Sovereign Reality is the power of life and love. - Moira, age 5
It’s New Year’s Day. We’re all together and being cheered by the constant buzz of the crowd (countless college bowl games to watch, of course). Our friends cancelled their visit, so suddenly I have time to figure out how this #365SovereignReality project will actually take shape.
Fresh off 2014’s #365FeministSelfie project, I’ve dropped many hints about what’s next. I’ve been enamored with the phrase Sovereign Reality for a while because I've known it's more just than my novels in progress. It’s the Bigger Story I must tell.
I haven’t been sure what a 365 project bearing this name would actually look like, but I knew it was exactly what I had to do. Not necessarily a selfie or even a photo each day, but something. #365SovereignReality is an exploration of the concept that has found its way to the core of my life.
The pen is always the surest guide
I pulled out the art supplies because I had a vision. Though I'd been distracted from Jeffrey Davis’s December-long community project, #Quest2015 and preoccupied with the launch of this new website, the Quest prompts that I missed were clearly lodged like stones in my shoes. I could try to walk them off, clearly I'll have to stop the trudge into the new year and take the time to answer each one.
Today I would respond to Sunni Brown is leader of The Doodle Revolution who asks:
How could you make moments of joy a sacred priority in 2015? What forms will such moments take? Doodle, draw, photograph, or write your way into these questions and share your responses.
The champagne was poured into an elegant flute. The flower arrangement from my mentor and healing teacher was place on the Italian tiled table. The Crayola markers and the styrofoam crown and the teething toys weren’t actually gone, but they were outside the camera frame.
I was going to make art and write my way to clarity!
The first attempt, boldly scrawled across the first pages of beloved journal I'd used for half my life (inserting a new sketch book each year or so) was just awful. Not to be deterred, I decided to pull out a special journal I’d been saving for... something. This fresh start would alert the muse that it was time to start manifesting Sovereign Reality on the page.
I'm off to a great start, but then, of course, the baby wakes up. I leave my five year old at the table, her own art supplies mixing with mine.
Some time later, I emerge from the bedroom - feeling victorious that baby girl was asleep again and the magical nectar of the goddess that I happen to make on demand had worked its magic and bought me more doodling time. Husband stops me at the door with “I have to tell you something, but you can’t freak out.”
Because the ideal always has to give way to reality
Visions of a kindergartener at a table full of paint and ink and bubbly alcohol… What had happened to my journal? That still-beautiful book that my folks gave me for high school graduation, that had crisscrossed Europe without ever getting soaked in beer, and that was still my constant companion?
Turns out, she’d written my name across my second, much more successful attempt at creating a Day One worthy #365SovereignReality image.
I’ve been hoping that this yearlong exploration of Sovereign Reality would come with its own measure of grace. So far, I haven’t been disappointed. I calmly asked daughter to make sure she asked before she signed other people’s art work and then turned to husband, “This project is about reality… what’s more real than this?”
Back to drawing side-by-side, Moira was earnestly copying what I’d written. S-o-v… I asked her what she thought it meant. After several minutes, she spoke with quiet assurance as she continued to shape each careful letter:
“Sovereign Reality is the power of life and love.
I could quit this whole project now, satisfied with that answer. Of course, I'll continue throughout 2015 anyway. I will follow my daughter's lead and seek power, life, and love throughout this quest for moments that embody Sovereign Reality.
So, my friend, happy new year. I’d love to have you with me for this new journey. Find me at Google+, over on Facebook, or at Instagram.