Last year at this time, I was standing at a journey’s beginning, taking deep breath after deep breath, and contending with doubts, “Can I do this? Can I uphold the integrity of the oracle so beautifully brought to life by the authors? I can think of several other mama artists who could do this better. Is it even possible in just 4 months while being a mama?” I knew I wanted to. I had been asking the universe for a project that would inspire me in a deeper way. I’d also been calling out for guidance and support on my path of mothering. But fears can be kinda loud.

I was staring at 52 blank rectangles, an empty map of what would be The Mother’s Wisdom Deck. I paged through drafts of Niki and Elizabeth’s card passages and came to Turtle – Grounding. The passage concludes with Turtle advising: “a time-honored way of coming back to earth: lie facedown with arms extended above your head. Make sure your forehead, knees, and hands are touching the ground. This is a full bow, a prostration to the powers above. In this supplication, you lower yourself before infinite Mystery and, in turn, come closer to your basic nature.”

Almost exactly ten years ago, after driving all night, I stepped outside of my car into a frigid, New Mexico mountain landscape, just five minutes walk from our home now. The sun was still on its ascent on the other side of the Sangres. Patrick led me down a snow-covered road lined with vertical blue, white, red, green and golden prayer flags. At the end was a white, wedding cake shaped shrine. Yes, it was my first visit to a Buddhist Stupa — what my daughter lovingly now calls, “Buddha’s house”. Two golden dear sat still and awake on either side of a peaceful Buddha. Goosebumps rose up on my already freezing body — the kind of chill when you are so overtaken with beauty and a sense of “wow”. I watched Patrick kneel on the freshly shoveled flagstone and a ghost-like breath rise out of his mouth. He lay on his stomach, facedown with his hands in prayer, reaching over his head. Aside from photographs in distant lands, I had never seen anyone do this before. My response surprised me. Feeling so much gratitude for that place I was right then and there, and the friend I was with, I dipped into my first full body prostration. I really wanted to throw myself down to the ground, but I am timid. I remember at first wondering, is this ok? I’m not Buddhist. And I distinctly remember the calm and grace I felt lying on the frozen stone before “infinite Mystery”. I didn’t want to get up. I went empty and prayed, and the sun spilled over the mountains.

Remembering that winter morning, I knew the only way I could trust that I could paint these cards –and begin this journey– was to get out of my head, out of my ego, and into my heart. To focus on “why” this project is so important to us: honoring motherhood as a spiritual practice. I lay in my studio in full prostration on a child-like rug of yellow and pink flowers. I felt anchored and prayed for intuition, endurance, clarity, and wisdom. Or maybe I pleaded. :) Either way, I feel like guidance presented herself.

**To clarify, I positioned the woman on the turtle to form the five points of the mandala within the turtle’s shell (vs. full prostration when you lie face down in a straight line — legs together and arms together over your head in prayer/Namaste position.

I realize until now, I haven’t shared much of this pilgrimage here. It was a test of endurance. I learned to hone my intuition, reach out to my community, and surrender. When I was painting, Tulsi often reminded me of what was most important asking, “Mama, first tea party, then you paint, ok?” and “Please Mama, you hold me like Haumea holds her baby?”

Mothering is the most amazing dance I’ve ever danced, and I pray these images convey that spirit, beauty and love. I did my best to “get out of the way” and let the images come through me. Of course, this I am still learning. :)

A little background on the deck…The idea first came to Niki Dewart in 2009 while she was out on a rare solo walk in the woods. She envisioned an oracle deck that would speak directly to mothers, an oracle bearing and bonding, nursing and nudging, surrendering and serendipity. She then invited Elizabeth Marglin to create with her, and soon after that, they invited me to offer visual interpretations. And although the deck doesn’t make its official debut until May 1st (for Mother’s Day), I just received my first sample and had to share! :)

You can pre-order it through your local bookstore or here. **If you live near Boulder or Taos, stay tuned for May Launch events where you can purchase the deck and support your local bookstore and midwives!**

I am so grateful for this experience, and now, for the daily meditations. Today, I pulled the card, Intention/Mother Meng. You will learn her story when you have the deck and accompanying book. I loved this quote Niki and Elizabeth chose to include:

Each decision we make, each action we take, is born out of an intention. — Sharon Salzberg

AND, last week, our website+blog, Mothering with Soul, inspired from the deck, came to life. We envision it as a place for mothers around the world to come together, to be real, to support and inspire each other. I know you will love Niki and Elizabeth and appreciate their honesty and spirit. Each week we will pull a card from the deck and use that as our theme. We’ll share whatever thoughts, stories, photos, drawings, and quotes that come into our lives that week as they add meaning to the attribute. We hope you will share your thoughts there, too. Will you join us?

I just created a page “FOR KIDS” (and parents, teachers, big kids…) — it is now in my menu above. I think it’s super fun, and I hope it will inspire young authors and illustrators. At the top is an interactive page with 27 different “clicks” that shares some of my writing & art process and research for Same, Same but Different. Scroll down further and there are videos, postcards, journal entries, and more coming soon… Please share with your kids, their schools, your teacher friends, and let me know what you think. :)

I am not embarrassed to say I had several moments of being emotionally overwhelmed during the night. It was dreamy! I got choked up when they played Tomi Ungerer‘s acceptance video for the Lifetime Achievement Award from his home in France (we are big fans of Mr. Ungerer’s Moon Man and Crictor and more). He is just as charming as his books! Ok, even more. :) Robert McCloskey (another book creator we love) also received the Lifetime Achievement Award, accepted by his daughters. Lane Smith, Kadir Nelson and Rosalyn Schanzer were award winners, too, and WELL deserved! What an honor to be included in this incredibly talented crowd! I was in awe, and of course humbled, and gratefully energized and inspired.

I did not have my camera, only my ipod, and I only managed to snap a handful of pieces. Still, I thought you’d enjoy these and wandering the artists’ websites. Top row: Melissa Sweet: Balloons Over Broadway, Carin Berger: The Green Mother Goose. 2nd Row: Oliver Jeffers: STUCK, William Joyce: The Man in the Moon, David Wiesner: ART&MAX, Calef Brown: His Shoes Were Far Too Tight, Tom Lichtenheld: Cloudette. Bottom Row: me :) from Same, Same but Different and yes, that is me on a subway — so different then the forest! Seeing original book art makes me want to create more books. And to experiment with medium, scale and even create some images with collage alone.

As you can imagine, I want to get ALL the books featured in the show for my library! Ha. Patrick would cut my credit card in half for sure! I did, however, purchase a few, and I am madly in love with them! I highly recommend these:  Melissa Sweet’s Balloons Over Broadway: The True Story of the Puppeteer of Macy’s Parade, Lane Smith’s Grandpa Green, Maurice Sendak’s Bumble Ardy, and Jon Klassen‘s I Want My Hat Back. Really though, if you are interested, GO SEE THE SHOW! AND, check out the list of artists/books featured!

The show is up until the end of the year at the Society of Illustrators in NYC. I think the show is such a gift to the public — not only fellow illustrators, but to kids and parents. To view the book as the art it is, adds a whole new dimension and appreciation to the artist and art form!

Here’s an update:

After the smoke and wild winds left, the bears came. Patrick and I discovered our “roars” and have managed to scare many away (thank goodness, our 17 chickens have survived, too! There were some close calls). Tulsi has been developing her chicken wrangling skills and loves to watch the chicks play tomato soccer — quite a thrilling event on our littl’ homestead!

We have been blessed with another bountiful garden season that is in its most magical-stage right now. Canning season is very near. I am recruiting MY mama again this year.

I have “sorta” taken a photography course with Andrea Scher, only life got in the way of that, too. Still, I have been taking more photos than ever and learning a lot from her course emails. Just looking at the endless photos participants have posted has inspired me and pushed me to think differently when holding a camera. Andrea rocks! I highly recommend her course. This is a photo of Tulsi dancing with peacock feathers in the peacock yard at Baba’s house (the temple).

Other than my family, what has filled my summer mostly, is goddesses and mama-meditations and research and collage and stories and collaboration. I’ve been painting my heart out on an oracle deck, coming your way Spring, 2012! It has been a challenging and beautiful project on many levels that I will share about in the future. I’m nearing the end and looking forward to seeing it come to life AND for a much-deserved, family vacation. Feels like I’ve been running a perpetual marathon. I haven’t painted this much since finishing Same, Same but Different.

And so, the countdown now is 30 days! THIRTY days until my new book is released! Whew! And a really exciting thing just happened — I found out Same, Same but Different got into the Original Art Show at the Society of Illustrators in NYC! I am happily in shock and feel so honored :). OK, actually, I cried when I found out because I was in awe reading the list of illustrators who are in the show (you can download it on the show’s link page) — SO many of whom I adore and respect. Eric Carle, Maurice Sendak, Tommy de Paola, Giselle Potter, Calef Brown, David Wiesner, to only name a few — really, I could name them ALL. I can’t wait to see their art in person in NYC in October and visit with my editor and friends. I know it will inspire me like crazy.

I will be posting a schedule soon of book events this Fall in NM, Colorado and the Midwest, so stay tuned.  I hope to see some of you who live in those cities!

Hope your summer has been beautiful!

The bottom photo was taken by Colin Dullaghan back in October, 2010 — paradise on a clear, Fall day! The top photo was from last week.

Ahhh, it’s been awhile. There is a big fire in New Mexico, about an hour and a half south of us, and the winds have filled our valley with smoke. So many people and animals have been affected, as well as sacred sites. We are in such a drought. The sky wants to rain so badly, the clouds drum and echo their music across the mesa, but their rain evaporates before ever touching the earth…there are some 10-second sprinkles that Tulsi and I were lucky to dance in, naked. Yeah, that is the cool thing about living in the mountains on private land with few “surprise” visits from neighbors.

The smoke was so thick last week that we packed up and headed north to higher ground, good friends and barefoot picnics in the grass. One surprising and comforting thing was the answer to the question, “If our house burns down, what would we want to take with us?” Our answer as we looked around our house, very little.

I’m also in the THICK with my card deck project and was kinda exhausted, so a forced, otherwise impossible spontaneous roadtrip, was re-energizing. And the “distance” was just what I needed to gain perspective. I’m pretty happy about it so far and am having fun. This deck is a “dream job” in a lot of ways. I love the project and there is no art direction. This is rare — nearly unheard of in the publishing world. It feels both empowering (to be trusted) and scary (to have such a wide open sky). Although I wish I had more time, I see how I’m being “pushed” and am growing a lot from creating a large number of pieces in such a short amount of time. And, it is fun how inspiration (for other projects) seems to pour like monsoons when I am painting this much. A little glimpse…

I’ll post a garden update soon! Every year is different and full of curve balls and new learning. As for Tulsi, I love that she loves the garden and chickens and dirt as much as ever.

Unlike some tales I’ve heard of children’s book authors who woke up from a dream in urgency to scribble down a story appearing to be a gift from the beyond, I had to travel to the other side of the world 3 times to find this book. The first time, I found only the title. The second time, I found the experience. And the third time, I found the content and research.

In 2000, eleven years ago, my friend Maria and I wandered around SE Asia for a month, and I jotted down a saying, “Same, Same but Different” that we heard in Thailand. My favorite part of the trip was playing with kids in a remote village in Northern Thailand  — which inspired me to return.

In 2002, I traveled to Nepal to volunteer at a school. I lived with a family of 14. Everything seemed SO so foreign to me, and I LOVED that. On the second day with my family, I was given a bucket of cold water and soap. Hmmm…did she want me to clean?

“Bucket shower,” she said. “Same, same but different.” There was that saying again…

I had been collecting M. Sasek’s “This is…” book series and had a secret daydream of picking up where he left off. I doodled ideas for “This is Nepal” in my sketchbook. I knew I wanted to make books from my travels.

I feel like it took me a while to find my way at the school — what did I have to share? I wasn’t an English teacher or a musician (like the amazing previous volunteer I heard so many stories of). So for awhile, we simply played and became friends with each other. We became a beautiful part of each other’s worlds.

After observing an art class with twenty 4th graders copying Mickey Mouse in their notebooks that the teacher had drawn on the blackboard, I decided to ‘play’ art with them every day, all day. The school building was dark. The rooms were small and cramped. There were even rats the size of obese American cats lurking in the playground corners. So we went on walks everyday to draw temples, people, chickens, cows, mountains, Buddhas, flowers, and more. We painted self-portraits and each other. We painted a 60 ft long mural in the playground. The school was buzzing with art. I emailed my friends back home and asked them to send postcards of their lives in America. Soon, photos and drawings of landscapes, families, pets, art, schools, food, gardens and cowboys showed up with messages to the kids. I thought Same, Same but Different could be a fun idea for a children’s book. When I was back in Kansas City, we had an art show of the students’ art sharing all about their country and culture.

Four years went by, and I kept in touch with my ‘new’ family in Nepal. Patrick and I decided to visit them and travel in India for several months on another book project. I also planned on writing a story to go with the title, Same, Same but Different, which was still in my list of books to write. And I could draw and shoot photo references for the book! So away we went. And what a FULL ride it was. Everyone who knows me or reads my blog knows I long to go back again.

After we returned home from traveling, I painted My Travelin’ Eye and let this idea incubate for awhile. Eventually, I began writing. Draft after draft after draft. Some long, some short, some in first person, some in 3rd person, some as a story, some as penpal letters. I tried out different ‘voices’ and names for the two boys while I walked. It took some months and a REALLY simplified version for it to finally sound right. I had shared the basic idea of the book with my editor who seemed to like it.

—>this is one of the many ‘story sketches’ i wrote down in a notebook.

Then I tackled the dummy. The idea called for art with tons of little details, so I knew I’d have to ‘show’ the book, not just have a manuscript. Plus, I knew drawing it would help edit the text and idea. The hardest part was editing out content. I had too much. The most helpful part was layering the edited-out ideas back into the backgrounds of other pages. I drew very rough sketches with my left hand. I didn’t want to get too serious/tight with the imagery yet.

I was so excited to show it to my editor when I finally finished it. Her response in short: I can’t publish it. The ending doesn’t work. She was right, the ending was cliche and weak. So I played with it more and shared the new ending idea with my sister who is an assistant principal of a gradeschool. In talking, she casually threw out one of those, “What if you did this…?” (What would I do without my sister, Patrick and close friends to help??) Within 2 weeks, I reworked the dummy, sent it to my editor, and she loved it. Hooray!

…some rough drawings from my book dummy in no particular order:

My editor said she’d like me to do a square book instead of the horizontal book I had imagined. My editor is the best, so it is easy trusting her. Again, she steered me in the best direction. I looked at some books for composition inspiration and thought about how I wanted to create the illustrations.

When I have visited schools, students have always liked seeing my hand-written drafts and my drawings. They have so many questions about the “how” part. I thought it would be cool to have a sketchbook for working out my drawings, collecting research and inspiration, and experimenting with medium. This could be a good way to show students my process. That was my initial motivation — very quickly, though, it became so useful to me!! I took it everywhere I went and wrote down ideas I didn’t want to forget. I also taped inspiration to my wall — photos with beautiful color combos, color studies, patterns, etc. I gathered lots of fun collage (some from my travels), refined drawings, painted little color comps and started painting. The entire journey is exciting, but painting is my favorite part!

I painted my first book in 4 months, but this one took much longer. I took a few month pause when Tulsi arrived, and then painted with her in my pouch…or on my back…or asleep nearby. I wondered how the stop-and-go would affect the energy of the book, but I know that becoming a mother added a new kind of wonder to the book.

Here are a couple photo references I took in Nepal and India and the finished illustrations.

ONLY 4 months until it’s in bookstores! Yeah! Leave a comment if you’d like to be included in the drawing for a signed copy when the book is released. :)

I recently created this illustration to represent the Birth Center in Taos where Tulsi was born. The midwives wanted something that felt “nurturing, supportive, magical, compassionate, gentle, spirited, mother&baby centered…” and that read as “northern new mexico” — mesa, mountains, desert wildflowers, butterflies, hummingbirds. I think we succeeded! I had fun dreaming this image up with them and am excited to see how they use it (on printed material and product for fund-raising)! And, thanks to my friend Penny for the lettering help!

Our relationship with the midwives has been a pure blessing. They gave us so much love, respect, attention, support, time, information, and the BEST care I could imagine. I have endless respect for ALL they do.

The countdown has begun! :) My next book will be in bookstores in just FIVE months — September 13th. And I just got the go-ahead to share the cover art and 3 interior spreads. WoooHOOOOOO!

The two boys become friends thru the mail…with their drawings and musings…and discover beautiful surprises in their “same, same but different” worlds.

You can pre-order it thru your local, independent bookstore or here with Powell’s Books (soon, i hope), or now on Amazon.com here.

I’ve mentioned before that this book has been an epic journey for me. Beautiful in every way. And epic in the way that journeys can take you to wild places in the world and in your heart that gift you with priceless “aha!” moments over and over. The idea for this book first sprouted when I jumped out of my safe, comfy creative-corporate existence and into the unknown, to the other side of the world, facing nearly all my fears head-on. And, also to simply experience ‘something else’ and to connect with little people. There’s a lot more to the story…wandering, love, another book, a baby, becoming a mother, and more…all nourishing food for the soul, and a book! Thanks to ALL my family and friends for their support with this one, and to you, for your patience. Hope you enjoy the visual glimpses…

OH! And with this countdown, I plan on posting all sorts of fun things about this book — PROCESS, Q&A on how to prepare and present your kid’s book for publishing, classroom skype visits, behind the scenes on the making of this book, a book trailer, and more — on the 13th of every month thru September 13th. I will be giving away 6 signed copies, one name chosen from comments on each of these posts. So stay tuned! And leave a comment below. Today’s comment question: WHERE in the world inspires you most, creatively, and how? (art, writing, cooking, music, fashion, etc.) Please share specifics … I’m working on a travel wish list and want to discover new lands!

I can’t believe I’ve been illustrating for children this long, and this is the FIRST princess piece I’ve ever done. Hee. The commission was to create an “exotic princess” art with a Taj-like building. My client wanted it to have a wood-cut-print sort of feel, like on fabrics from India and the Middle East. As a suggestion, they like it with this beautiful bedding (the Marina Collection). I had a lot of fun carving linoleum stamps and layering the prints over textures and collage. It was such a nice balance between hands-on-playing and digital.

Oopsy Daisy also recently licensed these two pieces for canvas reproductions. So fun! All three canvases are available in my shop. Just click on the images or go to “shop: canvas reproductions”. I love that these canvases are all produced in the US, and they are AMAZING quality. So crisp, and the color is perfectly yummy. I hope you like them!

When we were in India the last time, we collected discarded matchboxes on the roads. There are so many, and it’s sorta like trading cards among travelers. These, along with the countless, amazing retro designs from India’s past (recorded in the beautiful book, LIGHT ON INDIA by Warren Dotz), inspired me to create chai spice icons for our chai book-in-the-making. These are most of them…Tulsi and maybe a couple others are still coming.

One of the best (and most challenging) parts for me with this journey in self-publishing is being my own art director and creating the illustration “jobs” throughout the book. I can’t wait to dive into the recipe section. I LOVE illustrating recipes, and perhaps even more, I LOVE being a taster for all of Patrick’s creative masala chai concoctions! It’s going to be a really yummy winter here…