In the Fall of 2017, two women sat at my art table learning the skills of drawing. Their eyes sparkled like enthusiastic kids’. They’d just discovered how to see again.

Learning to see what truly lies before you changes your life. Seriously.  It brings you to being present here and now with unveiled, unfiltered, focused awareness. Like a Bodhisattva. Then you add the gift of identifying a new skill. Your hand holding the pencil CAN follow the path of your eyes as they trace the outline of what they see. On top of that, the brain collaborates. Recognizing the relationships among the shapes, the actual proportions of what connects to what and where, allows you to find your accuracy again..

The women giggled with delight at this dance, this wholeness.  One of them bubbled up with an idea. “I want to try my hand at painting. Could you show us how to paint like this? In the moment, in the now. We could have big panels, more students, move around, stand up. I can even provide a larger space.”

Their contagious enthusiasm leapt right into my heart. “What would you call a class like that?” I asked.

“Deep Dreaming,” she immediately responded.  Shivers of ”Yes” raced along my arms.

A few weeks later, four of us gave it a try. Wildly exciting, we decided to ask a few more friends to join us and in January 2018, eight of us began. In preparation, we original four built large wooden panels for everyone, primed them, even made eight easels so we could all stand to paint.

We quickly realized that we were traveling together in new territory. Co creating a new world, a new – perhaps old – way of being in community.. pilgrims on a journey, the painting process brought tears of grief and tears of joy, laughter, mutterings and natterings, stories, poetry and blessings and singing spontaneous song: Paint on top of paint on top of paint. No need to be afraid.

New words are coined. ARTangels popped out as someone tried to say, “It’s as if archangels are looking over us.” At another session the word Creageous tumbled forth. We latched on to that one as if our lives depended on it…and they do.
Creageous – adjective – describes those who act creageously ( adverbial form ).  Those who say, “ NO WAY…I am not patriarchy’s daughter. I belong to earthsky, airsea, galaxyinfinity, eternitynanosecond.
Those who say, “ YES, I am who I am.” Those who claim their  right to be more than they thought they were by making leaps of faith in trusting Creator to show them the way forward, following their heart’s footsteps and embracing the wisdom of unseen energies, ancestral spirits, and other living beings at the same time s/he values science and technology.

Creageous may be applied to humans entering the next great round of evolution for our species. Barbara Marx Hubbard calls the evolving human, homo-universalis. Other thinkers call us the ECO-centric human. Those who follow the path of creageousness call the new human creageougenic!

Related states are: courageous, creative, outrageous, advantageous and awe-inspiring.

Creageousness – noun:  the complex and all encompassing state of being in the flow, experienced by few modern humans whose souls are straight-jacketed by narrow cultural definitions of normalcy to which most urbanized and westernized humans aspire. Creagousness provides courage and comfort for those who know life is not theirs to control, mystery abounds, grief and love are ubiquitous and essential emotions, making art heals and juiciness prevails.

What do you think?