I can’t tell you how many times in my life, I’ve been told either by hint or directly that it was nice that I enjoyed doing art, and wasn’t it about time I get a real job?

I’m here to declare today, “Art IS my real job!” At the center of me is this creative spirit that can’t help but practice art every moment I am alive. Many, many years ago I performed my own ceremony. I dedicated myself, my life, my efforts, all of me, to serving God, Goddess, Spirit, Great Mystery (I use all of those words and more interchangeably because I know my little human brain is incapable of having a complete concept of True Source). When I turn to this source to give me guidance, to use me as an instrument, my little self steps out of the way of God doing His work – His Art. That is my real and only job.

So many times, on the road to coming to this epiphany, this realization of some kind of truth, I have spent many an hour denigrating my creative urge, being judgemental of my natural state of joy, discounting my innate calling to spread beauty.  What was I thinking? Too much, I suspect. Paying far too much attention to the loud voices without, rather than the small still voice within. Now that I have started to flip that around more often than not, I have truly come to realize that this is one of the most important understandings of this journey: art IS my real joy, uh, job!