Where Sacred Art Exists

Leah of Creative Everyday wrote this beautiful post about the nature of the sacred, and I was inspired. I looked over at Dragonfly Reflections to see about this project she is doing, and I had to say that I would try, too. 100 days of Sacred Art sounds fabulous. Here I painted a picture inspired by walking through the garden to stumble upon my cat... who was just sitting there in the middle of the path, being a cat. There's no one who can be in the moment quite like a cat, particularly if napping is involved.

Later that night I sat down and, with nothing but a vague idea, opened my journal. I started with a circular shape (I think circles are pretty sacred, don't you?) and then sketched in the shape of the cat with Faber Castell Pitt artist pens. Then I took out my Golden paints and colored everything in umber, leaving a white outline for the cat. I then painted in the green fern (I had to get a fern from the garden to reference. That fern is now in a vase by my bed with some flowers) and I added the ochre and yellow acccents and the brown shadows. It felt sacred to me while I was painting. It felt as if it was a painting about "spirit." Whatever that is.

Which brings me to my main question. What is Sacred Art in Everyday? Does it mean I should meditate everyday? I probably should. Does it mean I have to paint a saint/goddess/mandala/cat picture everyday? I think it might be nice, but everyday is not realistic for me right now. Does it mean stopping and appreciating the whole foods that nourish my body and feed my kids? Do chicken nuggets shaped like dinosaurs count? Does it mean I have to be serious and forgo humor for the deep and meaningful? I hope not. Does it mean that everything in my life should feed into or come out of epiphanies? Isn't that expecting too much and doesn't that take away from the zen aspect of just being?

Do I count writing my novel, when my novel is a genre/science fiction story, not a treatise on spirituality and art? Although now that I think about it, there is a prominent theme exploring Gaia theory and the spirit of a planet. I have a sneaking suspicion that it does count towards this challenge, though I am more likely to discount it. Why would I do that? Especially when you take into account that the task of writing my novel is me honoring my own soul and my dreams, and sitting down to the work is me listening to my higher self, instead of my lower, chicken-shit self. Hmm.

Where is the boundary here? I can see where sitting in the screened doorway with my kids, watching the rain fall in the garden is a sacred act... but is it art? Is the photo I take in the moment art? Is it creative? I can see that making a dinosaur scene on the kids' plates w chicken nuggets is creative, but is it sacred? Where does fun lie in creativity? In the sacred?
And when it comes down to it, how does this Sacred Art stuff fit into my Be Brave project, which I am always thinking about, but rarely consciously acting upon. How does it fit into raising my kids and sweeping the cheerios and going to the museum to see dinosaurs, like we are doing today?

After considering the way my life works, I do not think I am going to be able to manage 100 Days of creativity. Just the mechanics of it make things difficult. I can't paint, take photos of the art, upload photos and post every single day before that day is over. I often don't do my creative work until the kids are in bed for the night and then there is no daylight left for photos and I might be too fried to write.

But I think I am going to take this on as a meditation on WHERE Sacred Art exists in my life. As I look back at my questions about what it is, I am seeing that it all fits. All of it. I think my goal here is to keep focusing on the creative and the sacred, when ever it appears. It is also to create work that feeds my spirituality and soul.