On Art Journal Pages, Gratitude, and All Things Sacred/Day 10

I'm working on gratitude.

In my new altered book All Things Sacred, Gratitude is the first spread that wanted to be explored.  Isn't it funny how when working on a particular page of a journal, the theme "works" on us too?

The page didn't come easy.  It started with masking tape put at random on a page, and then I painted over it in magenta and purple.  I thought some yellow would add a pop of color.  It ended up hurting my eyes.

I don't use a color wheel to select my colors.  I kind of go with intuition on who wants to be grouped together for a page.  Maybe, after this yellow turning up, I might want to consult the color wheel for the next page.

After that dried, I pulled up the masking tape and added, if you can believe it, more yellow.  I saw the page wasn't going to work.  I considered making a sort of stylized stained glass window out of the parts that weren't yellow--the magenta and purple part.

When I cut out the yellow, I had bits and pieces of the pretty colors.  I arranged and rearranged to try to get them to make kind of a mosaic--like a stained glass.  Eventually it worked well enough to put it on the page.  Then I decided to add white to see what it would do.  That was too much for the stained glass to have the white added.  I had to take it off and go back to black.

Eventually, during the whole process, I made a spread.  I get nervous making that first spread in a book.  It's almost like it sets the stage for what comes.  I wasn't overjoyed with the page but felt I needed to let it stay in the book, even if it was page one.

And I found this process to be how gratitude can be.  We get into life and it gets kind of messy.  We find ourselves comparing, or wishing, or hoping this or that will happen for us.  We see it happen for others and we wonder if in time this will come to us.

It's like the page evolving.  It doesn't alway turn out right with the first try.  While working on the Gratitude page, I noticed myself thinking again and again about gratitude--thinking how it would be if I looked at every moment and every experience with the frame of gratitude.

When I did that, everything shifted.  Everything unraveled into simplicity.  I found in being thankful for   wonderful things happening around me, accomplishments of others, that I saw how being grateful turned the feelings over.  I saw those situations differently.

I rejoiced in others' successes.  Every success by someone puts amazing energy into the universe which makes way for more success.  Gratitude turns the chaos into a sacred place.  Now when I begin to feel out of sorts with judging or worrying, I turn to gratitude.  I see everything in a beautiful light.  What had been messy and problematic in a journal page, and in life, falls into place.

I wonder what the next page will be in my journal.  I know now that whatever comes I'll be thankful for it.