First, I want to say thanks for letting me share my thoughts this week. I didn't plan to write about Hillary online, I don't usually share family details here, but I loved sharing a good story that came from such a hard place ~ changing ashes into beauty. Such cathartic and sweet thoughts were with me all week, a taste of heaven, and huge dose of healing balm. As always, your thoughtful words and prayers were so needed and loved.
I am once again finding myself so grateful for this place. To me, this "here and now" of an online life is an encouraging, growing, healing and defining space. In a community of creative friends and spiritual pilgrims it is good to step out in curiosity, taking risks, and telling stories. This is a growing place and I love what it is doing in my life and in the lives of those around me. Like a magnet for friends of the same feather, having an organic online life helps you collect just-those-friends you have such a connection to. I do have brilliant online friends~ brilliant!
"What we have to learn to do, we learn by doing" -Aristotle
I feel this about my online life. I think so much of having a dynamic creative life here in this place is simply by stepping into it and trying. For me it starts with words. I write it out.
How do you feel about your online life? Are you growing? Do you like your space? Do you dig in and write it all out on your blog? Are you more like me (typically) and pour yourself out in a notebook/journal and write posts from what you glean? Or are you perhaps more unconventional and weave your heart into other creative mediums? For years I used quilting as an emotional outlet, I know how powerful those little stitches can be~ repetitive and calming, just one by one.
Looking back in my creative journey, at the heart of it all, I write. I am a picture + words kind of girl. In every creative venture, especially in this online community, it comes back to the same thing. I just have to tell you, it wasn't always so. I have struggled greatly to figure myself out and to speak from my heart. Fear, insecurity, the idea of the unknown were all companions of mine. I was worried so much by appearances and perfection it derailed my ability to think clearly and be creative in any way. As much as I wanted to try, I would always find some excuse to stay inside my safe place. I thought it was safe, but it wasn't, it was solitary confinement.
Can I share something that really helped me in this struggle?
It is simple and I don't always like it...I write it out.
It is just that simple. I have found that putting things on paper is much easier if I do it often~
Writing out my messy mind, racing heart, tight-lipped stressors, and desperate prayers are all over my lined pages. I also have pages of high and lofty praise, liturgies of goodness, and silly joy-filled stories of daily life. I learned that the only requirement is just an honest expression. Writing the same words/sentences can even be of great worth if that is what comes from the heart. I learned from Julia Cameron years ago that the absolute necessity of an joyful artistic life is simply this...daily writing.
Cameron is happily militant about daily writing, she doesn't let up. Her book "The Artists Way" and all the subsequent books on living a creative (unblocked) life are based on the same tools (20 years - same tools). It doesn't matter what kind of an artist/creative being you are~ her method is really is for anyone that breathes.
She says you have to write three pages each day to clear your mind/heart/spirit. Yep, three pages. To her, "morning pages are non-negotiable". You just take a regular notebook and open the page and with no real thought as to what you may say, you start saying it. Let it all pour out. This isn't considered writing you would ever show someone or even revisit yourself, this is just letting your inner life spill out so that you have room for all that is new.
If you have any doubts, I have to tell you, I did too. But, I was so ready for "real" growth in my creative life that I decided it wouldn't hurt me to try. I am now a converted believer. Amazed by the energy and good that has come into my life from following her simple prescription, I just had to share. It is life changing.
It grounds me.
It opens me to so many new ideas.
It helps me understand my wild and whirling words (Shakespeare)
It brings to the surface what it is that I need to be speaking~ writing~ blogging~
It digs deep into my spiritual life
It heals my insecurities
It takes words from my lips that don't need to be said
It even helps me to decide what to make for dinner
I am not kidding, it is that good.
So if you are like me~ wanting to communicate your heart, un-block your creative life, wanting to start a blog or are committed to a blog, documenting your "one word", challenging yourself to a creative commitment like LOAD, or if you seriously love something wonderful (to me it is the sheep) and just want the world to know. It may just help you too.
Your fellow traveler on this adventure of life,
with love and lambs,
jj
