Returning to Trust

‍ A detail from the painting Held in Light, Mixed Media on Canvas

On Patience, painting and finding my way back.

“I can’t do it. It doesn’t look right” my frustrated nine-year-old self said, to my wonderfully patient Nan, as she taught me how to create perspective in a watercolour landscape. My last post showed a picture of that painting. I still recall sitting at the dining room table overlooking the abundant garden, as she gently, but firmly told me, ‘You can do it, you are doing it, have patience’.

She was right. I just needed to trust.

Looking back, I am filled with gratitude at how those early experiences shaped not only the artist in me, but the way I see the world. I have dabbled with art on and off over the years in different ways, like dipping my toe in different waters, waiting until it was just comfortable enough to dive back in.

For years, our spare room became a dusty museum: shelves of art materials, half finished sketchbooks, books waiting patiently to be opened. Every time I walked in, I was reminded of the artist I kept telling myself I would become “one day”. Looking back now, I realise it wasn’t a lack of ability; it was a lack of trust.

Life became busy, and with it, the distance between my art and me grew even further. Having left school to train for four years in art and design, graphics and illustration, my career had taken me on some very different paths. Each time I returned to the page, I would start with enthusiasm, and within a short time the work was abandoned. I had forgotten patience, with myself, the materials, the canvas, I had forgotten to trust.

Returning to nature has taught me to trust. Nature doesn’t rush to the finish line; it has patience in its unfurling. It has innate wisdom that allows it to take the time it takes and become the form it becomes.

One of the most liberating things I have found through my painting process is the freedom of layering. It is more guided by feeling rather than prescriptive forms, letting the textures themselves guide the final piece. Breaking free from my previous tightly formed illustrative style, where every mark on the page mattered, I am now letting nature be the inspiration and the paint be the guide.

Each painting begins with trust, that I can push through those moments of previous abandonment, when I would have morphed back into my nine-year-old self with those ‘I can’t do it’ moments. Now I simply trust that layers and form will become what they become.

Patience and trust then become easier to practice in other areas of life. Where the old perfectionist in me would need to be the expert, stalling any attempts at doing something new, a softer, kinder way of being with myself has developed. One that gently chips away at those old creative blocks and invites the artist in me to grow and play.

Where in your life are you learning to have patience with yourself and trust the process?

Until next Sunday…

🌿 May you find inspiration in nature this week.

Tracey Anne x

Why Nature’s Open Arms?

‍ ‍One of my earliest landscape watercolours (1991), painted when I was nine years old.

“How is it possible for all this to exist?…

In a rat race of a world, there is some kind of bliss”

The above is an opening line of a poem I wrote about finding refuge in nature, when I was 17 years old.

Now, age 44, I can honestly say that nature’s open arms have always welcomed me throughout the course of my life, although my connection with and appreciation of nature has definitely evolved over the years.

If you’d said to me 15 years ago, to slow down, observe the beauty in the small moments, I’d have probably scoffed at you and said ‘I really don’t have the time’. Now, I understand that it is for that very reason, I needed to slow down even more.

Even though I grew up in a town, I was fortunate enough to be brought up spending time in nature as a child: long Sunday walks in the local country park with our beautiful boarder collie Patch, not to mention plenty of camping trips with nothing more than field and cold water tap! I learnt much of my appreciation of the natural world through observation, seeing how the adults in my life found peace and tranquility, when nervous systems were not being bombarded by input from the man made material world. I felt it too.

Life has a way of forcing you to change, it will shout louder if you don’t listen. My returning to nature as healer and teacher was a result of just that. Living in a big city, working two jobs, trying to make ends meet, the intolerable volume of chronic depression, anxiety and burnout, got so loud, change was inevitably needed.

Having escaped to a semi rural location, in the beauty of the Welsh hills, one Christmas many years ago, my husband and I were putting the tree and decorations away for another year, when the bare living room made me sigh “more winter months to endure, with nothing but bleak bareness”. I had always dreaded winter, it was something to get through rather than appreciate. Once the warmth and glitter of the festivities had passed, I really didn’t see anything worth celebrating. I hated that I dreaded winter. It was another reminder that I wanted to be able to enjoy and appreciate my life all year round, not feel even more depressed.

As the bare walls and living room stared back at me, I wondered what if the tree was simply a ‘winter tree’? why don’t I simply decorate my home with evergreens and pine cones to celebrate winter anyway? in fact, why don’t I decorate my home to celebrate every season? What if the decorations were replaced with seasonal pieces that celebrate life, generally, all year round?

And so, all those years ago, I set about sourcing ways to appreciate each of nature’s months. Looking closer into what is happening around us with the trees, what is growing, what birds are singing? I also started to notice a general shift in consciousness around that time, that more people were craving more connection to nature. Retail started stocking more seasonal decorations, beyond the traditional holidays, it seemed that there was a shift in trends that more people were noticing the changing seasons.

Interestingly, as I was deepening my journey into the seasonal shifts and nature’s patterns, I discovered the ‘Celtic Wheel of the Year’ - it felt like discovering a ready made treasure map, with a rich history of regular check points throughout the year, that honour the changing seasons, exactly what I was intuitively attempting to create in my own life. Resonating with its simplicity, I immediately wanted to know more, and just as life’s beautiful synchronicities often unfold, conversations with like minded friends revealed some of them knew of it too. Most of the folk in my social networks craved a deeper connection to the rhythms of the natural world and to live in harmony with the seasons. Books were recommended and shared, celebratory sessions and gatherings then followed. I felt like I’d found one of the missing pieces to my wellbeing, like being reconnected to an old loyal friend that I had always been in touch with, but had somehow lost the number for.

Since then, much time has passed, and with it, I’ve gained a deeper wisdom in that being able to appreciate the beauty of life all year round, with each of its seasons, is truly a gift. No longer dreading the long winter, but embracing the change and invitation to rest, restore and recalibrate. Instead of endlessly waiting for the working week to be over and wishing my life away, intuitively feeling each energy change as the weeks of life go by, slowing down and living more mindfully. Over the years, the lessons, metaphors and teachings that nature has effortlessly offered, have lifted the darker clouds and anxious thoughts that used to dominate my skyline.

It has been a returning, a reminder that we too are nature, and it is our disconnection from it, that is the source of most unease.

I hope to share that feeling of slowing down, reflecting, appreciating and embracing the wonder of life’s seasons here with you, so that you may be inspired on your own journey, of returning to Nature’s Open Arms.

Thank you for walking with me.

Tracey-Anne x