‘The Artist’s Way’ Week 4 Reading Ban…Surprise!

So, as I may have mentioned before, I’ve been working through Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s Way for a while.  (I’ve actually spent more than one week on each chapter, though each chapter is supposed to be one week.)  This week, I finally got around to Week 4, and found a terrifying–for me–surprise. 

What surprise?

Cameron wants “blocked creatives”, the audience for this book, to go a week without reading anything other than the questions–or, as they are termed in the book, “Tasks”–at the end of the chapter.  Seriously, she means no reading, not even for work or class, and she also suggests limiting TV and movie watching. 

Now, I don’t see any way around me doing some reading at work.  I have to read what my boss writes so I can type it.  I have to read legal proceedings to see if there are important dates to put on the appointment book.  I have to read the appointment book.  Sometimes I have to research and read decisions of various Courts as well as legal statutes and such.  I have to check my boss’s email.  Those are all in my job description as office Jill-of-all-trades. 

But, that leaves a lot of leisure reading that I actually can avoid doing, both online and between the covers of books.  My time spent on the internet is 99% reading.  That means no internet for me.  No Facebook.  No WordPress.  No email except work-related email.  No Google reader.  No browsing Amazon and obsessively tracking my outstanding packages.  No reading any of the several books I’m reading right now.  Oy!

I get why she does it.  It’s true, as she says when she says:

For most blocked creatives, reading is an addiction.  We gobble the words of others rather than digest our own thoughts and feelings, rather than cook up something of our own.” — Julia Cameron, The Artist’s Way 10th Anniversary Edition, p. 87

That is absolutely true for me. I am a book slut, a bibliophile.  I am addicted to others’ words.  Not a day goes by that I don’t read out of at least one book and several blogs.  Not a single day.  As she says earlier in the section on the reading ban, “words are like tiny tranquilizers.”    If I start feeling restless, the first thing I do is hop online and read or go find a book in my ever-expanding collection that will adequately tranquilize whatever has me restless.  (Usually something I’m avoiding dealing with, and, instead, use others’ words to shove it below the surface of my consciousness.)

What does that mean? 

I know myself well enough to know that I won’t last until next Sunday.  I would be found in the pantry reading the backs of the cereal boxes or in the shower reading the labels of all the shampoo, conditioner, body wash, and shaving cream containers and such. 

Here’s what I’m going to do.  I’m going to try stay off the internet and do no reading other than what is required by my paying job until at least Thursday morning.  If the first three days go well and I’m not ready to go insane, then I may try another day, but I know I’ll break my reading fast no later than Friday evening.  I’m going to limit my TV watching to one episode of one show per day.  Monday will be The Big Bang Theory, and Thursday will be The Vampire Diaries, because I do want to keep up with those two shows. 

In lieu of reading, I anticipate I’ll do quite a lot of writing, so I’m going to keep my flash drive, a journal to write in, and my newly-acquired art journal with me at all times.  I’m sure there will also be heavy doses of music, so thankfully I have lots of batteries for my personal CD player. 

I’m scared and intimidated, but I think this will be good for me.  Wish me luck!  I won’t be checking in again until at least Thursday!

Tackling a Few of My Creative Fears

Yesterday evening, I read Goddess Leonie’s post on having creative courage, and it got me thinking about all the creative things that are intriguing or calling to me–some of which I’ve done before–that I don’t do now because I’m afraid I won’t be “good at it.”  I talked a little to my best friend, when she called for our week’s end catch-up, about the foremost of these: painting, especially on the canvases that have been languishing in my closet, still in their plastic wrap, since I bought them in September last year.  (Nope, I still haven’t painted those paintings.  I chickened out, afraid that I could not make what was in my mind’s eye come out my hands.)

Since this is my year to bloom, it occurred to me that one way I could do that was to do those creative things that intrigue me and call to me by facing my fear of not doing them perfectly.  Actually, that would kill two birds with one stone:  learning new creative skills (or deepening existing ones or renewing rusty ones), and facing down my problem with perfectionism (specifically, that I let it run amok).

So, over the past 24 hours or so, I’ve come up with a list of these things to do (some more immediate than others):

• Paint again.  I used to paint in watercolor quite often, but that gradually tapered off and sometime in the last couple of years died completely.  I have trouble wanting the paintings to look a certain way, like a professional artist did them, and being angry with myself when I feel I’ve screwed up.  I’ve forgotten the childish joy and abandon of wielding paint brushes.  I’ve forgotten that the only way to learn is to do in this case, and that even Dali (my favorite of the “famous” painters) took some time to learn and develop a style.  I’m particularly hesitant to “mess up” a canvas, even though the longing to paint on one is very strong.  So I bought a drop cloth today and I’m going to break out one of the canvases tomorrow and paint whatever comes.  Yes, yes I am.
• Keep an art journal.   In cruising around the interwebs, I’ve happened across some really cool art journals.  The idea I really like.  In a way, I used to do this when I was a teenager.  Sometimes the things I wanted to express came easier to me in images than words, and I mainly drew or used color pencils or pastels.  During university, I stopped.  First comparison of my art against those with formal training took root, then my raging perfectionist streak took it a step further.  Again, things weren’t coming out of my hands the way I wanted them to.  I had ideas that each drawing had to be a certain way.  I stopped just doing it for its own sake, for just expression, to play with color and shape and light.  I’m going to remedy this, too.  I bought a faux leather, unlined journal for that purpose today as well, and on the cover I placed a scrapbooking plaque I already had, which reads “play.”  That’s what I want art journaling to be about.
• Learn to knit and crochet.  I have friends in far-flung locales who are knitting and crocheting up a storm.   For me, my interest in knitting and crochet really began with a desire to keep my hands busy.  If my hands are busy they’re not shoving junk food into my mouth, for one.   (This was years ago.)   Then I started seeing the really cool things being made by knitters and crocheters, things beyond the standard scarves and blankets, like adorable stuffed animals, for example.  That did it!  But, I’ve been arguing with myself.   I don’t really have anyone local with the time to teach me.  I have a friend here who used to crochet, but she has little time for that these days with a one year old and a three year old running around the house, both very active, very inquisitive, very mischievous little boys.  I may suck at it, anyway.  I solicited book recommendations from several sources, and read Amazon reviews, seeking one beginning book on crochet and one on knitting.   Today I decided on them.  I ordered The Chicks With Sticks Guide to Crochet and Stitch ‘N Bitch:  The Knitter’s Handbook.  I’m going to read up, then go select my necessary tools and get to practicing.  (I will probably learn crochet first, because I think it would be easier to control one hook than two needles, but I will keep the jury out until I read the introductory parts of both books.)
• Learn to play guitar.  Yes, there is a bad ass, rebellious rocker chick hiding in the back corridors of my mind, fascinated with my Dad’s ‘67 Kay vintage electric guitar.  First things first, though, I’d like to learn on an acoustic.  (My Dad actually only ever played a little bit in a garage band, rhythm guitar, and he’s forgotten.   I have an inner folk goddess, too, and she’s much closer to the surface, and I hear that acoustics shred the beginner’s fingers less.  There is a problem of lessons, as in, I don’t know of anyone who gives them here, so I will probably defer this one until I move away, but I felt I should acknowledge it.
• Learn the left hand chords for piano, and how to use the pedals.  Yes, in the days of middle school through my first year of university, I could pick out melodies on piano.  I can read music.  I know where the keys are.  With a bare minimum of instruction from a music teacher in fifth grade and a little bit of help from my aunt, I picked up the playing, and reading music advanced with my experiences in choir during high school and the first two years of university.  Most songs ended up being played more slowly than they were intended, but that was a function of my lack of diligence in practice.   This is one that will have to wait until I move, and until I can at least afford a good quality keyboard, but it comes along with the I-want-t0-but-I’m-afraid-I’ll-suck territory.
• Write fiction again.  I’ve been over this before in many posts in many places for years.  I’m always afraid it’s not good enough and throw it aside before the stories are even started.  It’s ridiculous.  I even tackled one of the blocks behind this bugbear last month.  It’s time to get back on the horse, to write the story to an end and then worry about whether it’s good. 

This is the time of taking deep breaths and diving in.  On some level, I think if I can tackle my creative fears and perfectionism, I’ll maybe have a blueprint to work with in tackling the fears and perfectionistic tendencies cropping up and hindering me in other areas of my life.  These creative things are, in the grand scheme of things, low risk (when it comes to life, limb, and livelihood, anyway), which makes them the best place to start.

Also, I’ve fallen into a sort of seasonal fugue state where days are lost because they’re so grey and monotonous.  I’m hoping artistic endeavors will breathe light and color into them.

So what creative thing(s) are you scared of, but itching to try?  Why don’t you try it/them?  We’ll try these things that scare us together.

Another Excerpt from My Copy of ‘Take Me With You’

Right now, I have several jumbles of words rolling around in my brain, but they’re not taking a form just yet.  Yes, I have the itch to write, but the words aren’t coming with any kind of coherency, so to satisfy the urge to put fingers to keys, I thought I’d share another excerpt of what I wrote during Jen Lee’s January write-along through of Take Me With You: A Journal for the Journey.

Monday, 1/18/2010

(Note: This is taken from some of the blank pages, and is not in response to a prompt.)

I am behind in this endeavor.  My inner perfectionist is displeased with this, but, in a way, she is, at least in part, to blame for it.

I started out with excitement.  I anticipated beginning with giddiness.  The New Year’s mojo was still going strong.  Then, I started procrastinating.

My mornings, pre-work, were occupied with “morning pages” since I decided to try working through  The Artist’s Way the week after Christmas…With morning pages and usual preparations for the day.

I carried it with me to work, but, though I had moments when I didn’t have anything to do, I was afraid to be seen writing by hand, as that’s usually not a part of my job.  Blogs beckoned.  Reading those in those moments where I waited for the next project, it was easy to still look busy and useful.  Reading a book, last week more specifically Brad Warner’s Hardcore Zen, was less easy than reading blogs, but more inconspicuous than writing, as I could easily balance the book in my lap and just slide up under my desk when, at a moment’s notice (or less) the next project landed.

There was also something more subtle and insidious at work in my avoidance of writing [in this journal].  I wanted not just to write between these covers and let whatever came, come.  I wanted what I wrote to be good.  Time and again, I have to learn and re-learn that this only leads to the opposite of writing: doing anything else to avoid writing…

Thursday, 1/28/201

Inner Whispers
(Response to “What’s Important: Part 2,” p. 49)

(Contemporary Note: This is what that oft-described “still, small voice” had to say when I sat down to write this on the 28th of January.)

• Do not give too much credence to your mother’s aloud worrying about marrying you off.  You will find Mr. Right, or  he will find you, in due time and place, and you will see each other for who and what you are.
• Listen to the drumbeat of your pulse as it murmurs, “Go West.  Go West.”
• Follow your intuition, and use logic to get to the place intuition points, not to talk yourself out of the knowing that seeps into your bones.
• You are beautiful and worthy, if for no other reason than you are wholly unique and no one else can be you.
• God(dess) is everywhere, in everything, in all religions and spiritual traditions as one thing at the heart and root of it all: Love.
• Write.  Take photographs.  Make your art.  You never know where they will lead unless you follow.
• How you find where you’re supposed to go:  Listen to the Bliss Chick as she quoted, “Follow the breadcrumbs,” and heed others’ examples of having done so.
• Love yourself first.  You can’t give love unless you have some.  (As has often been said.)
• It’s quite possible that your family will always find something wrong with you, but that has more to do with them and their limitations than yours.
• Should you choose, you could be a really great mother someday.  Don’t let your own mother tell you differently.  She doesn’t really know you.  She knows only part of you.
• Try to open up, to be yourself a little more, and who others, and you, think you should be less.
• Remember what it was like before you became a slave to criticism.
• Take this to heart: “Don’t you know it’s gonna be alright, alright, it’s gonna be alright.” — The Beatles, “Revolution I,” White Album
• Trust more, argue less.
• Nothing is permanent, the “good” or the “bad.”  (Again, often said.)
• Don’t forget to breathe.
• Sleep, let go, and dream.
• Goodness is waiting in the wings for you.  You know it.  You feel it. Follow the map of your intuition and dreams, and you’ll find it.  You have to take a leap of faith and go to it.

Happy Friday, all!

Wishcasting Wednesday: A Story to Live, and A Story to Let Go

It’s Wednesday, and that means it’s Wishcasting time over at Jamie Ridler Studios!

I haven’t participated in a while.  I’ve just not felt much like blogging, really, but today’s question jumped out at me, as it is one of those questions that I need to ask myself, particularly given the place I’m finding myself in lately.

That question is this:

What story do you wish to live or let go of?

I actually have one of each.  There is a story I have to let go of before I can live the story I wish to live.

The Story I Wish to Live:

I wish to live the story of a strong, independent woman who follows her heart and her intuition.  She has a deep knowing of what she wants and needs in life, and, instead of waiting for it to come to her or seeking others’ approval of what she wants and needs, she takes the steps to get it.  Sometimes, though, it blows up in her face, and it turns out she was led to that particular something to learn lessons, so she learns her lessons and moves on.  She trusts that all she needs will come to her.  She is courageous enough to move through her fears to see what lies on the other side.  She opens up her heart to others, even though that makes her vulnerable.  She is authentic, and doesn’t feel the need to pretend to be anyone other than who she is, and, as such, surrounds herself with those who see, know, and love her true self.

The Story I Need to Let Go Of:

I need to let go of the story of a woman who frets about the things her heart and intuition want, who seeks the approval of others before she goes after her goals.  This woman tries to please everyone else as well as her self.  (A statistical improbability, really, and so she’s almost always disappointed and stalled when one of her family members or friends disapproves of something she wants to do or has done.)  This woman is so afraid of failure and scarcity that she stays stuck, while yearning for the greener grass on the other side of her fear.  She waits and hopes that one day what she wants will come to her and rescue her so she won’t have to do the work and go through the scary parts of rescuing herself.  This woman puts up walls and defenses, trying to protect herself from others.  She is afraid of being who she is, because many of those closest to her would disapprove, and she craves their love and approval and acceptance, so she wears masks–a different one depending upon who she is with–to hide her true self and disguise herself as the person she thinks others want.  She is constantly comparing herself to others and finding herself lacking.

I wish to live the story of the first woman, the woman who is the hero of her own story and her authentic self, and I wish to let go of the story of the second woman, who is too afraid to become her own hero and too afraid to let herself be seen as she is.

Full Wolf Moon Dreamboard

Full Wolf Moon Dreamboard

Tonight is the Full Wolf Moon, which means it’s time again for Full Moon Dreamboards led by the ever-inspiring Jamie Ridler!

Earlier today as I flipped through magazines, cutting out what called to me, I noticed two things:

1. Words and quotes were jumping out at me more than most images, and
2. The images that did jump out at me, showed women with their chests open, hearts unblocked, of which I found only three.

One woman is standing above the scene before her, heart open, reaching for the sky.  One woman is dancing, her heart open to the movement, the moment, and passion, and the third rests in a rowboat, hands off the oars, letting the river carry her along.

The words on the first photo are “Peace. Harmony. Laughter. Love.”

On the photo of the dancing woman appears the following quote:

Women lose their lives not knowing they can do something different…I claimed myself and remade my life.  Only when I knew I belonged to myself completely did I become capable of giving myself to another, of finding joy in desire, pleasure in our love, power in this body no one else owns.” — Dorothy Allison, from Two or Three Things I Know for Sure

The quote pasted onto the picture of the woman in the rowboat is:

When your life is on course with its purpose, you are your most powerful.” –Oprah Winfrey

Finally, this is the quote running along the bottom:

Nothing great has been and nothing great can be accomplished without passion.” — G.W.F. Hegel

I suppose my intuition was telling me this today:  I want to follow my passions, to get my life on course with my purpose, to feel powerful and alive.  I want to feel at home with myself, in my life, and in my skin.  I want peace, harmony, laughter, and love.  I want to face life with openness, instead of closing myself off.  

This dreamboard, the dreamboard I made on New Year’s Eve, and my word of the year are, combined, what I want for the coming year.  These tell how I want to kick off the decade.   These are what I’m dreaming of.

What are you dreaming of?