I really need to thank my workplace for the incredible experience I have had there. It has revealed to me a side of me I wasn't aware existed - the dark side of my moon.

I feel much fuller and richer for the experience. To be consistently bullied over a long period of time (I may discuss this in a later entry) and to be so absorbed in such a dysfunctional environment, has taken me to a place in me that I didn't know about.

This place inside me has been there all along. My work environment is simply a reflection of aspects of myself thrown back at me to enable me to experience the fullness of myself.

It has made me more aware of myself and the impact that words and actions can and have had on me. I would not have had this awareness and understanding had I not had this experience.

I have spend the last year of my two and a half year employment at this organisation observing myself and others and our interactions. I have gone from being someone who speaks her mind to being someone who seldom says what she really thinks to the people that matter.

Fear and lack of confidence have stopped me in my tracks. I have felt impotent, worthless, invisible, incompetent and without purpose.

More latterly with the return of my sense of self-esteem there is something else that has stopped me also - my raised awareness, my desire to observe with as little interference as possible from my obvious self (the one who would speak out and stand up and be counted).

I am, therefore, very grateful for the experience of working there. I now have a greater awareness, understanding, empathy and compassion than I was ever aware of before. Again these aspects of me were always there. They just needed to be revealed to me in a way that made me appreciate them.

The richness, this experience has added to my life, is far greater than any pay rise could have been.

I am now stepping into the light away from the dark side of my moon with the knowledge that it is still there, still a part of me. It is part of what make me whole.

My appreciation of the light is enormous!

I quit my job recently. I had a straw that broke the camel's back moment. It was very trivial and was blown all out of proportion by everyone concerned, including me. I figured it was symptomatic of a greater issue.

In my job I have felt like a square peg in a round hole and for a long time I have been trying to knock the corners off my square peg to make me fit -but it doesn't matter how hard I try I just don't . I think, maybe, it is time to be me and find work that allows me to be me. My resignation, takes effect from the 2nd April. I have to give two months notice so I have plenty of time to think about my actions and contemplate my future. I have to say I feel much lighter. It was definitely the right thing to do. I feel like me again. It is a great feeling. I feel free.
I took two weeks off to work on the house. I am going to sell the house and move somewhere cheaper to live so I don't have a huge mortgage. William, my partner, and I are finally going to take the plunge and buy a house together. (This is a big step. Hopefully we will be able to find something mortgage free. Then we can get part-time jobs and both follow our interests. We are looking at somewhere in or around Wanganui.

There is a great art school in Wanganui! Yes, I am going to pursue my art and see where it takes me. I have put it off for long enough. I would much rather live my life feeling the way I do now, light and free, than live it feeling the way I did at work, heavy and tied down.

I knew I wasn't happy at work but I didn't realise how much I hated my work environment. It is amazing how we condition ourselves to cope with something that doesn't feel right.

It has been a while since I last posted an entry here. When I first started this blog I thought I might use it to combine my two main interests in life, namely spirituality and art. Since both of these interests have arisen out of my search for peace it made sense to me to call my blog "In search of serenity".

Unfortunately my interests don't share an equal space in my life beyond work at the moment. I spend a lot of time focussing on my spirituality but very little time focussing on my art. I am a tad out of balance. Looking from the outside in, you might think that one would inspire the other. This doesn't seem to be the case. Through my spiritual work I see many things and if it were as simple as the click of a camera and the image would be reproduced I would have many more works of art than I do now.

These images would be punctuated with bright colours, more vibrant and electric than any colours I have seen in this life. They would show energy in its raw state, mountains higher than the tallest peak on earth, teeming with life greener than the lush green rain forests, skies richer and bluer than the big skies of New Zealand. They would depict a space deeper and more vast yet closer than the starry skies we see on a clear night. This is the reality of the world I see through my spiritual lens.

In this reality time has no meaning, small details of everyday life seem petty and irrelevant. An overwhelming sense of calm and peace are the only feelings I have. It is a feeling of being at one with all things. When viewed from this perspective I know what serenity is. It is an all encompassing sense of well-being that pervades everything, all that I am, all that I ever have been and all that I ever will be. It is a feeling of peace so infinite that nothing else matters. With it comes an empowering sense of freedom that temporarily releases me from the shackles of this life. This is not unlike the feeling I get when I lose myself in the moment of creating a work of art.

So why don't I paint these images? Is it really that I don't have the time or the mental headspace to paint or are these just excuses for my own fear of not being able to re-create the beauty and the energy of the images I see in my mind?

Blog World: A maze of information

Today is ANZAC day(Tuesday 25th April 2006 in NZ). It has been raining all day - A good day to snuggle up in front of the fire with a good book. Instead I have spent most of the day meandering through the maze of blog sites. This is a world I was totally unaware of until recently when my colleague, Marica Sevelj (herself an ardent and passionate blogger), showed me the way.

When I first began my blog journey I was daunted by where to begin but with a little encouragement from Marica I soon got started and I began to enjoy myself. I was quite excited by the prospect of taking my first steps into blog world.

With my own blog set up, I began my first entry...OK...mmm...? What do I write about? Who will read it? Do I write for an unknown audience or do I write for me? Do I write an online journal or do I keep it impersonal and educational? Do I use it as a gallery for my paintings? So many questions.

With all these questions going round in my head I thought it would be a good idea to just have a go at getting something up there. So my first postings are a combination of journal and gallery - just to test the waters and get myself started. I ignored the questions.

This morning I logged on to add another posting and all the questions came flooding back and some. So where to from here? I went back to Marica's blog, made some comments on her last entry then followed some of her links. In and out of sites, following links, going back, changing direction, following more links on and on I went until 6hrs later here I am still glued to the computer with a numb bum and a wealth of freshly digested information that has liquified in my brain.

This maze of information is deceptive. It is not until you take your first steps that you realise how vast and varied it is. Like a rabbit stunned by headlights, there comes a moment on this journey when you stop in your tracks dazzled by all the options not knowing which way to go. That is when you look at the clock and realise just how long you have been lost in this maze.

I love mazes and puzzles. I always have ever since I was a young girl living in England. Instead of the English garden hedge mazes I have replaced them for the virtual maze of Blog World!

One last question: There is a restful quality about navigating hedge mazes, something to do with being at one with nature but will I find serenity in blog world?

Finding serentiy in creativity


There have been times in my life when I have found art the only way for me to find serenity. At these times I seem to give myself the time and the headspace to allow my creativity to flow. Unfortunately it seems to take a personal crisis for me allow myself this luxury. Like a volcano my creativity errupts with a burst of energy and beauty that is awesome and dramatic - a cry for help, release or even freedom coming from deep within my soul.








This picture is the first in a series of three pastel drawings I did at a time when my world was in turmoil. There is little colour in the first image and most of the face is hiding. I was feeling very depressed (though I didn't realise this until later). I was out of work at a time when mortgage rates were over 13% and I was looking after my sister who had experienced a nervous breakdown. Much later she was diagnosed with schizophrenia.

The second image has a little more colour and more daring. I created these drawings 12 years ago when I attended an evening class with my sister to help her heal. I didn't realise it then but this art class helped me to heal too. Having these images to look back on helped me see the healing I went through during this time.

The third image, my favourite, is very bright and colourful and the face is open and smiling. Within weeks of completing this third image I received three job offers in as many days.

The healing power of creativity should never be underestimated. No matter what the finished product looks like or the medium used, it is the process, allowing the freeing of the soul, that does the healing. Creativity at these times becomes an outward expression of our inner most feelings, our deepest thoughts and our soul's desire - the freedom to be

If serentiy is so easy to find why do I find it so elusive?

Serenity is a place of inner peace and beauty - A place of quiet calm and peaceful tranquility. If it were a colour it would be blue like the ocean. If it were a place in my outer world it would be a point on the horizon where the sea meets the sky on a beautiful summer's day.