Invitation ….. to the Space of You

"Joy of the Phoenix" by Bettina Madini

I’d like to invite you today…. to a space …. Let’s call it space of creation.

It is the space I live with and in, a space so familiar to me and so different for others.

It is the space I create everything in and from. The more awareness I have on my journey, the more I realize that I cannot give you THAT. You are your space of creation. You need to choose it. What I can gift to you is questions that will allow you to let go of limitations, so you can get out of the box and be the artist that you are.

I have been facilitating painting classes, and people approach me with the question “How do you do that?, How do you paint?” and they come to the conclusion that they could never do it….

See, in this reality, we learn that learning is copying, or let’s say ‘doing it like ‘the teacher’’, ‘following the instructions’, the ‘How to’. The thing is, I’m not interested in showing you the ‘how to’. This is not, by the way, how I entered the journey of painting. Luckily, my first ‘teacher’ was more of a guide who stayed next to me or behind me, and together we went on a journey. If you are looking for someone who will tell you exactly how to paint, well, I might not be the person for you. There are many, though, that will provide that. I invite you to a different possibility.

I remember this funny story. The company who is hosting my website once did a survey to find out what artists deem important for their business. One of the questions was “Do you think that further education and art classes will increase your competence and your success as an artist?” It was multiple choice, and I checked ‘No’. I got an email back with an interesting energy and further questions, such as ‘You are the only one saying no to that question. Would you like to further explain why you think art classes are not vital?’ Wow, this was interesting to me. This is truly this reality’s point of view. In order to be accepted and acknowledged as an artist, you need credentials. In my world, I am my credentials. I was surprised that I seemed to be ‘the only one’.

To me, the artist is in you already. This is my point of departure. I am more interested in you acknowledging your capacities and talents and finding where you are limiting you. I would be delighted in assisting you in the clearing. THIS is exciting to me! I know that you know. No one knows more about you than you. You are unique, and you have gifts and talents that you have not even touched yet, not even considered possible. And, I go a bit further: What if you have gifts that not one person on the planet is currently even talking about, or teaching? What do you know that nobody else does?

What interests me is what makes you tick when you see a color? When you hear a sound, see a painting, see the sunset or the ocean? When the wind caresses your skin? When you look at the tree in your yard and you have this urge to go out and sit by it? What is that? What is that that is touching you, that you cannot define, as it is space? That energy that you are aware of BEFORE you start thinking and reasoning and justifying why you cannot you out to the tree?

What if nothing could stop you EVER any more to follow that which is so light, so kind, so beautiful that one thought can crush it? Would you be willing to explore this? Make space for that in your life? And what if you painting that?

Not one person could teach me how to paint, and I don’t have a cognitive answer for you. I don’t approach creating from linear, sort of A to B to C, to ‘finish!’. I’m more interested in you CHOOSING the color, shape, line that create something. Each choice creates. And then, you can choose again, you can change it.

When you find for yourself what you CAN create, there is such joy and power, that you would not have if I told you. Do you get that? I cannot and WILL NOT take that from you.

These were the greatest gifts that I received from amazing people in my life. They walked with me, never in front of me. They asked me questions. They never gave me an answer.

The ‘How To’ is always an answer. It implies that you don’t know so you have to be told ‘how to do it’.

My question to you is “What would you like to paint?” and “What question can you ask to make painting and playing with color ease and joyful for you?” and “What could you paint that you have never considered possible?”

Bettina Madini is an internationally renowned artist, a singer and Access Consciousness® Certified Facilitator. Her paintings can be found in corporate and private collections in the United States, Europe and Australia. She facilitates Creativity classes and Access Consciousness® Core classes. Find her class schedule here: http://bettinastar-rose.com/workshops

More information about Bettina’s painting intensive here: http://bettinastar-rose.com/workshop/7790/painting-workshop-intensive

My friend the Queen – Or: Killing energy as the greatest Kindness

 "Butterflies and Bees", by Bettina Madini

I learn so much from my bees! By watching them and receiving from them. Receiving what they know and what I know too that I have forgotten or pretended not to know. And here is where the magic starts…. I have a story for you:

I worked in my bee hives yesterday. I check on them every once in a while when I get the ‘knowing’ of it being a contribution to them. I work with them, as far as what they are creating, are they getting ready to swarm, have they swarmed, is the queen ok, do they have enough water, were there critters in the hives, just to name a few things. The two hives that were installed at the same time, next to each other, showed two totally different scenarios.

Today, I would like to talk about one hive that had already swarmed this year. In this hive, I found 23 queen cells and a virgin queen. I chose to cut out most of the queen cells, some of them looking really ‘ripe’. I do this to change the scenario of them swarming several times and leaving an empty hive. So, I placed the queen cells in a container on the side. While continuing the hive check, I heard, from that container, scratching noise from one of the queen cells. See, sometimes, when I cut them off I might slightly open a queen cells. Usually, there is a larvae in there, rarely a fully grown queen ready to emerge. But there could be a queen ready to emerge in there. Now, that one cell sounded really like somebody kickin’ to come out! Better close that lid!, I thought. Within about half an hour, three queens had emerged from three of the cells. They were running around in the container, crawling over the other ‘cocoons’. One of them was bigger and more vital than the other two. They were checking each other out and running around in there for about 1 hour.

When I looked at them again later, the larger queen made a choice. She killed the smallest of the three first, and then the other one. Within 5 minutes, the other two queens were dead. That queen didn’t hesitate to use here killing energy, as there can only be ONE queen only in a hive. She had emerged, she was strong, she didn’t have one worker bee to feed her, instead, she was in a tiny box, but she was fighting for something.

Hmmmm… I wondered, what else is possible? I didn’t have room for yet another hive, yet her strength and willingness to create fueled a possibility in me. We started calling around for who was looking for a queen bee. Joel made two phone calls and actually found someone in Madison who was looking for a queen.

I found three volunteer worker bees to take care of the queen and feed her overnight, and today, we drove the royal queen to Madison. The lady was delighted when she saw her and learned that she was carnelian, a stronger eastern European breed that can endure Wisconsin winters with greater ease.

In exchange for her royal highness, I received a jar of the most amazing raw honey, made by the bees from that farm. A precious gift! The lady reached the jar to me kind of apologetically with the words “I’m sorry, this honey is caramelized, but you can warm it a little bit, and it will be liquid again!” Oh, little did she know! This is my favorite honey! What a delight!!!! I prefer the caramelized honey to the liquid one. And the color! It’s amber! I literally took that jar in a delighted jump! She looked at me with wonder, saying “Oh, your enthusiasm! Come join us at our meetings! We get together and talk about bees once a month!” So sweet! Such kindness! I wonder, if we all would talk bees instead of anger, what world could we create?

A queen bee fighting for what she knew was possible, against all odds, creating for a future! A future among flowers and fairies, butterflies and rolling hills, on a planet so lusciously abundant, a world so quietly pounding with intensity that the touch of a butterfly wing on a sunny day can erupt a volcano of joy in a heart. THIS is the magic that I choose. THIS is the gift I received from a potent being that doesn’t know what giving up is, that demands from herself to be whatever is required and that creates HER reality, NO MATTER WHAT! And see what she created?

I wonder, are you about to give up? What if your friend was an invisible, potent queen with wings? You could ask “What would my queen friend choose here?” in any situation, or when you have that giving-up-energy.

She opened me to an entire new level of receiving and being. And what if we killed the areas in us where we are less than being all of us? What if we killed the limitations in us, the limited version of us, the doubt, fear, no-money, the 'problem' we think we have? What if we killed the im-possibility?

And, what else CAN we receive? The gifting IS the receiving IS the contribution we are to everyone and everything.

What is actually true for you? If you chose your reality, what would you choose? Would you allow others to walk over you, or would you make a heroic move and open your magnificent wings and choose what works for you?

Dying To Get To the Space of You?

"The Tunnel" by Bettina Madini

I've been wondering all day, while flying around in the universe and creating amazing threads of intertwining possibilities, what 'story' can I share that would be a contribution to the challenge? So, here we go. It's about challenge and death and infinite space of joy.

I died several times in this lifetime. Yes, I literally felt like 'dying', had intense physical symptoms like heart racing, weakness, incredibly tired. These moments came 'out of the blue'. I created them with my choice to be more of me. This is what I can say now! Then, I was sort of 'blond' and tapping into it 'unknowingly'. (really? what did I actually know???) 

The first one was in 2003. Just having quit my 'life-as-I-knew-it', I was at Heathrow airport waiting for my next flight to Newark. I was just excited, and my flight from Luxembourg to London had been joyful and fast. At landing, though, I had started 'feeling strange'. Oh, well, I thought, this was a lot of change. Of course, I must be stressed! (really?) I had just left my entire comfort zone behind, had quit a 'safe' job, I had left behind friends and 40 years of stuff, from antiquities to gifts to things from travels, all called 'home'. All behind me, yet still there. I had given myself 6 months to decide whether I would stay in the US or go back to Luxembourg. So, was I really stressed? What was that? At the airport got some black tea and crackers and went to my gate. There, I pretty soon had to lay down flat. 

Boarding started, and I chose to wait until the last moment to go on. I had started sweating like never before in my life, my heart racing, water running down my body and vision blurred. The flight attendants suggested some hospital, and I declined. This was NOT how I would start my new life. In a hospital? No way! And, really, there was no doctor at the airport? Weird! I pulled myself together and was escorted onto the airplane by 2 attendants. (still surprised that they even let me on!) 

I felt a lot better and slept for a while. Then, 3 hours into the flight, I got worse again. I called the flight attendant. I was sort of in a tunnel by the time she stood in front of me, my vision was narrowed to this tiny spot with her face far at the end of it. I asked her, with slight ringing in my ears, whether I could lie down flat somewhere. She looked at me and asked me whether I could please speak English. To this day, I have no idea what language I spoke. Everyone around looked at me with compassion, as if I had just lost it. Well, I had! After that, what I remember is being in the large reclined seat in business class where I stayed for the rest of the flight, with a hot water bottle on my tummy. I landed in Newark. I was asking for strength to make it through immigrations. THIS all was like watching some type of a high suspense movie, while at the same time being somehow entangled in the main character. How did I get there from the ease- and joyfilled possibility of creating and art that I had dreamed of and known was there for me? I felt pretty much like shit and looked like a ghost with a hot water bottle. I asked my body to hold off the sick feeling and nausea that crept back up once I was standing, and wait until I would be in a bed at home. I made it through 4 hours of interviews which felt like jumping through fire rings, with people desperately looking for reasons NOT to let me in. My boyfriend picked me up and we got home in a taxi. I spent some short and intense time in the bathroom, lied down in the bed and stayed there for 2 weeks, only getting up for potty, walking on unsolid 'wavy' grounds. Everything around me was unsolid, everything seemed to be moving, pretty much like on a boat.

Similar thing yet another time in 2003, with panic attacks, then again in Buenos Aires in 2008. And this year in January while in Costa Rica. Again, I thought I was on my way out. High fever, heart palpitations, my body so weak and emptying out what I thought was emptied, for 3 weeks. Reset?

Meanwhile, I know that I know, and I have learned so much more with and through this. Now,  I have amazing tools to use in these moments of big change....  It is when we create change that the limited versions of us really and literally die! We loose our reference points, and truly we become less solid, as is the world that we had made solid before. Pretty much like 'de-composing' and coming together in a different way. Like a butterfly. 

So, if any of you find yourself in these places that can be incredibly uncomfortable and demanding everything of you, first I would like to say 'be with it!, I tell you you HAVE what you require!' You are stronger than you think, second: Ask "Is this part of the change I have been asking for?", third: Ask your body 'Hey body, what can we choose that can make this easier? What do you require?' and see what comes up, who comes up, who calls you, what are you aware of? Never give up, never quit! Also, destroy and uncreate resistance to that intensity. Resistance will make it harder on you and your body. 

Once you walk through that, what I can say to you is, .... there is a space that you will have that is so much more of what you could have ever imagined possible, there is the YOU you have been waiting for....so much more that I know now it has been worth every single moment of .... let's call it 'unpleasant-release-of-you-know-what'. 

Please, don't quit! Ask for who can help you! and receive. Receive. RECEIVE. 

R E C E I V E   

Space of Creation - Turning It Up!

I love playful and joyful energy and space of my being, the sparkles and inspiration, and I create everything I create from that space, whether it's painting, singing, writing, creating classes, presentations and my wearable art.

For the longest time in my life, I had so desired to inspire and transpire that into the world, only to find out that only a few were willing to receive that. Most people have even pushed that away, more or less harshly. Thanks to some simple tools and some amazing people in my life, I could change where I had made me wrong for that, sort of me doing it 'wrong'.  I could let go of having to find the reasons why people choose sadness over joy and even totally refuse happiness as a possibility. I realized that people choose what they choose because they can. It's that simple.

For any joyful being, it has been sort of 'bad news' that the world cannot receive joy, and that classes might not be received if they have 'Joy' or 'Play' in the class name. So, I took these words out of my class titles, and people started to show up. Interesting, isn't it? How much do we have to cut off and divorce from being if we are not willing to choose joy? How much have we bought into the needs of this reality? I write this article for YOU today, you who read this! It is thanks to you that I continued my walk, when I was almost willing to give up. I write for you who is almost willing to give up! Have you made all the judgments, all the 'critiques' real and true for you? Have you made all the refusals, the invalidations, the rejections real? What if they aren't real? What if they have nothing to do with you and with your creations?

Whether you know it or not, every one of you who has NOT given up and who kept creating for the joy of it, has been an inspiration for me. It's the space of creation that is beyond words. How can you describe something that is beyond thoughts, feeling and emotions? The space beyond limitation, where magic begins? Where creation is so ease-filled? The moment you pick up your brush, or you touch the keys of your piano, the strings of your guitar, the moment you start writing and everything flows from there? It sort of has a life of it's own, doesn't it?

As so few could receive joy and ease and happiness, I had started to 'turn down the volume', 'retreated'. And I kept asking each day, is this something that can be received now or in the future? It always was for the future, until...... today.

So, I write these words for you. Wondering and curious as I am, I ask 'What if the window now is wide open, where people are willing to choose more than ever before?' and 'What different reality CAN we create NOW for the future?'

You know what? Instead of lowering 'my volume' and 'blending out', I'm now turning it up my volume! What else is possible with Joy and Fun and Magic of Being?

And, what inspiration and contribution can I be for you and to you?

Here is a sound inspiration for you as my gift: click here

What else is possible?®* What future CAN we create with the Magic of Joy and Ease and Creation?

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* ‘What else is possible?®’ is an Access Consciousness® tool. Please find out more about Access Consciousnes®s at www.AccessConsciousness.com.