissance, lit. “rebirth,” usually in a spiritual sense, from renaître “be born again.” An earlier term for it was revival of learning. My drift is to take this word and its meaning and make it malleable to your own spirit. What do you hope to create this spring? What garden will you cultivate? This means inside yourself, and outside in your outer world. We can always be born again! It is so true. The earth does it all the time. We are made of her, and we can do it to. Just set your intention to grow, and be open to the newness of spring.

In the spirit of nouveau inspiration, of rebirth, of metamorphosis, let’s take more pictures that we see meaning and feeling in. Keep a scrapbook of your pictures. Choose any theme you wish or none at all. Just intend to create visually a tangible way of seeing your inner world. I think to myself, “I feel -----.” I then take a picture of something. Voila. You can give visual, give image to your inner world. The idea is to express what is inside of you, no matter what it is, and move it out of you in some kind of creative form. This is your art. This is how we can make our life an art. You are an artist in your own life.