Something New - My first Video

Bettina's Space of Creation - Unfinished Or What?:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5qknUaQ1OY4

I’ve been thinking about creating videos about how I am creating, what I am creating and inviting others into my space of creation!

I’ve never done a video, and I admit I got hung up in wanting to do it perfectly! Now I choose to let that go and just do it!

Here is a quote that got me going today:

“If you want what you’ve never had, do what you’ve never done!”

I choose to have and be more me than I’ve ever been before! I choose my phenomenal life, stepping out of my comfort zone and exposing ‘me’. The ‘me’ that is being …. me….

Here is what I can say about my process of creation which really is a space of creation! My first ‘selfie’ video, unedited me.

How can I be the space of me all the time? What else is possible that I have never considered? How can I be me with money and business? What do I know that I have not acknowledged that I know? That I know from when I paint and sing? 

Birth of the Jungle Goddess

"Jungle Goddess" by Bettina

I started the painting in Costa Rica earlier this year.

She came out of the blue there on the mountain top where we were renting our vacation cabin. Mountain river gargling, rocks singing their song, birds, snakes and coyotes. Far up from the jungle of the tropics she came to visit.

On crisp mornings she invited me to play with soft colors, pastel greens, yellows and blues. In the midday heat, together we brought in darker hues, layers of wet paint that would dry quickly and create magical shapes and forms within hours.

The look in her eyes had some sadness that made me curious. Patiently waiting for greater awareness on the planet her being talked silently of the song of creation.  Allowing for the space, being with the Earth and all creatures. What if nothing was the way I thought it was? What can I see that I have not acknowledged I can see? Perceive with all my senses what I have not been willing or able to perceive?

The story about the shaman who would walk to the beach each day comes to my memory. He would go to the beach and sit there each day. One day he noticed the patterns on the water to be different. He was intrigued by this and came back each day to observe and see what was so different and unusual. Until one day he would see Columbus’ ship.

What can I not see that is here just because it is so beyond this reality, so beyond that which I agreed to as being real? Where have we all blinded ourselves to fit into this reality? What else can I be aware of?

Her eyes showed more Joy in the process. A slight smile came upon her lips.

Seeing through the jungle. Being with the decay of my crumbling reality. Taken apart piece by piece the stones of my walls disappear to open my view to a space so full of life and possibilities … I breathe deeply, inhaling molecules that make my lungs dance. While my new friend holds me gently in her gaze, bewildering curls caressing my stretching body.

When thinking .... is gone ....! Day 8-10

A challenge for me these past days: When I am painting I forget about time, appointments, schedules, what my classes require, the organizational part of my creations, even driving somewhere. Thinking definitely is.... gone... I keep asking 'What's required here?', 'What question am I not asking?', 'What question can I ask that would change this?' It's even a challenge to get away from my easel! Yet I know other creations require my attention... 

It's like a new space of me that is so much bigger! Unfamiliar territory.... open... pieces of old walls.... I'm having a sensation of tumbling.... What is this? Is it confusion? No. Is it more of me showing up? Yes. How can I have ease with this? My body is showing me intensity in my stomach.... Am I falling or.... am I flying? Hey, creations, what contribution can I be to you today? What contribution can you be to each other? Oh, that brings lightness! What else is possible from here?

When I try to stop me, that might be when I am aware of others trying to stop me and thinking it's mine.... and judging me and thinking it's my judgment.... When I'm aware of the confusion of the world about what creation is and thinking it's mine.... What if I used all this twisted stuff that this reality is made of and used all this energy FOR me?

What am I aware of that I'm not willing to be aware of? What would it take for me to express more capacities and to create more dynamically than ever before, while simultaneously being totally aware of what is required, with great ease?

And, what if......... Could it be that nothing of this is mine?

 

More Intensity by the Minute – And Now What? - Day 7

 "Portal to the Temple of Light" by Bettina, 2003

Is this just a ‘phase’, I’m wondering, or a new space, ? I’m experiencing more and more intensity by the minute, by the second! It’s different, though, from the intensity that I’ve known before.

I remember when I was a flamenco dancer. And we talked about the 'genie' a couple of days ago in our group. When I was dancing flamenco I got pretty obsessed with it. I was dancing day and night, tapping rhythms that magnetically drew me into a universe of music, stories and emotions. I couldn’t get rhythms out of my head. I loved it, and, at the same time, it got too much! I was so caught up in it that I neglected other things such as college exams (that I then failed…), relationships and also food. I would wake  up in the middle of the night counting rhythms, repeating choreographies!!!

In the flamenco world, they give this entity a name: El Duende. It is the one that takes over the dancer into a trance, into the most magnificent improvisation that leaves everybody speechless where you hear a needle drop on the floor.

I met ‘El Duende’, and I experienced this intensity. There is no time, there is no thought, it is being oneness with the music and the energy. Then, I only saw two choices: either go for it a hundred percent, or not at all. There was no middle path, not with me! I couldn’t just do it a little bit. I stopped dancing… And the dance followed me…

Before I continue, let me back up a little to give you the full story!

It started on a warm summer night in a movie theater in Berlin. I went on my own and remember sitting there in a completely sold out theater in anticipation of what was to come: “Carmen” with Antonio Gades and Christina Hoyos, and Antonio’s group. I was not only pinned to my seat the entire time, but also glued to the screen, heart racing, fascinated…. I left the movie with one thought: “I have to find this and do this!”

It took me about a week to find what I desired…. I found out that Berlin had an amazing flamenco scene with then two professional schools. Later, a third one opened. It might be even more by now.

I started taking classes and was soon totally emerged in my new ‘hobby’! Over time, I added another and another day to my training schedule. I went to classes, trained with others in old, half abandoned houses in eerie areas of the city, houses with no heat, old hardwood floors and broken mirrors. Yet, we had our tape recorder and recordings, and that’s all that we needed… to dance…

Pretty soon, I went to two schools, danced 5 times a week and seriously considered a flamenco dance program. Which in the end I didn’t choose. It became a big part of my life, though, and sucked me in!

After college, I got hired by IBM in Stuttgart and left Berlin. In the corporate world of Big Blue, I worked long hours and had much to learn in a very multifaceted job. It didn’t take me long, and I found a group of semi professional dancers in the surrounding area of Stuttgart, and guess what, I joined and thought ‘Oh, I give it a try! Just a bit here and there!’... Yeah, right! There it was again! Same scenario. Soon, I would be considering performing again. And, once again, I backed off of the intensity, like from a fire that was too hot for me to ‘handle’ it! A fire that would burn and consume me to ashes.

My next move took me to Luxembourg. I was hired to build up a new bank with a team from Germany. I was a multilingual financial advisor and portfolio manager, with international clients all over Europe. It took about a year, and there it was: a flamenco school, in Luxembourg! Now, Luxembourg is not what I would call a metropolis. It is really a small city, yet the international population that the banking sector attracted made for some cultural colorings that would give room for more exotic expressions. Well, I called the school and off I was for classes. Just taking a couple of hours here and there... Soon, the owner of the school asked me whether I wanted to teach. I already trained again 3 times a week. And ‘El Duende’ had me! Aaarrgghhh! The rhythms. The ruffles, the bodies, the music, counter rhythms that had me in their enchanting vortex! Isolation techniques that outran the brain! Counting one rhythm with the feet and a different one with the hands, while moving the right side of the body forward and the left foot spiraling up for the llamada, the potent call. Hmmmmm….

I couldn’t give it all up for living that life. Body hurting from hitting hard wood floors with nail covered heels and soles…. I left it behind, never talking to the owner again.

And, you know, this thing comes without me thinking about it. Out of the blue... So, many years later, having moved to the US, I was in Madison, Wisconsin. Wandering on State Street on a beautiful summer day. Barely visible, only from the corner of my eye, I noticed a sign in the doorway next to the Gap store saying “Flamenco”. I walked past. The picture was captivatingly black and white. Reminded me of “Carmen”, the incredible movie …

So, here I was in Madison, Wisconsin. It’s an hour drive from my home to get there, and I went. Just to ‘sniff a little bit’. Oooh, is it a drug? Hmmmm…. I went regularly for some time. Then, they invited me to perform with the ensemble. I started thinking about what color dress I could get made, where to find some cool fabric, not black but colorful and different. And it took over! There is just no middle way. It is either or.

Now , I wonder, how many lifetimes did I have where I was living that? It truly is not just a hobby, a ‘pass time’, not for me. It is a life. Is it the gipsy in me?

The energy is daunting. The rhythm is mine. Some of the energies and emotions that come with it, such as the suffering and drama of the stories, the heavy lamentos, the sternness of facial expressions as a ‘must’, jealousy, vendetta, submission and fight are not fun for me. And, certainly, ‘El Duende’ has some traits of character that don’t really work for me….

In the end, I have it in my being. And I wonder, how could I live it in a joyful way, my way, that would be so beyond this reality and so ease-filled and light?

The intensity that I’m experiencing now is so different and so light. There is no entity taking me over. No possession. There is co-creation. I create with beings, in communion and respect. They hold me and are kind to me, they are grateful and patient. They don’t eat me. They help me grow.

How can I have and be more of that?

Magic of a Rainy Today - Day 6

Gentle, big raindrops caressing the stone. A massage for my being.

Body softening, expansion so easy.

I love using memories from when I was living in Berlin and walking the streets on a rainy day, with my umbrella. There is something about rain hitting the pavement, hitting the umbrella with such kindness! I do use the kindness of rain so much in my being! When I cannot sleep, I go back in time to those days or nights of walking Berlin's streets in the rain with my umbrella. I slow down, smile and fall asleep!

During my years in the corporate world, rain always came to solace and relax me. I remember Sunday’s with thunderstorms. In some apartments that I lived in I had awnings over parts of the decks. With the sound of the first thunder, all excited in total anticipation, I would unfold the lawn chair underneath the awning, would make a cup of tea, get blankets and pillows and snuggle up underneath my roof. At times, I would fall asleep, mostly staying awake, though, ‘in the zone’. I would expand out and be. No thoughts, no words, just the experience of breathing body, the other worlds so much more palpable. I could just be and breathe. I would be there forever, hours floating by, without moving. I had goose bumps, and shivers of pleasure rolling across my skin. No need for food. The rain and the thunder were my nourishment.

I go back in time to my grandmother’s garden. My sister and I spent our days there with her while my parents were working. What a blessing this was for me. In the midst of Berlin, there was this oasis. She had a little cottage, we call it ‘Laube’ in German. They can be as cute as it can be! My grandfather had built it at the end of World war II, so they could find some peace during this crazy time and also grow some fruit and vegetables there for my mother who was a little child then. The cottage was simple and tiny, and it was my paradise. The toilet was a compost toilet in a small separate room which had it’s own charm, smells, tools, and sometimes thick big black spiders sitting on the walls luring for a fly.  When it rained, my grandma, my aunt, my sister and I would gather in the small dining/living room and just lie down on the benches and pillows while the rain fell with big blobs onto the roof. Oh, I loved it! It appeased my being.  I got even quieter than I already was. Could I just stay here, please?

Many years later, I was living in Luxembourg.  I remember a Sunday, when it was gently raining all day long.  Gentle rain fogs covered the fields next to my house. The sky was hanging low and my hair would curl and frizzle while I sat on my deck, kept dry by an overhang. I had one of my crystals in my hands, a beautiful elestial quartz, just the right size for holding it and feeling it’s presence fill my body and being. So easy to expand during the rain. I sat there for the longest time, stress and demands from my challenging job forgotten, like a distant, abstract memory. I expanded out so much that I didn’t sense the ‘edges’ of my body any more. I was space. I was everything. No confinement, no separation. It changed me forever.

“Rain, gently falling, gently caressing my forehead, touching strains of my hair, gliding them softly though transparent fingers the way only the kindest, nurturing lover would. Hey rain, my lover! Would you like to dance with me, hold me, swirl me? Delicious skin bare, threads wet, body smooth, ivory warmness of a joyful smile.

Yes, he says!”

There is a Space I have Known Of - Day 5

In this space, there is no shrinking back. It’s stepping up to more. Joyful embrace. Expanding. No judgment. Be more. Always more. Never stop. Move. Be so much more. The fire of inspiration. The breath of water. Earth on the rocks. Thrival. Total thrival.

How do I get to be this space? Really BE it? And, where am I so wound up in this reality?

Last night, I listened to my own recording from the day, “Beautiful Flower".

(My interpretation of India Arie's "Beautiful Flower": you can listen to it here:
https://soundcloud.com/bettina-madini/beautiful-flower-by-india-arie-rough-version)

“There is nothing in the world that you cannot do! When you believe in you.”, and still today I can’t stop crying… crying forever it seems, deep long sobbs in waves!

Totally takes me by surprise. Who does this belong to? Do I tap into more than just my stuff? An ocean of uncreated inspirations, lost in judgment and impossibility? Sense of loss forever, senseless judgments and ‘not ready’s’, suffocated gleams of inspired fire, never written songs, unpainted paintings, porcelain smoldered in the kiln, sculptures never uncarved from the marble, music never written on sheet and papyrus, words floating in the ethers…. Is it the genie of the song? The shattered dreams? The never ceased days?

All the moments came to me at once when I felt like being the only one on the planet, no real friends, just harshness, criticism, walls, …. All these years of holding back.  Is it broken pieces from some long forgotten past? Wherever I still had pieces of it wound around my fingers, I let those go.

Is it possible that the time is only now? All these years and eons of gestation coming to a burst? Bursting into being through and with an ocean of tears? Gosh, how burst can I be? How open wound? Each molecule shivering in the now, raw, untamed, unaltered, present, untampered, quivering being.

I had my moments with my voice…. Mostly judgment. Everybody telling me how one has to sing. All these teachers and voice coaches along my path…. With their ‘not high enough’, ‘not yet’, ‘not ready yet’, ‘don’t perform’, ‘not good enough’! Leaving me with confusion, leading me into believing that I had no voice that was worth working with, a voice that could never be the gift I knew it could be to the world. The question was: What actually IS my voice? To me, it is not one thing or another. It is not a register or a box. To me it is like a painting that can be abstract today and a flower, an angel or a wild beast tomorrow. I have experienced this voice that comes through me as anything. It can be operatic, it can be wild woman’s song of the rock and the mountain, the whale and the humming bird, it can be jazz sung on electric wires from a rooftop in the village, it can be pleading Evita, Cash’s Burning Ring or a daunting tune from ‘Chicago’. What is my voice? It feels like warm clay with pearls that can take any shape, form, color or texture. I had my moments with my voice that left me somewhere between total confusion and fascination. Comments and criticism of others added to more disillusion. Where do I go with all that? Where do I turn to?

Was it my stubbornness the kept me going? Or was it my knowing? Right now I don’t have an answer. What I know though is that I love singing. I know the power that moves through me when I sing that has nothing to do with performing. It has everything to do with being. It is all about allowing. It is an experience.

My mother who had told me when I was 33 that I was too old for a singer’s career and that, if anything artistic at all, I should better just paint, or stay in my job at the bank, left me, right before her passing, a beautiful note card with red poppies that had a poem written on it: “Follow your Star, Sing your Song, Shine in Your Colors, and you will Be thriving Life!” No personal note, just the picture of the poppies with this poem from an ‘unknown author’. I kept the card. How much of her resistance against my creative, wildly artistic being, was her resistance against her being and her judgment of herself?

What carried me through all this were people that showed up magically in my life, a kind word, graffiti’s on subway walls, messages written on paper clips on pin boards, a musician randomly singing on a street corner, a puppet player, all those having my back.

The tears are melting all the broken pieces of glass. My voice coarse and raw. Body exhausted. Reminds me of ‘white nights’ in Paris. Unrest. Moving the melted broken pieces out of my being.

I let them go.

And I remember the amazing moments that I had with my voice. They all came from the unprepared improvisation. Not the learning. Not the studying. Not the sheet. They came when I stepped up onto the stage, with nothing but my voice. Where I met others that created with me and we improvised in total communion. We reached heights in these live moments that cannot be repeated. A moment can never be repeated. I can never repeat an art work. I can never repeat a song. It will be different each and every time. This is when a piece of art becomes alive. It is enlivened by the spark of a moment when we are so present, not caring about a note and a memory of how and whether at all we sang it before.

How much more is possible if we allow for every moment to be the space of the spark? If we don’t rely on what we have created before? If we allow each and every creation to be what it is, in the moment?

Who knows? It might be totally different from the previous song! And who said each song has to be composed with the same colors? The richness and preciousness of a creation is its uniqueness, it’s one-of-a-kindness! Here I let go of the box and the register. I choose to sing the note required in the moment. I choose to give the song the color of the moment. It will be different each time.

If I don’t strive for repeating a success, if I don’t strive for repeating a song or a book or a painting, and I allow each rendition to be what it is and my voice to sound the sound of the moment, then I create. Anything else would kill the creation.

I choose to be alive with my art. I choose to create beyond this reality, whatever that requires, no matter what.

So, sharpen your knives, critical voices! I will not repeat my song! I will out-create me and my creations each time. Try adding me onto your shelf of neatly packaged books and trophees and boxes! I will elegantly and fiercely slither right out of there with a big smile! I don’t fit into the register of this reality, and I don’t strive to either! I will play you! And it’s me who drums the rhythm of THAT song!

Being a Leader, or what?

"Red Poppy" by Bettina

When I saw Katie’s drawing and painting of the flamenco dancer it took me back to the time when I was a flamenco dancer. I was totally, crazily immersed in it. Ever since, I have been fascinated by the movements, the ruffles, the bodies twisting and turning in most amazing, precise movements. Tremolo. Muscles tense, like an arrow shivering in the quiet between the call and the reply.... Enjoying space while the only motion is swirling dust particles glittering in the spot light. Reminds me of horses and their riders in total communion. The anticipation and exhilaration before the greatest race. 

And I remember the many, many training sessions in groups, wherever I went for classes and workshops. I was always in the front row. I sucked it all up. Learning the steps, the choreography, counting the rhythms, seeing it all, doing it with fun and great ease, being it. Gosh, I was so fast at learning it all. Lifetimes came back to me where I was living totally with each breath.... Very soon, some people in the group would be annoyed by me being in front. Mostly those that were struggling. They pretended it was my fault because I was in the front row, the 'best' spot. So, they sent me to the back. I went reluctantly, but I went. Feeling a little bad about being so bad, being so good. 

I noticed very soon a very funny thing. Hardly any of them really wanted to be in the front row. I could sense their discomfort as they noticed that they were totally visible from everywhere around, not only in the mirror but also from behind. They were still stumbling around, tripping over their feet even more. And slowly they all moved towards the back of the room. There was a vacuum forming in the front center where nobody was willing to be. Meanwhile, I managed to dance around my confused, stumbling dancing friends, yet had so much less fun there in the back row.

I couldn't believe it! They all had complained about me always being in front, and now nobody wanted to be there? Not one of them actually wanted to be the leader. I had been the leader there in the middle front row, and it was so easy for them to make the front row center person the culprit for their mistakes, their choices and unwillingness to excel.

And, how much have I always stepped back to make others feel better about themselves? And, what did this actually create? Did it help them? No. My amigos still didn't take advantage of that front row position. They didn't do anything with it, but complain. Did it help me? No. I didn't see a thing but stumbling bodies in confusion about what was left and what was right. It definitely didn't help me at all to not be the leader I truly be. I got pretty angry.

I choose today to be the leader I be, no matter what others make of it and of me. I know now that they choose what they choose, that they will project what they project and where they are unwilling to choose. On the flip side, if I find myself envying somebody for something, I know today the gift that this is for me. It shows me that very thing that I can do also, that I can choose also, that I had simply been unwilling to choose yet. 

And I know from experience that if I get over my resistance and chose it and ask questions, that a universe WILL open for me that is so amazing that I burst out laughing.

So, if we all are the leaders we truly are and we be and do whatever we choose, and we step up or in front, even if others shun us for it, would we be a gift to the world?

Day 3 - Space of Creation

Being the space of creation, being it all, allowing for all.

I’m a fast creator, creating at the speed of space. Paintings wanting to be painted. Getting several small canvasses out that allow me to pour the first spark, the ignition. Some require more detailed attention, at times hours, days of details with the tiny brush on the vast surface of a universe in creation. How to be all of that, the bold, the fast, the detail, the slow motion? The bold brush and the miniscule stroke of a tiny brush with a few thin hairs with paint?

The symphony unfolds in alternating rhythms, adagios, allegros, and lentos, sometimes smooth, sometimes rapidly changing. Non sensical dance of creation. Other paintings in space waiting for the final stroke, to have their turn and come into this world. Being with all of this, body tight, heart beating in anticipation. Who’s next? In an outburst of color, the brilliance of the reds, blues and yellows come together, it can hurt. Allowance for the dissonance of a moment that invites the next hue from the unknown. The intimate becoming visible to every eye. Out, out, out! Inside out, outside in. The guts of creation. Yeah, baby, it’s weird! Exposed space of being.

Being with one, while being with all the others. Expand out. Space. The Dance. Gliding. Hopping. Falling. Stretching. Eyes tired. Long nights. Little sleep. At the edge. Expand. Jump. Fly. Like the craziest jazz I’ve ever heard. Microtonal music in old cathedrals. Weaving together the threads into a new tapestry of contrasts, contradictions, being with it all. Intensity. Such intensity.

Body too tiny for that much? Expand. Move. Motion. Relief. The ease of the next stroke, and the next. Allowance for each element to be weird and individually striking while at the same time being the great gift for all the other weirds.

Together, they make the symphony. The softest voice of an angel together with the roaring sound of trumpets and gongs. They all dance in communion.

The creation that inspires those who see. Invites them to audacity and gentleness. Be it all. Space of Creation.

Rough and Raw - Day 2

Challenge of the day is to put out something ‘terrible’ that I created…. So interesting… I started a new painting yesterday. Usually I will never, NEVER!, put out a first start or even an unfinished painting….  Perfectionism? Yes. Unwillingness to receive what people blur out about the unfinished piece? Yes. There is also a judgment that I have about people saying what they see in the painting that will then lock me into their vision of it and keep me from moving freely with it. Oh, really? I let all that shit go! Would an infinite being ever buy into somebody else’s point of view? Everywhere I did that, I now let that go!

"What have I made so vital about perfection that keeps me from enjoying creation for me?" Thank you, Blossom!

Now, here is the rough/tough start of a painting. I had a couple of hours yesterday and started it. I know by now that things never turn out the way I think they will. At least, this is how it is for me. Creation has this total out of control thing to it.

Here, I am painting a red poppy. Hmmmm…. RED poppy. All I chose from the yumminess of my palette yesterday were blues and greens, some golds…. Painting, what would you like to be? What colors would you like me to choose? I enjoyed the strokes with my brush, the water flowing colorfully out onto the canvas, paint playing with water and canvas and air, the birds, the breeze, things shaping and moving.  Molecules dancing in front of my eyes.

At the end of the day, coming in at almost-dark, I had a judgment about not even having a fraction of a red spot on the green thing…. Being with the imperfection, being with the weird thing, the crooked, the misaligned, the unbalanced, the roughness of a start…. Been there a lot. There is this sensation in my stomach as I’m writing, a growling beast that can be anything and change anything, that is also full of excitement and possibility. Aaaah, the cool water on my hands is such a relief and makes me giggle! “

Trickle, trickle water, running through my hand, bring the joyful sunshine to my growling land!”

I have tears of joy and laughter, gratitude beyond words. My heart is beating and dancing, a rhythm so powerful that I’m not sure how to contain it. And, would an infinite being contain anything? So, I’m expanding 100,000 miles around me. Embracing the imperfection, the ugly, the judgment.

Oh, yes, here’s the shift.  To allow for it all. Who knows what the painting wants to be? I’m embracing the unknown, the vulnerability and the question. What else is possible here that I have never considered? What space of creation can I be from here that I have never been before and that I never imagined possible?

And, how can I be more of this space of creation today? Raw, unfinished dance.

How many more gifts and talents? Really?

"Creation" by Bettina Madini

This is the first piece from the Art Challenge. I painted deep into the night and finished it today.

I had really interesting conversations while painting. I always have the most amazing conversations when I paint. And, yes I admit, I always just brushed over them with 'no big deal!, everybody has this!'. This has been with me, ever since I remember!

As a kid, living in a pretty turmoiled family, with my parents always fighting and being mean to each other, I would crawl behind the curtain in the room that I shared with my sister and talk to my invisible friends. They were always kind to me and lifted me up and told me stories that I loved.

Now, this is what I experience now when I paint. I have conversations with different beings, and I learn a lot just about anything. And then, this morning, I just had an awareness about something else that I had not acknowledged so far, up until today. With certain paintings, I find myself painting something and then later take things away, wipe off the paint, with a clear sense of 'clearing 'it' out'. I take out energies and clear them while I paint.

While painting "Creation" (this is not a final title yet... if there is such a thing) I had that experience. I had started the painting about 6 months ago and left it in a 'rudimentary' state as the energy didn't seem to be moving any further. I picked it up about 5 days ago. At this time, also, I had one of these rough, tough days, for no reason, where it almost seemed to hard to stay around on the planet. I woke up in the morning feeling awful, and my body was aching all over. My feet had such intensity that I could hardly set them on the ground. I said to a friend of mine "I feel as if my tectonic plates are moving!", pretty much aware of the metaphor that came out of my mouth!

I tried everything that would usually create a different space for me and my body, and this time it didn't shift it. What was this? What could I do with this? Could I change it? I went in my studio and took this unfinished painting out. I started lifting off paint, clearing out areas and moving around in the painting. As I went, I started to lighting up. I remember bits and pieces of my conversation that flew by like a feather touch. Talking with some beings, lifting off paint, I cleared energies. 'No, this is not going to happen. You leave now! Enough of the unconsciousness and stupidity and idiotic destruction of this planet!' The interesting part of this was that there was no charge, not with me and not with these energies. No judgment at all. It was a simple and clear 'putting-my-foot-down-type "NO!" like a gentleness with potency, if this makes any sense.

With each brushstroke the colors brightened up! There was even a glow I noticed in my eyes (or, maybe I got so tired? Oh, just another reason and justification creeping in!... ). Some lingering energy that had set up for more devastation on the Earth chose finally to leave. I started to feel better by the hour.

Was this possible? Could this be a gift that I had never acknowledged? Unheard of. It sort of feels really weird to even mention this here. And yet I know it's ok and it's time now to show up. So, I expose myself to that vulnerability.

Oh, and by the way, I found out the next day that there were 72 earthquakes all over the planet that day. Oh, yeah, my tectonic plates were moving..... 

What gifts do you have that you have never acknowledged? And how often have you attributed this to mere fantasy, or 'that's not possible', 'yeah, right!'s?

What if the time is now to recognize your gifts? These things that you have always been doing with such ease that you barely noticed them? What if this is a contribution that the Earth requires and that you could gift?

My 30 Day Art Challenge - Follow my new Blog

Here is my challenge: Create every day for 30 days, starting today!

Funny, eh? I have been wondering lately what it would take for me to finish some of my paintings, to create a cd, to shoot videos, to invigorate my blog, short: to create more. Now, I constantly create! Each and every day, more and more. Classes, articles, my website, applying for art events and art competitions, marketing here and marketing there! I would love to create the space for me to also paint! Paint more! What would it take? And how could I invite others with me? So, there was my question! And the universe brought an invitation to me. I was invited to join a group of potent creators from all over the world to a 30 day art challenge! Thank you to awesome creators Blossom Benedict Vanderpol (http://www.blossombenedict.com) and Meredith Locher!

I wonder what contribution we will be to each other? So, I will post my creations, whatever it is, whatever inspires me, here on this blog! I wonder what will be next?

How will I create everything that I would love to create? What if I had too much fun with all of it? And what amazing platform will this be for the future?

My gift of 'being a butterfly' might come in handy! Instead of painting all day, which I usually do, what if I could be the butterfly that never stays for a very long time in one flower? What if I could just flutter about my day, being here and there, painting here and there, and doing all this other fun stuff that I'm doing and being, also? How much more magic can I be?

What would it take for me to create beyond this reality with total ease? And what would this create for the Earth? In 50 years? In 100 years?

If you think now that I'm totally crazy, that's ok with me! Welcome to my world!

I am so curious about what this will inspire and transpire? Not only for me, for everybody, for each molecule? For the planet?

What if I could create from a space that I have never accessed before? What else is possible with art and creation?

TaDaaaa!

Follow the blog and my postings here, be inspired and what else?: Bettina's Art Challenge "Marathonangaton"

Bettina Star-Rose Madini Won Special Recognition Award

 

"Glorious Sunflowers"

 

JUPITER, FL – July 9, 2014 Light Space & Time Online Art Gallery is pleased to announce that Bettina ‘Star-Rose’ Madini won ‘Honorable Mention for Special Recognition’ for it’s June 2014 art exhibition.

Bettina ‘Star-Rose’ Madini submitted “Glorious Sunflowers”, and this entry is now posted and online on their website. The theme for this Light Space & Time art exhibition is “4th Annual Botanicals Online Art Exhibition”. There were more than 690 entries from 20 countries that were considered and judged for this international competition.

Mrs. Madini was born in Berlin, Germany. In 1992, she moved to Luxemburg and pursued a career in the corporate world. Bettina resumed her art education in 1998 in Luxemburg at the Ecole d’Art Contemporain and studied with Jean-Marc Tossello. In 2003, she moved to New York City where she continued her studies at the National Academy School of Fine Arts where she studied with teachers such as Susan Shatter, Sharon Sprung, Henry Finckelstein and Wolf Kahn. She has been living and working as an artist in the Midwest in the United States since 2004.

Mrs. Madini’s paintings are energetic, colorful and free-spirited. Her fascination is color, and each painting will start with a range of colors that draw her into the process. ‘I paint a flower if it calls for me to paint it!’ she says. ‘A flower is alive, moves and breathes with the sun and the wind, and so am I while painting it!’ Bettina’s paintings can be found in corporate and private collections in Europe, Australia and in the United States.
Bettina ‘Star-Rose’ Madini’s artwork and portfolio can be viewed here: www.BettinaStar-Rose.com, and she can be reached at 001/608-297-9593 to answer any of your questions or inquiries.

Light Space & Time Online Art Gallery conducts monthly themed art competitions and art exhibitions for new and emerging artists on a worldwide basis. To view this art exhibition please go to http://www.lightspacetime.com