Morning Pages

For months now, my morning pages have been severely neglected...again... and as a result things were beginning to fray at the edges.

No idea how I can simultaneously know better than to neglect these and yet still not bother to do them, but here I am.

Having gone through a seminar with Julia Cameron on this very point a few years back, it is incredibly frustrating that I have to re-learn this lesson for myself.  But here I am.

The good news is that I got up this morning feeling oogy and exhausted, recognized my need for some quiet reflection time today, and then made it happen as I got everyone else ready and out the door.  Sitting down with my far-too-long-neglected journal and some Loreena McKinnett music playing in the background was akin to a vacation that I didn't realize I needed so desperately until I was in the midst of things.

When just filling up my fountain pen with some fresh ink is refreshing, I know I've been neglecting this inner reflection time far too much.

Somehow, and I have no idea how this works but it truly does, just dumping everything onto the page with the scratch of a fountain pen nib against the paper helps to sort through the hurdles in front of me and brings order to the chaos.  It is as though all of the stress and frustration flows out with the ink.

Playing With Color

While The Peanut was home sick last week, I re-discovered something that I absolutely love:  coloring.

It's funny how you can pick something up that you haven't done in years and have so much fun with it, isn't it?  We colored a LOT while watching movies or just listening to music.  She found it a soothing way to keep from scratching her chicken pox, and I found it a nice creative change of pace and a good way to relieve some of my mommy tension while she was so sick.

We both had a blast spending time together, sitting side by side and sharing crayons and colored pencils.  I had forgotten how fun it can be to bring a little black and white picture to life with a little color.

How had I forgotten how fun that is?

Several years ago -- before The Peanut started school, actually -- I had gotten myself an intricate coloring book of springtime designs by Ruth Heller on an Artist's Date when I was trying to kick start my creative juices via Julia Cameron's Artist's Way.

Somehow, though, this coloring book got buried in a drawer (during some whirlwind "company's coming" clean-up spree no doubt)...and only got unearthed again, years later, this past week.  Which I think may be the most symbolic representation of my creative fits and starts and my difficulty with putting my creative needs on the front burner ahead of family and everything else in my life.

It is what it is, right?

But the thing is, once I rediscovered this coloring book?  And then started coloring in it?

I had a BLAST.

Huzzah!

This morning, I broke through a plot point barrier in the novel I've been working on, and can finally move forward after being stalled for what seems like eons.

It's been driving me crazy, but I finally found a way around my plot hole while working on my Morning Pages this morning. It's a miracle.

Feel like dancing a jig, but I'll allow Jean Butler with The Cheiftans to do it in my stead in the above YouTube.  Enjoy the hornpipe and the dancing, I'll just be over here in the corner trying to write...

Friday Respite: A Little Michael Hoppe

The music is Michael Hoppe, playing "Farewell" from his album Solace, with the Prague Symphony Orchestra.

I love Hoppe's work, especially for doing my Artist's Way morning pages or other writing. It's very calming after a day in which your nerves have been jangled, too. Good, meditative stuff for the most part.

He has an album with the flutist, Tim Wheater, that is especially great for that kind of day. Alas, The Yearning (which is it's title) doesn't appear to be offered by Amazon even via mp3. 

The paintings are by John Atkinson Grimshaw, a Victorian-era painter whose landscapes have a certain lovely melancholy to them, especially the ones by moonlight.

They feel very Bronte sisters, don't they?

Enjoy.  Thought everyone could use a brain break this morning.  I know I needed one...

That Kind Of Morning

I've pulled up my chair to the keyboard, and I'm on the page this morning...but nothing is really coming.

The Peanut went to grandma's house for the weekend, so we took the opportunity to go out for dinner with friends and had a wonderful dinner.  We left saying we need to do that more often.  And then we got home and stayed up late watching Inception, which had been languishing on our Tivo from a pay-per-view purchase for far too long.  (Long story short on the movie:  superb effects, weird script.)

I need more coffee, I'm afraid, in order to be sentient and witty.

Yeah, so what else is new?  LOL

Me And Julia Cameron

Thought you all would get a kick out of this picture, taken with my new iPhone by another participant.  This is the last day, I'm looking a bit rumpled but very happy to be there.

These are two women who really needed more coffee due to daylight savings time.  Julia was very gracious about allowing me to snap a picture for the blog.  Thank you!

Artist's Way Seminar: After The Third Day

Back home again.  I had booked a hotel room in Pennsylvania to break the drive from Massachusetts into two smaller, more manageable bits, but I was too homesick for my family to wait.

And so I drove the whole way and am exhausted this morning...but I am blissfully home, much to the family and the doggie's contentedness.

Yesterday's final session with the Artist's Way seminar was really enlightening.

Julia Cameron has a really crafty way of drawing you out on things you haven't thought about in years, or haven't let yourself think about because they "aren't practical."  But that make great motivators or rewards for your artist when you allow yourself to dream a little.

Very fun stuff.

One of her exercises had us thinking about things as if we were looking at the larger-than-life Hollywood version of ourselves, where money and budget, accuracy to our actual life, and all the other practicalities that get int he way no longer exist.

So, thinking about your own life in those terms, what would the view from your favorite room in your house be?  What would you be wearing?  Where would you have traveled that you have never gone before?  What talents do you have?

And a very fun one:  who would you cast as yourself in your movie?

Artist's Way Seminar: After The Second Day

Let me tell you, digging through all the artistic blocks and censors you have built up through the years is hard, exhausting work.

It has been well worth it, absolutely.  But I crashed hard last night and slept so soundly the alarm was startling this morning.  This seminar has been incredibly energizing in so many ways for me, but my body needed down time in the worst way last night -- funny how when I need to process heavy information, my refuge has always been and still is a lot of sleep.

Woke up and did my seminar homework morning pages first thing. 

It's funny to think about them as homework, because I do them regularly these days and love them.  But it's been fun doing them here because I'm in such a creative frame of mind that I'm digging at some really useful stuff that has helped unlock so many things for me.  It's really been a wonderful tool for meditation and creativity while I've been here.

Meals yesterday were also wonderful.  Again.

Artist's Way Seminar: After The First Day

It's the morning after the first day of the Artist's Way seminar, and I'm exhausted, but having a lot of fun as well.

Yesterday, I started the day with a great breakfast of steel cut oats, fortified with a little yogurt, some walnuts and a little maple syrup and cinnamon.   Yum.  Let me say that again -- yummmmmmmm.  I also had a couple of boiled eggs and some stewed apple slices.

As I was enjoying the meal, I sat at the table thinking "Why don't I eat this way all the time at home?" 

There is no good answer for that, because I really could eat this way at home more often.

So I hereby vow to try and do so.  Because eating healthy food makes me feel so much better than eating crap.  ("Duh, Christy, how many times do you need to learn this lesson?" you ask me.  "As many times as it takes to learn it," I reply.)

Artist's Way Seminar: Prelude

My Artist's Way seminar starts today, but I've already been here for a whole day.

I arrived a day early to the Kripalu Center on purpose so that I could get my bearings in the new surroundings before plunging into the writing seminar.

Plus, I wanted to have time for a yoga class or two and some nutritional discussion, as well as go to a meditation class.

It turns out to have been a really good decision.

Here's a report about my doings from yesterday, from start to finish:

Artist's Way Seminar: Detour

Yesterday was a long, long drive from West Virginia to Massachusetts.  It has been a while since I've spent that much time in the car by myself.

And the horrible snow/sleet/ice conditions I hit in Maryland yesterday morning were not helpful on the front end.

But the good news? 

I woke up this morning in Northampton, MA -- home of my alma mater, Smith College, and all sorts of funky and fun things to do.   Think I might try to catch a little of the bulb show at the Lyman Conservatory while I'm in town.

I could use a little taste of spring, and to fill the well with some lovely flowers.

Today I'm going out to enjoy a little college nostalgia, pick up a new Smith sticker for my car window and a "Future Smithie" shirt for The Peanut, and just putter around and remember what it was like to feel full of promise and drive and endless possibilities.

Maybe it is just because I'm exhausted from all the driving yesterday -- 10+ hours in the car will do that to you, I suppose -- but I'm feeling like a shadow of my former, younger self these days.  I don't recognize the tired, frumpy mess in the mirror at the moment.

Do all women go through this at some point mid-life, or is it just me?

In any case, I'm out for a little carpe diem restoration this morning, and then it is a short drive over to Kripalu where I'll be doing the Artist's Way seminar. 

Creativity As A Spiritual Practice

The above clip is Julia Cameron talking about her theories on the intersection of creativity and spirituality.  For her, creative impulse comes from God -- or whatever spiritual entity or impulse you have within you if that gives you some sort of squicky feeling, so don't get squirmy about this just yet.

What she means is that this comes from our inner voice, our deepest selves, our soul motivation, and it is an expression of that which is best in us.

But it is what Julia says in this clip and in her Artist's Way books about needing to fortify and nurture this creative spirit that most applies to me at the moment, I think -- because it is something I've always taken for granted while I push myself until I'm flat out dry. In the above clip, Julia says this:

When someone who is officially on a spiritual path picks the toolkit up, it often works very well because they are already willing. You know, on a spiritual path, you go through dark nights of the soul. And I think my toolkit is very helpful for walking through difficult times: it refills the well that is being fished out of when you are trying to help so many people. One thing that I think is important is that it says "be a little bit selfish." And I think that is wonderful advice for people who are in the field because they run the jeopardy of being burned out from over-giving, so this creates a balance....

Trudging The Artist's Way

I have gotten to Week 4 of The Artist's Way.

This is the week where you do reading deprivation, and you have to pretty much dive right in to all those annoying thoughts rambling around in your head in order to meet your demons and your inner critics head on.  This is the week I always crash and burn in my Artist's Way work.

How am I doing this time, you ask?

I'm putting off the reading deprivation until after the Artist's Way retreat that I'll be attending this coming weekend.  I thought it would be useless to try and do a reading deprivation while I'm at a seminar.

And, frankly, I'll be more motivated to do it right after I've spent 3 whole days with Julia Cameron.  Won't I?  Here's hoping, anyway.

In any case, the exercises have been tough this time around, because I'm doing them in depth this time around.  To the extent that I can do extra digging -- that is, when the entire family isn't either barfing or hacking up a lung due to unexpected swine flu or having major eye surgery or some such distraction like we've had the last couple of weeks.

If the universe is trying to test my resolve on this, I have but one thing to say:  good job, nice test, please stop now because I am still trudging my way forward.

Seeking Balance

UPDATE:  And then the universe piles on:  The Peanut had to come home early from school.  She's running a fever and has a very sore throat, and will likely be going to the doctor tomorrow if this keeps going.

In case anyone is listening at Universe HQ:  I'm still not giving up, so you can stop piling on now, thanks.
_________

Lately, it has been a real struggle to find some balance in my day to day.

As I've started going back through The Artist's Way in preparation for my seminar trip next month?  It really feels as though obstacles, distractions and outright irritants are springing out of the woodwork to pull me away from what I'm trying to do.

And today?  It is on my last nerve.

Because it is already Wednesday and I've made no real progress on this week's exercises, there are more things to do today and tomorrow above and beyond whatever I might like to be doing with Artist's Way, I have no idea when I'm going to be able to fit an Artist's Date in this week if at all, and I'm feeling like an utter failure.  Why, you ask?  Because this week's exercises are all about finding and setting boundaries for yourself to make sure you have the space to do your creative work.  Not exactly making progress on that front this week, let me tell you.

Arrrrrrrrrgh.

Isn't it weird how sometimes when you throw a desire to really make something work out into the universe, the answer you get back is more obstacles to test your resolve?

Monday Clear The Clutter Club Check-In

It's been quite a busy week here at Chez Smith, but we've managed to weather it with only a minimum of craziness.  And we actually kept our healthier momentum going despite all the running around, which was a nice change since we generally revert to whatever we can grab to eat when things get too busy.

Note to self:  only keeping healthier options at home limits the bad food grab possibilities.

As of this morning, I am down another pound, which brings my grand total thus far to 10 whole pounds.  Even with the Superbowl nachos and brownie from yesterday evening.  Yay!

Next step? Add in some exercise.

The clutter control continues here as well -- I'm hoping to have the entire downstairs by the end of the week.  Again...yay!

On the writing front?  I have some exciting news.  Or at least, it's exciting for me anyway.  I've registered for a retreat weekend in March, for a workshop led by Julia Cameron. I'm excited, and am hoping that this is the kick in the pants I need to get beyond this fear-filled block to completing my novel.  If nothing else, I'm feeling a lot more energized and excited and that's truly half the battle for me.