"Our minds are like crows. They pick up everything that glitters, no matter how uncomfortable our nest get with all that metal in them." -Thomas Merton(I am sharing my messy insides with you this morning in hopes of gaining clarity and perhaps you may understand and add insight as well?)
I am a crow. A visual thinker, learner, appreciator, and collector. I can't help but be fascinated by what I see...I am addicted to it...it is my creative chocolate. Yet, crow-like passions can, at the same time, be a terrible aggravation. It can be just too
okay, it is not this bad...but you get the idea?
For inspiration I collect visually. I am a photographer so I collect images, sometimes words, but even then it is visual. I have tried for years to come up with a good sorting system, organizational formula, "a one day clean up", classes on cute creative spaces. But I am a crow. I know I am not alone. I can see the ads for darling containers on sale at every store. Do you have a crow-like fetish as well? I usually feel fine about it...but this time of year (with my new white canvas of snow) it is disabling. I just can't think in collectible clutter.
I move the beautiful things from here to there, I hang images to inspire, clip magazine articles, stack up favorite skeins of yarn and roll up quarters of fabric. Look at the *gorgeousness of it all* and then sputter and sputter. I saturated myself in all the good and forget where I am going~
Silly silly crow~
The same is true when it comes to the inner life. Emotionally and spiritually I catch myself doing the same thing~ by taking on too much, feeling too deeply (not guarding the heart), holding another's toxic mess, falling into a traps of self-doubt/self-pity. All of these are important issues to face, but they tend to fill up space, clutter and pile on top of one another. A collectible clutter of emotional debris. I know this, I just have to be reminded. Joyce Rupp (author of the great book~ Cup of Life) plainly says,
"Anything can be clutter if it keeps me totally absorbed in myself and unaware of what God is offering to me."Even the good things~ success, knowledge, pleasure...
In understanding this wonderful inspirational messy place~ what then can be done?
Do.
Just do.
Love that.
Another brilliant un-blocker, Julia Cameron, spoke to me this week about the creative chaos in my head & life~ "The trick is to establish a gentle flow and to keep that gentle flow trickling forward...You must take some small steps or the ideas will remain jammed up" and she lovingly went into the visualization of terrible log jams and overfilled balloons about to pop. Ouch. So, the idea is to just keep moving forward and not hold onto the ideas, the want-tos, the creative rolodex in my head, but to "just do something". Simply move forward and put out new material. "Slowly and gently, one at a time, execute each thing" ~ love it.
Isn't it true that when you are in creative mode, making something beautiful, taking photos, cleaning out a fresh new space, that everything else seems to make more sense? It does for me. Even if I forget to make dinner~ there is silly-joy in figuring out what to make because I am in a better state of mind.
I love it when divine help comes and all things, for a moment, make more sense~
This weekend I can~
* write out my ideas for this new season, unedited, and let the new inspiration board begin
* help a friend with her vision for a new etsy shop (one of my fav things to do)
* wipe down the shelves in my closet and re-invent a few things to wear this week
* write to a few friends that need encouragement & send them prayers of hope
* see myself as someone else might see me and make a choice to live that way~ (a friend's recommendation)
embrace my word for this year...live...
* dig into my latest "care of sheep" book :o)
See? Letting the creative log jam free itself...I already feel better (even if I am a silly crow?) What about you? Do you have a new list, too?
Love to you this weekend,
always love your sound advice & ideas~
Grace & Peace
jj
