In my attempt to wake up and become more aware of my life as it happens, of the sacred Here and Now, I have come up against an old limitation.

My guiding spirits showed it to me as a castle with thick defensive walls, its portcullis closed and too heavy for me to raise on my own.

I know that castle. I have visited it in meditations and dreams. It is an image of the defences I threw up against the hardness of life when I was very young. Old stone walls that keep me hemmed in and, if I’m honest, a little lonely.

Because when you live behind thick dark walls, it’s not just danger you are shutting out. It’s everything. Stone doesn’t have any way to discern whether what is coming from the outside is friend or foe. It keeps everything out regardless.

In my previous post I talked of love. About the futility of trying to take down those walls by force. I’m much more likely to be successful if I learn to love those walls. That stands a chance of making a window through which to see the world.

These last few days, a wonderful period of rest and recreation at the end of the Midwinter holidays, my guiding Spirits have shown me another way of breaking down the wall. And I have to say, it quite excites me.

The first signs of it came when I found an adult colouring book in the supermarket on New Year’s Eve. £5 for many pages of Secret Garden, An Inky Treasure Hunt and Colouring Book by Johanna Basford. I’m loving it. It’s turned my mood of boredom and rain induced misery into nothing less than happiness. Turning the beautiful black line drawings into a lush garden of colourful flowers and leaves is a pure joy.

If I let my critical self have its say, it’d tell me that this is barely creativity. I’m not making anything that’ll add anything to the world. I’m just colouring in somebody else’s art. It’s childish. And bla bla bla.

But you know what? It makes me happy. Just colouring in has no demands. It’s not trying to be art. I’m doing it just for fun. And yet…

And yet through that little bit of frivolous everyday creativity, the Universe is expressing itself through me. The Life Force is flowing. I am doing something to and with the world. The wall of my castle is being crossed, even if it’s in a very small way. It puts a smile on my face.

This is the last day of my Christmas holiday. From tomorrow, other kinds of creativity will take priority. It’ll start with paperwork and a Tax Return. And then I’ll be painting walls again in our rental property. And cooking meals or writing blog posts. Ordinary, unimpressive, everyday acts of creativity.

Each of these are ways in which I interact with the world around me. Each of these is a way for the Life Force to express itself. I need to acknowledge this and allow myself to feel the joy of achievement.

I am colouring small flowers of creativity onto the stone walls of my defensive castle. It is an act of devotion. And as I let myself feel the joy of it, windows grow wider and the walls may just start to thin.

Image by Johanna Basford, coloured and inexpertly photographed by me.