I’ve always been a scaredy cat
how did I get over that?
I didn’t but I kind of did
but it got over me.
I wish I had your courage
your boldness and your flourish
but I was told to simmer down
to stop being wild!
And so I did!
I stayed quiet when I wanted to shout
so scared of not being liked by you
but therein lies the prison!
I set me free!
P.Thomasson
Nov 2016
Photo artwork by:
For my paintings:
Chaos Rules Those Who Are Sleeping…
Well things have been really topsy turvy here for a while. That, my friends is a major understatement. I can’t tell you everything, but the chaos had been simply ubiquitous.
For starters, we’ve got the decorator in at the moment, giving the hallway a fresh lick of paint and new cupboards for hiding the accumulated flotsam and jetsam of life, which of course meant housing everything somewhere else in the house; the home improver’s nightmare!
Oh, and did I mention we already have a small four year old chaos producer living here full time…yeah, more on that in a minute.
Luckily, it’s now beginning to look great, with beautifully clean Indian white walls and subtle earthy greens and stone, it’s actually looking quite sleek. Which is great because the fresh paint will only add to the ambience of my up coming exhibition for Dorset Arts Week.
All are welcome!
But in the mean time coats, hats, scarves, tables, ornaments and toys have been littering my studio so I’ve been going slightly mad for the lack of creative work…
And as if that were’t enough to deal with for now…
The Bad News….
Meanwhile my four year old has managed to wipe my computer hard drive, losing me six months of work.
Sadly some of which is probably gone forever…video’s, photos and digital work….ughh! NO!!! I pleaded….this can’t be happening….but happen it did.
I must admit, I cried. I couldn’t believe it. All gone in a second. Why oh why didn’t we back up the system? I asked over and over….
I know why.
Head in the clouds…or head in the sand, one or the other!
What can I say?
I went into a bit of a rage and decided I would have nothing more to do with technology; after all it’s all time wasting garbage isn’t it!? Ha! (Clearly, it depends on where you are looking!)
But in reality can we really do without it in this day and age? Well, frankly, no. Not once you’ve tasted it’s fruits anyway and I need it for, well, this…and my art, and getting it out into the world.
I had to find another way to process this…
Art to the rescue. As ever, I thought.
The Art of Letting Go….
Sometimes Art teaches you how to let go. A lot of what I’ve learned in life is to do with letting go, and when that happens life gets interesting.
After the agony of loss, we can usually find a renewed respect for what we do have. This is usually a wake up call from the universe that tells us we really do have many blessings, and we’ve been sleep walking all along.
The Good News….
Since then, I’ve been out walking and running every day. In every weather.
I have quit smoking weed as an anti-depressant (I feel I can tell you this!) and ditched the need for therapy (and the recommended pills which I would not take).
I’ve started drinking shed loads of water which is working it’s magic, as well as cutting right down on salt (so I can grow some muscles).
I have tapped into my feel good energy and my natural high, which after four years of ME/CFS and depression is about the best news ever.
Disaster is the mother of Determination
I reckon, when I do get back to work, which is any day now, you had better watch out.
This is going to be high octane.
I’m taking no prisoners.
Come and see me and my eclectic abstract/figurative work from May 28 – June 12, 2016 (see website for more details).
See more work on my website: www.ptart.works
Follow me on Twitter: @phoebethomasson
Follow me on Instagram: @phoebethomassonart
And suddenly
I feel whole
again
Loved and not alone
In step and in tune
with the universe around me
Not like before
when nothing made sense
When all I could see
was suffering
and lies
No
Not like that
It’s warmer
somehow
precious
to be human
once again
(I think that may be because
I now know how to wrap myself
in a blanket
of my own design.)
P.T.
Feb 7th 2016
Dorchester, Dorset, UK
Is Success Hunting You?
When things do start to work out for us, how do we feel about that?
When the omens of looming success start to appear, what do we do?
Do we run into familiar ruts, like battle worn soldiers retreating into muddy trenches, shooting our own feet as we stumble into worn out habits and behaviours?
Or do we spill over the edges of the embankments we have made and storm the enemy with the confidence of the sun?
And just who is this enemy?
Well, all I can say is that when I run onto the battle ground, my opponent holding the gun, looks a lot like me.
Here’s to confronting our fears, and loving ourselves.
Here’s to EVOLUTION!
Can you? Can you feel the shifting energy?
Do you feel the motion in the air, the sense of change as the vibrations mesh, clash and realign?
You know that stuff is changing, is about to become apparent, is about to stun and amaze you, is about to manifest.
You’ve done the work right? You’ve bared your soul and cleansed your psyche of unwanted influences and bad thinking. Good. Then the rest is entirely out of your hands.
Bolster yourself. Get the things that make you happy (5HTP, new pants, cheese….) and set your rooms in order. (Hoover!!)
You are about to receive a visitation from the light. It returns with new energy and abundance, for you, for all.
The message is clear. Bide your time and keep your spirits up in whatever fashion you can reasonably manage.
The Solstice energies are gathering.
Now is the time to let go of the past. Make a gesture to your spirit/soul/guide, whatever you call it. Just tell it out loud that you want to be happy this year, that you are willing to do what it takes to give yourself that gift.
If you’ve not made friends with yourself yet, tell yourself to your face in the mirror ‘I love you’. Don’t hold back looking at yourself. Exactly as you are…ageing and less pretty than yesterday….’I love you’.
Let go of the need to seek approval and talk kindly to yourself now in the wee small hours when you are besieged with anxiety.
You are loved, no matter what. But no-one, I repeat NO-ONE is spared from the Dark Night….no matter their beauty or wealth or popularity. If you can see this with your own knowing eyes, then you can truly see our equality.
This is the Solstice message given to me to pass on to you.
May the light find you and never let you fade.
Sat Nam
(Truth is my name)
I’m getting really good at wading through emotional, mental and cognitive shit. Somehow I am surviving and coming out the other side better than before I went in. It feels amazing!
Wading through shit…that’s called being human; it’s what we do…
The wading process appears to be feeding me. In a way it’s part of who I am and how I function; to get into a mess, and have to figure a way through.
The shit wading process brings out all sorts of character traits; the lover of challenges and the inventor of approaches, the researcher of ideas and the consoler of lost dreams. It’s all there.
I love it!!!….even though I hate being in it.
I must do because I keep attracting it!
Probably something like you.
The important question to ask ourselves is whether we are sinking, floating, or wading, and why?
I’ve learnt a lot recently from friends and family, books and other things…
Sometimes we’ve just got to focus on ourselves for a while, or for ever. Sometimes we have to be selfish, or ‘concerned with our own interests‘ in order to function right. If we don’t function within the bounds of our own nature, then we are unhappy humans trying to be a shape we are not.
I am now debunking all sorts of old programming that would have me trying to fit into a square hole, when obviously I’m round.
They don’t make round squares, or square circles….
So I was never really a square after all; just a repressed and terrified round thing with no inner sense of direction. That’s modern life for you.
Fuck you! modern life for making me scared….deep down, you know what I’m talking about….right?
These are lonely times, and it’s acceptable to use whatever we can at our disposal, within reason, to help us through.
Loneliness is a killer and it’s imperative to master the art of vulnerability and reach out through the walls of our partitioned lives and into one another’s hearts and minds. Trust me, it’s not as bad as you think!
Reaching out always makes me feel better immediately, even if no-one replies, it’s that act of courage that makes all the difference. If there is a loving and friendly reply, then so much the better, but it’s the reaching out that counts.
But we want to feel heard too.
I am done with guilt and shame for needing certain things, and for my weaknesses.
I am now striving to find, and live in, my zone of genius (see Gay Hendricks for more on that).
I am working on finding my S.E.L.F. (Super, Elegant, Loving, Force)
To intimately know the S.E.L.F. and to accept it…perchance to…well, love it, is hard work!!
To live as the Super Elegant Loving Force that we truly are, requires some kind of surrender, the choice to do so, and the dropping of much baggage, just because we can. It’s an art, for sure.
Some of it can only be done in thought, carefully picking our way through our faulty assumptions about life.
The word and deed results come later.
I must be patient…and diligent.
It will come.
Cor blimey…I am buzzing so much I may fall over with exhaustion in a minute.
I’ve just been for the most amazing energy healing and have had my Chakras cleaned. You could say I’ve been to the psychic cleaners, but you might take that the wrong way.
It’s taken me a long time to go near energy work, having had some weird experiences in the past with…um….energy. It’s funny how we can have fear and resistance to our own experience of life, especially if it doesn’t fit with the ‘norm’.
And what the fuck is that? The NORM?
I think the norm is short for Norma…..Norma Normal. She’s nice enough but she’s a bit ….dull.
I’ve never been happy with dullness. Crickey, we have enough dullness in the UK with almost year round cloud cover, non existent summers and grey concrete. We seriously don’t need any more dull here thanks very much.
So I’ve finally realised that I am a being of light and love and it’s my job to shine.
Simple.
I am not Normal Norma after all and I’m very fine with that.
I’m not sure what the story is yet. It’s all been somewhat of a blur.
Things have been shifted by my new sense of urgency to do some deep healing work. I’ve been lucky enough to do some EFT (emotional freedom technique) with a friend that took me into some deep past.
I’ve been doing more yin yoga and stretching my body. This helps to bring shit up from the depths of the meridians for assessment and release.
I have been doing some classical yoga techniques, like trying to write my life story and chakra visualisations.
I’ve been doing loads of candid communication with my partner.
This kind of stuff isn’t for the faint hearted.
I was up till past five this morning sorting out the near dissolution of my primary relationship. Finding a way through the morass of created doubt and fear, as I blindly push my way to freedom.
It’s a rocky journey. We all need help and support. Why did it take me so long to ask for it.
I am accepting more than ever about myself…it’s a work in progress; always is.
I became interested in my sleep patterns and how to correct them during my recovery from ME/CFS.
I figured that better sleep was key to my recovery.
Being an insomniac, sometimes painting into the night and waking up at stupid times of the morning I had programmed myself for failure.
The essay below is the theory behind the practices which are provided at the end in PDF form for you to print and takeaway.
Today I enjoy a wonderful sleep and have a real evening, with time for myself and my partner to catch up, and whatever!
I no longer work into the wee small hours and therefore my life feels more structured and light, as opposed to chaotic and dark!
Phew. That’s the phone OFF for a bit. I’ve noticed that I’ve recently become ‘entrained’ to Twitter. I’ve willingly allowed the process to occur because I need to know how it all works so I can market myself and my art, but really, it’s good sometimes to turn it all off!
Funny thing is, I discovered a wee while back that I do actually have a penchant for self-marketing. Guess it’s because I’ve always been a poser and have a love of communication. Seems that when you hone it all with a mission plan, your set. The rest of it is perseverance. Yes. That’s the bit I never understood before.
My message of the day is: you can change…and will! It’s inevitable; all you need to think about, if you care to is where the f**k you want to change to?
Hope that is short and sweet enough for your stupidly busy day…I know mine has been; but it’s been great!
Tara…
Phoebe
