Flora Bowley - The Art of Aliveness: A Creative Return to What Matters Most

Copyright 2021 by Flora Bowley

All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this work
in any form whatsoever, without permission in writing from the
publisher, except for brief passages in connection with a review.

Cover design by Laura Beers
Cover art by Flora Bowley
Cover photo by Zippy Lomax
Print book interior design by Frame25 Productions

Hierophant Publishing
8301 Broadway, Suite 219
San Antonio, TX 78209
www.hierophantpublishing.com

If you are unable to order this book from your local bookseller,
you may order directly from the publisher.

Library of Congress Control Number: 2020951267

ISBN: 978-1-950253-10-4

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

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To my grandparents, Max and Arlene,
for coloring outside the lines.

In March 2016, my fianc John died in my arms.

It was one of the most horrifying and gorgeous experiences of my life.

I didn't truly recognize the gorgeousness until some years later, when I realized that in the moment of his physical departure and in all the time since, I felt and feel such incredible love as a result of having known and loved him.

I am still learning so much about creating love and letting love be created through me. John's love for me opened my heart completely and allowed a new love partner to find me.

Perhaps you have also experienced horrifying loss or grief in your life. Most of us know this kind of horror in some form. Maybe an experience like this has never felt gorgeous to you.

In my experience, horrifying and gorgeous go togetherthat's how it works for me. That's my way of being present and alchemizing the wonderfull and terrible thingsfrom the light to dark and all the places in between.

I believe that when we can welcome life and all it offers us, we can choose to meet it with our full selves and hearts and invite a transformation to take place inside of us.

This is the best way I know to be the most alive, most full, and most love-activated human being I can be. There's a kind of art to living in this way, and deathas it turns outis also an experience of aliveness.

Flora Bowley calls this the Art of Aliveness.

This book is a kind of treasure map. The treasure itself is a beautifull precious mystery: aliveness itself.

Painting, writing, living, loving... there's an art to all of it, and it all takes considerable practice.

You have to keep doing it, again and again, experimenting to find out what works and what doesn'tand then keep going. This book is full of ways to practice the art of aliveness, ways to feel your own aliveness with your own inner treasure map.

And just as in any good treasure hunt, there will be obstacles.

There's the gigantic sea monster representing your inner criticsspewing out frothy proclamations of fear and regret. There's a siren song that numbs your senses and puts you to sleep while your little lifeboat drifts off course. And there are the very rocky shores of low self-esteem and overwhelm, and the thick undergrowths of conformity and anxiety.

But in the midst of all of this, you have a magnificent superpower.

It's called creativity.

This is the fuel for your exploration of aliveness and for all the times you don't feel like exploring at all.

Creativity and its partner imagination flow brightly through these pages. This book is full of inspiration to bring your own kind of magic to each momentto inspire your own curiosity and desire for play and make more alive choices.

The obstacles won't go away, and that's okay. After all, surviving obstacles brings you an awareness and strength you wouldn't know otherwise. In your practice of aliveness, you begin to notice the voices of your inner critics when they arise sooner, and you learn to meet them with love and patience. You accept and learn to understand the ebbs and flows of your energies and allow the beauty and the pain that live side by side in each moment.

Throughout it all, each of us has this creative superpowerand every one of us has the magnificent opportunity to be an artist of life.

In my own life, I use and have used the power of creativity to transform the obstacles in my life. I'm a survivor of childhood incest, I've lived in poverty, and I've suffered with anxiety and addictions. I've blocked my own creative gifts and hidden from sharing them for many years.

None of these past experiences describe or define my current life, and the catalyst for the transformations I have experienced has always been a willingness to go within, embrace all that I find, and respond creatively with my full heart. I live and practice my aliveness in the marvelous messy middle, with all the successes and challenges and everything in between.

I believe that experimenting in these ways has allowed me to transform almost any situation or feeling, no matter what changes or losses have occurredand I'm all-ways practicing.

We live in terrifying and magical times, and we can sometimes feel depleted, assaulted, or underwater. Yet we yearn for connection, for magic, for imagination in action. How can we even begin to feel truly alive in times like these? Is it possible? What's missing from our lives? What have we forgotten?

I believe that we must reignite the power of our creative spark.

What sparks you is what wakes you.

What wakes you is what replenishes your energy.

And this process is what brings you alive.

I met Flora in person the same year that John died. I had admired her work for years and had contacted her to see whether we might want to create something together.

In our first meeting, she told me that twenty-five years earlier, my work as an artist and author had inspired her to step more confidently onto her own creative path. As I read her luscious book today and create this foreword for it, I am so glad to say that the inspiration has come full circle. We creatively spark each other.

What about you? What creatively sparks you? What dreams and desires have you hidden away from view? What tugs at your soul, aching to be expressed in the world?

What haven't you yet asked for?

Once you discover and connect with your own creative spark, you can use it to transform your life. Your curiosity will lead to new discoveries to share with the world, whether through art or words you create or just in the simple you-ness of you living life.

It's time.

It already happened that you connected with this book. Now all you need to do is accept the invitation in these pages to discover your own aliveness and put it into more practice.

This is the way forward in a world that sometimes feels broken, according to mystic and theologian Howard Thurman. Don't ask what the world needs, he says. Ask what makes you come alive, and go do it. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.

This book and treasuring map will support and inspire you to come alive in new ways and let the world experience those great gifts in your soul.

Love,

SARK (Susan Ariel Rainbow Kennedy)

It is a serious thing just to be alive on
this fresh morning in the broken world.

Mary Oliver