To Know Bounds

Though I have not posted for a while, I have not been absent from art.  As many changes have taken place for me in the new year, so too have things been taking shape with collaging.

Below is the piece I completed in February.  The moth is a totem you may remember from one of my posts on reading signs and spirit guides a few months back.  As you may recall, the moth is about relationships, about following your senses, observation and intuition to know whether a relationship, of any type, with a particular person, is right for you.  The rabbit I recently came to discover is one of my totem animals.  I had wondered over the last few years, in creating pieces with totem animals, when I would discover which animals represent me.  Though I know I do not yet have all of them, the rabbit is indeed one.  Rabbit is about boundaries.  It is about knowing which boundaries are appropriate to keep and maintain strong, and which ones to leap beyond, to risk venturing outside of them in order to grow and change.

When these two totems come together, they suggest that we must all be aware of what boundaries are necessary for particular relationships to thrive.  How far to push?  How far to be pushed?  Where do you begin and I end?  We do not have to sacrifice our boundaries to achieve closeness.  We get to protect ourselves and hold ourselves sacred, and still be loved.

To Know Bounds
cut paper on canvas panel, 8"x10"
© 2013 Nicolette Callaway

Woodpecker

It is not everyday that I encounter a woodpecker, which is why I've never created a piece with a woodpecker in it.  And yet this morning, as I was leaving my house, I noticed a woodpecker, beating away at a tree.  Beautiful and full of rhythm, I watched it for a minute before having to get in my car and drive away. 

It is said that when a woodpecker enters your life, it means that you are safe in the foundation you've created for yourself, and you can follow through with whatever you've begun, or, I suppose, have been contemplating.  In doing so, you will create new rhythms and awaken new sensibilities and skills.  The woodpecker tells us to listen to our own bodily rhythms and sounds, and determine from there where to move to. 

Have I been listening?  I think so.  Can I make my own new rhythms?  I believe I can.

But still the question remains: "Do I dare?  And do I dare?"