Out of the Woods
Trauma, stress, worries, doubt, fear; whatever you want to call it, it all has a knack of shrouding your path, zapping your strength and sometimes immobilising you. None of us are immune to it, and it comes in all shapes and sizes. What might be someone’s worst nightmare will not phase someone else, yet someone else’s stress is someone else’s sticking point. I remember perhaps 15 years ago when I was splitting with a boyfriend. My heart was aching, I was stressed, I couldn’t sleep at night, I was wondering what was going to happen to me, and I walked into work that morning to find my colleague crying.
“What’s wrong?”, I asked tenderly, truly concerned.
“I got a parking ticket”, she blurted out between sobs.
I am not judging, I merely at observed at that point that her concerns were obviously important to her and were having the same effect on her that my heartbreak was having on me.
So 15 years on and yes the darkness still threatens to descend, albeit it in different, sometimes even greater ways. In fact it seems the greater our calling and destiny, the tougher the obstacles we face. Whoever created the phrase “God gives his hardest battles to his strongest soldiers” definitely knows what I am talking about. And yet within the darkness there is hope, there is always hope. I wrote this in my journal a few years ago and it is still current today:
‘At the moment you are deep in the woods. There’s no light, you can’t see the wood for the trees. There’s a pure, white light that surrounds the woods – you know it’s there but you can’t see it or feel it. You keep going. Sometimes the branches tug at you. They cut you, they tear at your clothes, but still you keep going.
One day you see a ray of light through the branches. Its strength and power is so immense it’s all you can focus on. Now you have direction and a guide. You follow the light out of the woods.
The closer to the edge of the woods you get the brighter the light becomes and the stronger you feel. Your power returns as you return to the source and as you return to your higher self. You take a step forward and come home to the pure white light that is God’s love”.
God plants visions in our hearts, not in our eyes, so that when all about us is gloomy and foggy we can still see. How do I know this? Because He has done it to me so many times and the closer I draw towards Him the clearer I ‘see’ my path. It’s tough because you have to learn to block other’s opinions and hold on to that vision when sometimes no one is on your side. It takes strength and tenacity to keep going when you can’t see any results, but that is when you hold on to the knowing in your heart. Just me being and staying in Caithness was based on pure faith – it certainly wasn’t based on having a secure financial base! And being an artist is my calling, as is my writing these blogs for you now, as is my vision for the future.
There’s a reason I am drawn to paint forest scenes, especially a forest with a path leading through it. If you look at these paintings, the path is always light-infused. I paint from my heart, but I paint from experience too. Trust me, when those branches scratch you, smother you and threaten to tear your flesh, go inwards and find God’s guidance in your heart. You’ll find your way out of that dark place – I promise.
Thank you for reading my blog and thank you for joining me on my journey. I am gearing up towards Christmas now and plan to have lots more products for you to purchase so please do watch this space. For now I have added more prints and cards which you can browse here.
https://havenhousehealing.comprints/
Please do remember me in the lead up to Christmas. I put a post on my Facebook page last week, with a request to please, please, please ‘Shop Local’ at Christmas and support artists, makers and local businesses. I asked the question – Do we want more soulless corporations/supermarkets in the world or do we want more people to thrive who actually care about the planet and for other people? We can change the world, we just need to be conscious of where we are spending our money, one spend at a time!
Lots of love, Lisa Weller xx
Inspiring Art from the Heart of the Highlands