Listening to the Moon ~~ The Intuitive Artist

The title of her site is what intrigued me. I had to click on the link and find out what Lis­ten­ing to the Moon ~~ The Intu­itive Artist was all about. In the mar­gin, a pho­to­graph of the author beck­ons vis­i­tors to pause for a bit and read what she has to say. Her writ­ing does not disappoint.

Maitri Libel­lule is one of those blog­gers that you wish you could sit with for awhile to enjoy a cup of tea and some con­ver­sa­tion. After all, how can you not want to get acquainted with a woman who proudly pro­claims that she shares her mag­i­cal lit­tle cot­tage with six par­rots, one big black Lab-Doby mix, and three pugs she has res­cued, in addi­tion to a beta fish named Vincent?

Today’s Post of the Day Award goes to Maitri for her forth­right dis­cus­sion of her life expe­ri­ences in Wabi Sabi Fiber Art ~ Heal­ing The Heart With The Hands …

After a life­time of adver­sity, Maitri has learned that her cre­ative endeav­ors free her from depres­sion and anxiety.

When I stop the world around me and just pick up my fiber art I become wholly absorbed in the work of my hands, my phys­i­cal body, in what I am cre­at­ing. I am inside myself and out­side of my head. The beauty about being an intu­itive artist is that you aren’t fol­low­ing pat­terns (too much slip­ping back in your head mode) you are fol­low­ing your hands pro­pelled by your heart, your feel­ings, your intuition.

Maitri says that she enjoys cro­chet­ing most and plans to begin sell­ing a line of cro­cheted jew­elry. Most impor­tantly, she is dis­cov­er­ing that art can “float you down­stream through a beau­ti­ful land­scape of infi­nite pos­si­bil­i­ties” and find­ing “peace as I feel the myr­iad pieces of myself find­ing their way back together, being woven into one great tapes­try, my body, my mind, my heart, my soul, my hand, all of a piece.”

Eager to share the knowl­edge she has gained with her read­ers, Maitri encour­ages vis­i­tors to find an art form that suits their indi­vid­ual needs. She is con­fi­dent that the dis­cov­ery of a sat­is­fy­ing cre­ative out­let brings about a “trans­for­ma­tion that will change your life for the bet­ter.“

Heal­ing is a jour­ney deep within one­self — a search for soul, the essence of the self. It seeks to bal­ance the inner and outer worlds, to con­nect and to inte­grate. Heal­ing is the reunit­ing of the body, mind and spirit.” ~ Diane Mariechild, Moth­er­wit ~

Maitri is going through a par­tic­u­larly emo­tional time right now about which she writes can­didly at her other site, Magic & Moments from Drag­on­fly Cot­tage. In par­tic­u­lar, her August 4, 2008, post, Oh My Heart Is Aching ~ Open­ing The Cre­ative Vein … deals with her mother’s phys­i­cal decline and impend­ing death. “Unable to do any cre­ative work at all as things have wors­ened with my mother, a ray of light, slim and slant­ing side­ways through the win­dows at first, entered the cot­tage.” It was at that moment that she was able to find her way “back to my hand-carved cro­chet hooks and my Navajo weav­ing tools, my hand-spindles and my rov­ing to spin yarn to work with, and the light, today, seemed to stream into the cot­tage full on. It was time. I could return here and tell of the wind­ing path, the ten­der emo­tions, the ebul­lient joy of find­ing the river of cre­ativ­ity run­ning through my life again, and all of the above have made me whole.”

Maitri could eas­ily be a Post of the Day recip­i­ent vir­tu­ally any day that she pub­lishes new mate­r­ial at any of her sev­eral sites. An accom­plished writer, in addi­tion to artist and ani­mal res­cuer, her unique writ­ing style, per­spec­tives, and expe­ri­ences will keep you return­ing again and again to read her most recent posts.

It is a plea­sure to award the Post of the Day Award to Maitri!

Tech­no­rati Tags: Lis­ten­ing to the Moon — The Intu­itive Artist, Magic & Moments at Drag­on­fly Cot­tage, Post of the Day Award, The Ris­ing Blogger

You should also check out:

• You Are a Fly on My Wall
• Writing in Faith
• We’re At Dad’s That Week
• Vent … a Series of Takes
• Tricia’s Musings