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.