Dear Reader, thank you....

for showing me the magic was here all along

The Secret Ingredient - by Emily Charlotte Powell

For helping me to see
that While I Was Drawing
was never just about drawing...

It was about everything that happens in quiet moments
between pencil and page...

The fireflies of inspiration that appear unexpected
that lead to enchanted quests through the Realm of Finance
and poems spilling silver-bright cold moonlight through my window...

You reminded me that this place
was always the doorway, the thread to keep following
capricious, contradictory, mercurial and messy...

That the secret ingredient
is never a name or a niche or a singular gift
but the ever changing, wild tangle
of who we already are.

Where I got lost, somewhere between one pencil stroke and the next
and where I found my way home...

I sit at my desk in my studio. I look down, pick up my pencil and draw a single stroke.

The edges of reality soften and blur. I can feel adventures and memories brush the back of my mind. Ideas and inspiration and endless worlds to explore and discover where the tip of my pencil touches the canvas.

Another pencil stroke.

I have found my way to a hidden place. There is a quiet magic here.

Another pencil stroke.

The studio is gone and I am stepping through an old brick archway into a garden on a late summer afternoon. The air smells of sweet freshly cut grass and pine trees, jasmine and honeysuckle.

I’m not alone. I can hear murmuring voices and music. I walk down a path towards the sound.

I walk past the pine trees and round a corner and you are here! Others who love this place too have come to enjoy this small garden gathering.

The afternoon lengthens into evening. We dance bare foot and sing along with the band that plays feelgood acoustic music while the children fall asleep under the trees. The dogs are there too, for furry cuddles and big wet doggy kisses.

There is a summer house beneath the old eucalyptus, a comfy place full of candles and cushions where we can read, or talk, or just sit and relax.

There’s no awkward small talk. We talk, or we’re quiet, just enjoying each others company. There are no expectations. People come and go as they please, wherever curiosity takes them.

Each path leads to a different adventure, a portal to a story where we can go anywhere, see anything, be anyone.

This pathway leads to the woods, where goblins and witches hide and make mischief among the toadstools and the bracken.

We follow a narrow trail beneath a canopy of trees that opens out to reveal a mysterious castle full of dark drafty passages and cavernous rooms, with mermaids in the moat and trolls in the turrets.

Another leads to the meadow where there are faeries hiding in the flowers, catching the last rays of the sunset in their wings. The dogs leap and bound through the grass sending the birds and the faeries darting for cover in the trees.

There are moments and memories, stories and songs between the blades of grass and on the underside of the leaves, inside the flowers and dancing in the wind.

Night falls, enchanting and ethereal. We lie back in the grass and watch the fireflies and listen to the music of the stars, the chirp of the crickets and the hoot of an owl.

I close my eyes and drift on the breeze.

Another pencil stroke.

An extract from While I Was Drawing - published Feb 2024

So While I Was Drawing remains.

Because here, we can go anywhere and do anything. I forgot that being lost was rather the point, in the first place. Thank you for reminding me.

With wishes for endless inspiration,

P.S. If you’ve enjoyed reading, please share a heart and leave a comment and reshare here on Substack or on another platform. It may only seem a little thing, but it means a very great deal to me and helps my words get seen by others as well. I genuinely appreciate everyone who takes the time and every single one lifts my heart.

P.P.S. If you are able to support this creative adventure by upgrading to an annual paid subscription, I will send you a print of your choice from my online shop, as a thank you for gifting my creativity another moment of freedom to explore and create, for joy alone.

I’m also briefly opening up founding subscriptions, for those who would like to support my work at a deeper level and receive one of my original fine art graphite drawings in return. These are one-of-a-kind pieces, and once they’re spoken for, the offer will close until I have something new to share.

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