An old friend emailed me something about being "held hostage" by creativity and failure. If I may translate, he was expressing a desire to engage his creativity in some tangible way and felt the preemptive fear of failure. He was identifying with some part of him that was kidnapped by another. The violent image speaks to the very real urgency of freeing what is held captive.
Let me reassure him and all of us. Our creativity is natural and essential to each of us. It cannot be taken away. But it can be undiscovered, unclaimed, neglected, forgotten, disowned, banished, rejected. Our creativity is our inherent human ability to imagine and manifest what is needed next. It is letting our hands be hands, connected to our hearts and extending out into the world.
My friend lives in a society with a long history of world-shattering art and architecture. He is also a product of US culture, which revolves around producing, advertising, buying, and consuming. No matter, there's always a place for the handmade life. Our soul life depends on it.
Many of us in the US distance ourselves from or neglect to claim our everyday creativity. We are told it's only for artists, special people. We take the creative process out of cooking, parenting, intimate partnership, friendship, housekeeping, fitness, finances, work and turn it into obligation and put it at the bottom of the list of things to do.
To free the hostage, I would ask what part of us is holding it hostage? What does this part want and not want? What is it worried will happen if the creativity is allowed to run free? Is there some participation it wants? Or does it just want its point of view to be heard?
In situations like this, if there's a lot of broken trust, it may take time for the 'kidnapper' to release what's being held. It's vital that we give compassionate awareness to it and really listen. Reflecting back how it feels, what it's saying, will often magically allow it to relax and see it doesn't need to hold any other part of us captive.
We need to bring our mindfulness and kindness to parts of us that feel mistreated and driven to desperate acts. We can bring everyone home safely and return to our creativity all together.
Monday, January 26, 2009
Monday, January 19, 2009
Something Always Blooming
Like everyone and their cousin, I am trying to take better care of my body. I don't like the 'e' word that sounds like demon banishing, so I say 'body in motion' or 'joyful movement'. Motivation can be tricky, for the part of me that would rather stay cozy in the blankets doing sleeping yoga is very strong. So I must lure myself out to the cardio hills and stairs with promises of beauty and the wildly disciplined drumming of Babatunde Olatunji.The endorphins are a bonus.
The plants conspire with their endless creativity. Amidst the running up stairs or purposefully striding uphill, I pause and notice what's around me. One foggy morning I met potato vine flower flashing a yellow eye at the center of deep purple, a no-nonsense kind of beauty. Bare cherry tree sprouting tender red baby branchlets a few millimeters long. Reddish purple cyclamen pushing up out of the cold, moist earth. What bravery!
On another morning, clear and cold in another microclimate, I found a tiny barrelly cactus with green torso, its head and little arms a fiesta orange and yellow. Try being grumpy now. A perfectly fragrant pink rose, just at my nose level, reminds me of the one in The Little Prince. Birds of Paradise, here? You've got to be kidding. And it goes on.
What's so easy to observe in the green relatives is sometimes harder to see in me. Where am I sprouting, emerging, braving the fog and cold? What beauty and joy am I sharing with others?
Like this new habit of joyfully moving with the hills and stairs, it takes practice to be honest with myself. The part of me doubting by own growth, beauty, creativity and impact on others may always be here. But the more I connect daily with the wild and cultivated nature around me, the more I get in my bones that I am just like the green relatives. There's always something blooming in some corner of my wild inner garden. If I look for beauty and signs of life, I will find them. Somewhere in me, fertile ground is producing and supporting life.
So walk out, expect to meet signs of life wherever you are. Be met with beauty and be amazed.
The plants conspire with their endless creativity. Amidst the running up stairs or purposefully striding uphill, I pause and notice what's around me. One foggy morning I met potato vine flower flashing a yellow eye at the center of deep purple, a no-nonsense kind of beauty. Bare cherry tree sprouting tender red baby branchlets a few millimeters long. Reddish purple cyclamen pushing up out of the cold, moist earth. What bravery!
On another morning, clear and cold in another microclimate, I found a tiny barrelly cactus with green torso, its head and little arms a fiesta orange and yellow. Try being grumpy now. A perfectly fragrant pink rose, just at my nose level, reminds me of the one in The Little Prince. Birds of Paradise, here? You've got to be kidding. And it goes on.
What's so easy to observe in the green relatives is sometimes harder to see in me. Where am I sprouting, emerging, braving the fog and cold? What beauty and joy am I sharing with others?
Like this new habit of joyfully moving with the hills and stairs, it takes practice to be honest with myself. The part of me doubting by own growth, beauty, creativity and impact on others may always be here. But the more I connect daily with the wild and cultivated nature around me, the more I get in my bones that I am just like the green relatives. There's always something blooming in some corner of my wild inner garden. If I look for beauty and signs of life, I will find them. Somewhere in me, fertile ground is producing and supporting life.
So walk out, expect to meet signs of life wherever you are. Be met with beauty and be amazed.
Monday, January 12, 2009
Making Space for Change
After not collaging or writing much in late fall, I wondered where my creativity was going. I actually asked myself this while spackling and painting my new healing space. I somehow forgot I was pouring my art and soul into an 11' x 11' x 11' room.
Need is the mother of invention. Months ago I left a rented office situation and didn't want yet another office that didn't feel like me. It finally dawned on me to transform the junky guest room into my new healing space. A tarot reader who knew nothing about my work expressed great urgency about home improvements, work environment, and finances. Doh!
My creative process over time went like this:
dissatisfaction, desire, visioning
incubating
research, investing, gathering materials
deconstruction, recycling
prep, painting, installation, decoration
test-driving, feedback, aesthetic fine-tuning.
Most of this is in collaboration with my husband, who has the can-do to complement my vision. It's contagious. I'm ridiculously proud that I installed the dimmer switch all by myself without burning the house down. I tell all my clients. I'm still in fine-tuning - I am a dimmer switch! Yet in a relatively short time - VOILA - I am sitting in a beautiful new space, ready to receive and happy to serve an abundant flow of clients.
The feng shui people are onto something. My new healing space is in the life path/career part of my house. How could we have let it get all junky?!? What's sad is that this is the very last room in our flat that we've upgraded to be all nice and beautiful. I'd been putting my livelihood last, a refugee without a proper home. For my work and my husband's the more beauty, grounding, comfort, quiet, warmth, the better. I'm grateful we know how to make an inviting beautiful space and that my healing work with clients finally, finally, finally has a room of its own.
*I'm leading collage workshops starting 1/31. Check out www.wildimagination.org/calendar.htm
Need is the mother of invention. Months ago I left a rented office situation and didn't want yet another office that didn't feel like me. It finally dawned on me to transform the junky guest room into my new healing space. A tarot reader who knew nothing about my work expressed great urgency about home improvements, work environment, and finances. Doh!
My creative process over time went like this:
dissatisfaction, desire, visioning
incubating
research, investing, gathering materials
deconstruction, recycling
prep, painting, installation, decoration
test-driving, feedback, aesthetic fine-tuning.
Most of this is in collaboration with my husband, who has the can-do to complement my vision. It's contagious. I'm ridiculously proud that I installed the dimmer switch all by myself without burning the house down. I tell all my clients. I'm still in fine-tuning - I am a dimmer switch! Yet in a relatively short time - VOILA - I am sitting in a beautiful new space, ready to receive and happy to serve an abundant flow of clients.
The feng shui people are onto something. My new healing space is in the life path/career part of my house. How could we have let it get all junky?!? What's sad is that this is the very last room in our flat that we've upgraded to be all nice and beautiful. I'd been putting my livelihood last, a refugee without a proper home. For my work and my husband's the more beauty, grounding, comfort, quiet, warmth, the better. I'm grateful we know how to make an inviting beautiful space and that my healing work with clients finally, finally, finally has a room of its own.
*I'm leading collage workshops starting 1/31. Check out www.wildimagination.org/calendar.htm
Saturday, January 3, 2009
New Year Magic
I did a wonder walk through the fog with my man on New Year's Day. What I want to say about that: it's good to start your year daring to be a fool for love. On Van Ness Avenue, near the serious opera hall and spiffed up city hall, we looked up and found a hawk soaring. Fairly low, it looked down at us while hunting for lame pigeons. We do what we always do with high fliers. We stuck our arms out and echoed their soaring, swaying back and forth with our long fingery wings.
I called to one, then two of the beautiful relatives, that we love them. It's thrilling, my heart leaps when I see the wild in the city. I tell them I love them and thank them. People around us are giving us the hairy eyeball. We point, "Look at the hawks!" But they just pass us by and don't look up.
I believe that the animals, our relatives, only let themselves be seen by those with eyes. I have eyes, my man has eyes, and certain of my friends have eyes to see the magic in the world. I am grateful they are here. Hawks are messengers to Spirit, so whenever you see one, send a message of thanks, love, and blessing. Use that acute vision to hone in on what will feed you well. And ask for what you want.
I wanted to feel myself alive in the city I love, exploring with my man, being a body in joyful motion. And so it was.
I called to one, then two of the beautiful relatives, that we love them. It's thrilling, my heart leaps when I see the wild in the city. I tell them I love them and thank them. People around us are giving us the hairy eyeball. We point, "Look at the hawks!" But they just pass us by and don't look up.
I believe that the animals, our relatives, only let themselves be seen by those with eyes. I have eyes, my man has eyes, and certain of my friends have eyes to see the magic in the world. I am grateful they are here. Hawks are messengers to Spirit, so whenever you see one, send a message of thanks, love, and blessing. Use that acute vision to hone in on what will feed you well. And ask for what you want.
I wanted to feel myself alive in the city I love, exploring with my man, being a body in joyful motion. And so it was.
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