Sometimes we have to get very quiet and just listen.
Listening to (and learning from) our wild hearts.
Sometimes (more times, probably), we have to get very quiet and just listen. I mean this in a hearing sense, and in a recognition and feeling sense.
I walk early in the morning because it is (marginally) quieter in suburbia. And in summer, it is (marginally) cooler too. I listen. I listen to my joggers on the cement walkways. I listen to the birds waking up or already busy about their day. I listen to my ragged breath after I throw some jogging in the mix. If there is a breeze, I listen to it through the tuckeroo leaves and casuarina needles and eucalypt branches. I listen to the snaps of the magpie teen’s beaks as they chase each other around, a feathered form of catch me if you can. I listen to frogs and cicadas and the whip birds finishing each other's calls.
And I listen to what my body and my heart might be telling me about myself, my health, my wishes and desires, and what I think my purpose is. I have been learning to listen deeper and deeper to this, and it may well be because of that interoceptive practice of listening hard outside myself, that I am starting to listen harder inside myself too.
I am very much an “I want to do all the things” person when I have found something
I am passionate about.
That has been what art has meant to me the last 7 years - I want to do all the things, and yet still there is only so much time in any given day or hour, and all the things are out of reach of this one lifetime. So I am listening, and I am imagining, and I am listening some more. I am getting excited and enraptured, and I know that happens when I am listening in the right way. Listening so that I am taking steps to walk through my life-forest in a way that feels deeply personal, deeply connected, deeply purposeful, deeply playful, deeply compassionate.
Breathe in with me for a moment. Deep and into your belly. Maybe even close your eyes.
It feels good, doesn’t it? Expansive. Grounding.
It is where I am at the moment, in that deep, expansive, grounding breath. Feeling very settled and sure of where I am heading. Feeling calm, creative, and focused. Breathing deeply. And like I said in a line of the information page for The Wild Sketchbook, all between the covers of a sketchbook.
If you have followed my journey for a while, you might know that the first class I released in 2019 was done in a sketchbook. And it took me a while to listen and come back to that home, but releasing The Wild Sketchbook at the end of last year was such an aligned journey. Spending such an intensive seven weeks with such beautiful human beings was a balm I didn’t know I needed so deeply. To honour their curiosity and courage and compassion was profound.
It opened the door for me to create Drawn to Wild which has been incredible, and we are only at the beginning. Those who are joining me on that year-long journey are making such intentional, compassionate, and gentle art that honours our wild family in such a whole-hearted way. I am deeply moved every time someone shares their beautiful work. I get to watch growth and connection happen in those sketches, and it is profound. It is a gathering of wild-hearted artists from all parts of this beautiful planet, and on all different parts of their learning path, it is really just so very lovely.
I listened to some of these beautiful souls, and massaged a from-the-very-beginning course as well, which was such a gentle, unfurling experience for me to create.
To get to sit in beginner's mind with a specific purpose - to celebrate the beginning, which for me was years ago now (and which I wish I had celebrated more at the time). To be very present, to ask our brain and eyes to listen to our heart and give us space and time to see deeply without judgement and preconception. To really see. And then to see deeper again. And deeper again. And practise the seeing and the listening today, tomorrow, forever.
I released Wild Beginnings on Sunday, and since then I have been listening to my own wild-heart. Listening while a part of me is yelling “do all the things!”. I listened so hard sometimes I think I forgot to breathe. Or to think. But I heard my wild-heart eventually, and we danced a little in the internal life-forest a little, and I feel so very calm and centred now, sure and joyful.
Because it was right there the whole time. All between the covers of a sketchbook.
Last year I felt very unsafe. I felt unsure, upset, full of unrest (and grief and despair). But I felt unsafe, a nervous system constantly activated. Between the covers of a sketchbook I found safety.
This year is for safety, for joy, for inspiration, for calm, focused creativity. I have found a beautiful alignment with teaching again, for the first time in a long time. There are at least three more wildlife focused sketch book classes coming this year (all are clamouring to get out of me and into the world) - and together we will build a tiny movement in the creative clearing. One of quiet and calm creativity that honours compassion - for ourselves and for wild beings. We will see the wild together, and we will sing their song so that others can sing along with us. A little supportive, nourishing wild sketchbook ecosystem. In fact, spoiler alert, the next course, coming soon, is See the Wild, focused on the exquisite story behind wildlife eyes, and the connection we make through eye-to-eye contact.
In listening to my deep self, I know I also want my personal work (as well as my private work) to be in sketchbooks this year. This understanding has brought such freedom, and I am so excited to share this yearlong (or maybe longer, who knows?) journey between the covers of a sketchbook.
I have my own art goals, skills I want to grow, and I will take you along for this journey within these portable little galleries. The ideas I have, the thoughts and reference and idea sketches I am gathering are so expansive, and restructuring my business a little to embody the slow and gentle and immersive timbre of this direction has also felt very aligned.
I closed my print shop today, but will open it three or four times this year with all new offerings each time, all new songs of the wild.
Slightly more mature, slightly more wild.
Like me.
This year I turn a half century old, and I am already celebrating the strength and wisdom that has finally taken hold. That I had to grow into. That I had to grow my roots down into. Yes, that meant I had to be undone, unpicked, unravelled to be rewoven the wild way I was meant to be. I am listening. I am listening. I am listening.
And I am walking barefoot on mossy ground, slowly and with purpose. Even when I am walking on cement walkways in joggers. Either way, I am listening to birds and trees and my own breath.
I am listening. And I am holding my hand out hoping you will walk alongside, and listen to the wild with me.
Come join us in Drawn to Wild if our wild kin is calling to you too. Gentle, nurturing, real-time weekly lessons, an hour or less, to create a book of wild in a year.
We will be there waiting for you, when you are ready.
I am listening, Natalie! Been listening to the wild and, thus, my own wild, for years and, in some ways, waiting for you. It's lovely what a gifted artist you are and that it isn't just the drawings, but in the way you write and live. Truly. Something to behold! Thanks for sharing. XO
Beautiful post, thank you. It’s easy to get overwhelmed with ‘all the things’ especially in this digital age of imbibing so much online temptation. I don’t think we’re designed or capable of coping with so much information at our fingertips. It’s good to take a deep breath and become more grounded…I must remind myself of this more often x