Have you picked a word for the year? One that calls you, guides you, stretches you?

Mine for 2024 is “Listening”

When I received it intuitively, I knew it didn’t only mean listening to my inner guidance, to my intuition. I’m pretty good at Listening to those on the vertical plane – to Spirit and my Team of Divine Helpers.

It also means Listening much better to those on the horizontal plane: my fellow humans, my community, whomever I’m face to face with.

Having spent so much time on my own, it’s easy to let those skills go.

Active listening is definitely a skill that can be practiced. I used to teach it at university to my English Second Language students.

But it’s more than a skill. It’s a natural outcome of having an open heart – of caring, of loving, of compassion. It’s also the result of being fully present in the here & now. 

I know I’ll be getting a lot of Listening practice on both the vertical and horizontal plane while living in intentional community this March & April at Ananda Village in California. As part of the Karma Yoga program, I’ll not only be listening to my fellow volunteers and our leaders, but to all the guests who we’ll be serving.

I can be pretty goal oriented and, when I am, can forget to Listen – inside & out. That’s why I chose “Listening” as my word for 2024.

What’s yours?

It’s been a year and a half since I added to the Love Oracle series. Here’s #24 with paintings created since. To revisit previous ones, access the index here.

Listen to your heart as to which of the 3 paintings at the top of the page most speaks to you today (on all levels).

Then scroll below to read its message, asking your Team of Divine Helpers and Higher Self how you can translate that message into inspired action in your life.

*** Note: 27 of my paintings have found a new temporary home as I prepare to leave the country for a few months of karma yoga. Thank you to Una Keenan of Boathouse Wellness at Quidi Vidi Lake in St. John’s NL for welcoming my energy-infused paintings into your gorgeous space.

Recently opened, Boathouse Wellness includes a rental yoga studio, so whether you’re coming to see one of the therapists on site or to do a little stretching or dancing, enjoy!

Original paintings will continue to be sold through my online shop while I am out of the country. If you’re interested in a payment plan, please contact me before Valentine’s Day.

Dear Beloved,

Listen in. Focus on the voice of your heart.

Fine tune your hearing to let go of the ego shouts of “coulda, woulda, shoulda”.

It’s only once you discern the whispers of your soul under all the exclamations of fear and resistance in your life that you can set yourself free.

Are the people, places, activities, etc. that you choose to spend time with/in/doing filling your inner and outer space with aggravating noise, or do they help you zone in on the soulful song of love that is forever humming at your very core?

Do one thing today to help you Listen more care-fully to your Truth.

Reduce the cacophony of peer pressure, self-limitations, doubts and judgment (yours and that of others).

Hear your heart. Soar on the wings of inner peace that naturally grow from living in alignment with your True Self.

Painting: In Myself I Am Free (18″ x 24″)  Professional acrylics & channeled energy work on gallery-wrapped canvas with painted edges. No framing required. CAD $1,297. Buy it here.  More on it here…

Dear Beloved,

Stop. Step back to admire all the fruit that have abundantly filled your life – the fruit that came from growing such deep roots. 

You did that. Through intention, hard work, following your bliss, perseverance and patience, you have become a most beautiful thriving garden. And through all the lessons learned, you have become a most expert gardener.

But do you hear a call? When you pause, take a deep breath, are grateful for all you are and all you have, you just might hear an invitation to take a break from all the toil. What is that invitation to?

What does your soil truly need to ensure your garden continues to thrive?

Is this truly the time to get your hands deeper in the dirt, to water the roots, or to climb up a ladder to pick the fruit?

Or is it time to let the land rest, to grow new sprouts, to notice what is budding, flowering, and ripening?

There is a season for everything. Listen in. What season is it for you and your garden right now?

Painting: Vive la Vida (30″ x 30″)  Professional acrylics & channeled energy work on gallery-wrapped canvas with painted edges. No framing required. CAD $3,177. Buy it here.  Order prints here.   More on it here…

Dear Beloved,

What have you stopped hearing?

Is it the prayers or affirmations you recite by rote? Have the words lost meaning, vibration?

Is it the voice of your loved ones because you’re too stressed to truly hear the meaning behind their words?

Is it the signals your body has been giving you to propel you to care for it or to seek care for it in ways that are aligned with wellness?

How about the taps on your shoulder from your Team of Divine Helpers as they place events, people, signs, and synchronicities in your days to guide you in an answer to your calls for help?

When there is so much static on the lines of communication – anxiety, fear, depression, boredom – it becomes hard to hear … to truly hear.

So ask your heart: “Where can I become a more active listener? What am I too hurried to notice? Who is feeling unheard in my life?” It could even be you.

Then call on your Team of Divine Helpers, Angels & Archangels, Ascended Masters like Buddha, Jesus, Mary Magdalene, Mother Mary, or whomever you feel connected to. Call on them to show you the way on your Path to your Highest Good.

Then become hyper-aware of what presents itself as you truly Listen for their answer. It may not happen immediately or how you would imagine it could. But if you’ve asked, know that the answers will come. Keep Listening through all your channels.

When you hear the Guidance, take inspired action. Trust. From baby steps to leaps of faith, you’ll find yourself back on track to hearing clearly.

Painting: I Saw the Lord in a Vision (Mary Magdalene) (12″ x 24″)  Professional acrylics & channeled energy work on gallery-wrapped canvas with painted edges. No framing required. CAD $867. Buy it here.  More on it here….

The Labyrinth Drum – SOLD

“Follow your bliss” – such wise advice by Joseph Campbell and what this drum embodies.

As we approach Solstice, Christmas and the end of 2023, it’s the perfect time to journey within your inner landscape, following the arrow of your intuition to reflect, step by step, on your Path: the one that brought you here & now, and the one that is opening up to you the more you align to your True Self, to your Highest Good.

What is the essence of the 2024 you’re manifesting with every step you take?

I co-created this drum with Spirit while celebrating my year’s journey into Self, community, and the world (including my visit to Chartres in the Spring of 2023 to walk its labyrinth, reproduced here).

It was painted in the same time period as my leading the Holiday Spirit Circle, which has raised my vibration to new levels. I’d said Yes! to Spirit after receiving its Guidance – an answer to a prayer that has done so much more than stretch my technology comfort zones with my first online program. This profound morning ritual of sharing, channelling, and holding space for its participants has filled my heart and soul to overflowing.

The Labyrinth Drum was created in that space of love and gratitude while spending a few days in creative bliss: painting, listening to an audio book by Saint Teresa of Avila, chanting & praying.

Painting this drum was a gift I gave myself and is now a gift I offer to you. 

You might enjoy the short video above, the story it inspired here, or the inspired action it has led you to take so that you too can follow your bliss.

Chanting and drumming are truly bliss boosters. They help open the throat chakra (the energy centre within your subtle energy body that regulates expressing your Truth). This chakra is also the chimney that allows your energy to flow from the heart to your third eye (intuition) & crown chakra (enlightenment).

Paramahansa Yogananda (author of Autobiography of a Yogi , the guru for the Ananda Ashram I went to in Italy this summer) used to say that chanting is half the battle on the path to self-realization. It can open you up to the bliss of this style of meditation, of devotion.

My drum and I attended the St. John’s Sacred Sound song circle the night before writing this post – and I’m still vibrating from it. I truly recommend you give chanting a try.

Is joining a devotional song circle something you’re inspired to plan & schedule for 2024?

The Labyrinth Drum (SOLD) is a one-of-a-kind hand-painted drum infused with so much love, energy, and symbolism. Can you feel it?

As you journey with the peace dove to the centre of the labyrinth, you gather what you most need.

Feel its beat as you journey towards and pause at your centre, with gratitude. Then carry whatever peace, wisdom, inspiration you gathered during your walk inwards back out into your daily life.

The lapis lazuli stone acts as an arrow and support on the path to the labyrinth. Its energy assists in opening the third eye – centre of wisdom and intuition.  This stone also helps you discover your inner truth,  leads to peace of mind and calmness in body.

The stone is embedded in mica, which radiates the energy of love & compassion.

The peace dove also symbolizes freedom, expression, a rising of vibration and Spirit.

The golden dragonflies on the outer rim and frame help remind you to look and live beyond the illusions and delusions of this life as you more fully emerge as your True Self on this transformational journey.

The sound of Labyrinth Drum is deep and rich. It’s a 16″ Remo vegan buffalo drum.

The Remo Standard Buffalo Drum is inspired by the indigenous cultures of the Americas. Equipped with a rope handle and a single mallet. The Remo Standard Buffalo Drum is manufactured with Remo’s Fiberskyn® drumheads and patented Acousticon® drum shells for enhanced durability in any environment. Producing the same tonal characteristics found on traditional wood shell drums, the standard Buffalo Drums feature excellent projection and enhanced low-pitched fundamentals.

Happy Solstice & Merry Christmas dear one. May whatever your inner & outer experiences be this holiday season, may they nourish your transformational journey.

You are an individualized expression of the Divine! May every step you take be a part of that re-membering.

The layers of paint and process behind what you see above are many. I’m choosing to share this story to illustrate the powerful transformative powers of creativity – in my case, intuitive painting.

It’s a story of letting go of the layers of “shoulda woulda coulda” that keep us stuck doing & being in ways that aren’t aligned with our Higher Selves.

In 2 weeks, I’ll be sharing an interview that goes deeper into the parallels of intuitive painting & intuitive living. You’ll get so much more out of that video after reading this story.

Today, my hope is to inspire you to find a creative outlet to process whatever it is that arises in your life for your inner peace, your inner freedom, and therefore for the good of all.

It could be gardening, song-writing, poetry, painting, pottery, puzzle design … anything.

I hadn’t painted on canvas since before my sabbatical in Europe. My focus and passion had been directed to painting drums.

The time was approaching, however, for submissions to our annual provincial Arts & Letters Awards. I won this award with its accompanying cash prize & prestigious place in an exhibition back in 2019 with the painting “Every Dot a Prayer“.

At that time, I’d been Guided to spend 11 months co-creating the Re-Connection Collection of 11 canvases. It was a deeply personal project that later became the focus of 11 Reconnect to Your True Self video lessons. These give others the chance to benefit from what my Team of Divine Helpers had guided me through.

That year, I had no problem going deep in the co-creation process and keeping the painting off social media and the Internet for 5-6 months until the jurying results were revealed. This was a criteria for submission. I was following inspiration. Submitting the painting to the competition was part of that intuitive flow.

Last year, I didn’t feel as comfortable keeping my submission hidden for almost half a year. I couldn’t quite identify why, but it didn’t feel good.

This year, I started this painting with the goal of submitting it to the competition and hopefully winning a cash prize. Bills had been unusually high after my sabbatical and income unusually low.

My only purpose (on the initial start day) was to paint to win … already, not a good feeling. And not pretty to admit … but it’s true.

I started painting in layers of warm and cool mark-making like I teach in my free Guide to Intuitive Painting.

It didn’t take long to get into the flow – to be blissfully thankful that I’d set aside a big block of time for this painting marathon. 

Visions came and were translated onto the canvas. The face in the painting above is but one of many of various genders, ages & races that covered the canvas at one point.

As the hours and days passed, however, the initial feelings of oneness, connection and community that inspired the imagery transformed into the uncomfortable realm of societal pressure, limitations & judgment.

Timing is everything when engaged in an intuitive process. Everything that comes into your space has meaning. 

During the initial days that I worked on this painting, I received many email notices of grant submission deadlines, competition deadlines, corporate & government art application deadlines.

These are all ways that many professional artists rely on for funding their passion. But none of these emails received an instant strong intuitive”Yes!”.

So why was I feeling a mounting sense of overwhelm? My left brain had kicked in big time with layers of “shoulds” and “coulds” – all related to money. 

To add to my bubbling anxiety, the email I’d been expecting for weeks with the results of a Fall school project proposal still hadn’t come in.

Painting helped alleviate the stress build-up. It kept me focused in the observer mode – contemplating what was being revealed in the mirror that was my painting.

I was face to face with questions that called for deeper reflection.

At one point, about 30 hours in, I simply had to stop painting. 

Some may have said that the piece looked complete.

There was 1 face left with many swirls giving it a sense of forward momentum. And, of course, thousands of dots, each one a prayer and an opening to Divine Energy and Guidance.

What the painting told me was that I needed breathing space. So I took it. I didn’t touch it for a week.

To the outside world, it may have looked like I wasn’t doing anything. I spent my days either in stillness or watching movies (my decompression & escape tool).

But that “week off” was all part of the process – once I was able to let go of additional layers of “shoulds” and “coulds”about “not working” that week. Accepting that meant accepting myself as I was.

I chose to let the deadlines (and therefore funding opportunities) pass. And what I felt was relief. 

Was that sabotage or alignment?

I really had to question that. I’m not one to shy away from hard work. Every application can take 15 hours or more. I’ve done it many times before.

Was I going into a “why bother?” mode because I hadn’t succeeded in the past?

Something deeper wanted to emerge. A deeper truth.

Here are some of the conclusions I came to in my discussions with Spirit:

• For me to be in alignment, money can’t be my primary motive to create.
• Forcing project ideas into being simply to take advantage of grant opportunities won’t work for me. The inspiration for a project must come first. If the timing doesn’t work with grant deadlines, then support will come through other channels.
• Keeping this painting a secret for half a year only to have it be judged as worthy or unworthy didn’t feel right.
• I never got the Fall school tour project because it wasn’t in my Highest Good this year. Sending yet another email to ask for news of their decision could put that unknown to rest.
• Even though I’d been waiting for a particular art acquisition project for 10 years, the way it was articulated and its technical criteria didn’t fit with what I have to offer. I had to let go of expectations instead of trying to fit my square peg into a round hole.

My sense of relief at letting all those “dead”lines go was a sure indicator that my decisions were in alignment.

The layers of awareness and decisions that came from this contemplative process only led to more layers of questioning. It’s just like intuitive painting – one layer after another until if feels complete.

If I wasn’t going to take advantage of the many available sources of funding for professional artists, what do I need to do?

• Was it time to quit painting for anyone else but myself?
• Was this the end of DominiqueHurley.com and all my social media?
• Did I need to go back out there after 10 years to look for a job?
• How can I be of service if the energy flow in my art & intuitive services was so low?
• What needed to change in me or my life for this next chapter to be fruitful and fulfilling?

I could have easily spiralled downwards had I gotten stuck in the thinking realm about all this.

Instead, I returned to the studio for the first time in a week to stare at my painting while dancing on my mini-trampoline. I asked. I prayed. I listened.

I started journaling for the first time in a long time. Instead of my notebook, I used both sides of a large sheet of sketching paper.

By the time I’d finished processing my past week, I felt free! 

I was 100% sure my decisions weren’t the result of self-sabotage but rather staying in alignment with my inner guidance.

Resisting that inner guidance with the layers of “shoulda woulda coulda” is what had caused the angst. 

A vision of a peace dove appeared, which I sketched on top of the writing on my journal page. I then cut it out to make the stencil for the dove you see in this painting.

A few hours later, the painting was complete.

My faith in my Guidance and my Path had also been restored. 

And soon after that, I was given a job … by Spirit – to lead the Holiday Spirit Circle online from December 1-January 1st. It’s not too late to join.

Its purpose it to help you get back into alignment while following Spirit’s leadership so that we may all (me included) end this year in the Highest Vibration possible and start the new one in alignment with our Highest Good. If any part of you says, “That’s for me!”, please take inspired action here.

As soon as I said “Yes!” to Spirit’s job offer, the energy started flowing into motion again in many forms. I just had to take out the dam (spelling intentional) “shoulds” & “coulds”.

Now you know why it’s difficult to answer that common question: “How long did it take to make this painting?”

Sure, there was about 50 hours of painting. But do I add the whole week of transmuting, processing, transforming the layers of inner questioning and patterns that were revealed before adding the final peace dove?

So really, the best answer I can come up with is: “A lifetime!” to include all the painting & personal growth practice that led me to it in the first place.

The name “In Myself I am Free” is a lyric from the song “I am Free” by Swami Kriyananda that I heard on Radio Ananda just as I put the finishing touches on the dove and was asking it: “What’s your name?”, ” I know “Freedom” is in there somewhere”.

Answers come through all our senses…

5 painted vegan Remo buffalo drums came into being in my Fall 2023 Painted Drum Collection. See them all here.