Check-In: Balance. Check-Out: FW

Gracious Communicator by Caroline with a Creative Commons License that allows non-commercial use and further remixing provided all attributions are given and a similar license is given on new images.
Images used in this remix are all from flickr with appropriate CC licenses:

• ionian sunset by Ron Layters
• the glow after sunset by DanielJames
• Masdevallia veitchiana by Boyd_

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I like the fact that by using images available with remix licenses I can blog my collages without breaking any copyrights.

I've done several new images in this way this week and they are on my card blog:

• this one - Gracious Communicator
• The Seer
• Creative One
• Council-As-One and a possible card back

I chose to show this one here because to me the orchid looks a bit like a balance.

Check-In

Morning Pages

I was introduced to morning writing, not by the Artist Way, but by Dorothea Brande in Becoming a Writer. It was first published in the 1930s and explains why early morning writing is useful; she also gives a very different way of analyzing what you've done when you come to re-read your scribblings. I noticed that in one of the chapters Julia Cameron mentioned this book and having seen all the reviews of it on amazon I can see why.

I worked through Becoming a Writer in my mid-20s (over 20 years ago - gulp!) and it was very useful to me then. You might even prefer to write in the way suggested there - which is as timed writing; writing as much as you can for 20 minutes and then stopping.

For me that's the same as 3 pages, for you it might not be. Knowing how long the writing will take is a great help in making the time available in the first place.

Synchronicities

I've just noticed Finding Water doesn't stress these - maybe that's another reason I've not warmed to it.

This week there have been plenty. The most fun one involved dachshunds - a friend I was having lunch with mentioned one she knew as a child that was called amusingly Tum-low and then after leaving her I happened on a book by PJ Wodehouse - I bought it as it was one I'd not read and when I got home I discovered it had a picture of a dachshund on the back.

Artist Dates and Walks

I had a great Artist Date this week - in fact I had two. Both involved trusting my intuition... and then checking that what I'd first got was in fact correct... very confirming... and out of it I also got a great book in one charity shop and a dinky new-to-me shoulder bag from another.

The first one involved letting my inner artist take me where she wanted to go, without telling me - she took me to the sixth or seventh charity shop up the street and straight to what she wanted - we then went back via all the charity shops to see that there really was nothing else appealing!

The second one built on this. She just took me straight in to one in particular and to the bag she wanted. I didn't argue - it was only £2.50 and I've been using it ever since.

I also had some excellent walks. I took one on Monday to cool off after a morning spent with the plasterers playing VERY LOUD music and of course writing my post about how I really wasn't getting on with Julia Cameron.

Since then I've seen a review (and another I can't remember where sorry) and had quite a lot of people mention her autobiography - Floor Sample: A Creative Memoir. You might want to check it out.

Check-Out

Someone e-mailed me yesterday telling me to "to take Julia Cameron off that pedestal" which I still find incredible as advice to me - did any of the rest of you think that? Am I missing something here? Just in case anyone is in any doubt - for me she is not on any pedestal.

I acknowledge that I gained a great deal from doing the Artist Way 11 years ago but that was despite her - at that time I was involved in an on-line newsgroup and she set her lawyers on to us for publishing some of the exercises on a website - despite her saying how useful it is to work in a group she tried to stop ours from operating - we finished the rest of the AW knowing that our group was being monitored by her lawyers.

Despite the lawyer thing the Artist Way was hugely transformative for me. Maybe even because of it. I took the message that something as great as the Artist Way could come to someone with feet of clay.

However, I do feel that Finding Water, as a book, doesn't have anything to offer me. It's focus is about persevering with one's work. But I'm not having any problems persevering with either my art work or my energy work - just this book.

In the last 11 years I've gained lots of different ways of communicating with my "muses" - I may start blogging some of them - whereas Julia Cameron doesn't seem to have got any new tools.

As a finisher of the Artist Way and other programmes I know I'm capable of completing appropriate courses. And now I know that I'm also capable of bowing out when its not appropriate.

Earlier in the week I thought I'd stay just because of the group but now, I realise that its not appropriate to stay when my intuition says I shouldn't. Why else were this week's artist dates all about confirming my intuition?

So thank you all very much - for all your support and all your comments - I go, not from any lack, but because that is the right next step for me. (And I will still be here blogging so its just the book group I'm leaving.)

To all of you who are still Finding Water I wish you all luck along the trail!

FW: Balance

I've noticed that I'm not putting my check-ins up on my blog... and I wondered why and then I realised that its because I don't want to grumble too much about it all. And about the book in particular - my feelings that Julia Cameron had one really good idea - the Artist's Way - and has since squeezed loads more books out of it, none of which has spoken to me with the same vibrancy as the first.

In the AW she gives both exercises in the chapter and then ten afterwards, and her writing is full of encouragement.

In FW I'm feeling tainted by her negativity - she says we all need to be careful whom we let into our lives and that she, aware of her own negativity, tries to avoid others with the same trait - well I want to avoid her!

And yet....

I feel part of this group. I have no intention of stopping being part of this group.

And to be part of this group does require that I at least read the book and have a go at the exercises, whilst keeping up with MPs, ADs and walks as much as possible.

One thing which I've found very useful in the past is called

Acknowledge and Let Go

Strangely, I blogged about this almost exactly a year ago in Unpeeling Emotions.

The basic directions are simple:

Out loud you say:

“I acknowledge feeling . . . . . . about ....... (doing) ....... and I choose to let go of this feeling RIGHT NOW!”

Filling in the gaps as appropriate.

And out loud means loud, shouting if necessary - you really need to be convincing about the letting go!

Say it over and over, with feeling and convincingly, until you have convinced yourself that this particular feeling has gone.

For instance:

I acknowledge feeling upset about Julia Cameron expressing her own negativity and I choose to LET GO of this FEELING RIGHT NOW!

then you wait and feel what comes next...

I acknowledge feeling annoyed with Julia Cameron for selling the artist way thinned down and repackaged over and over and I choose to LET GO of this FEELING - RIGHT NOW!


I acknowledge feeling annoyed with myself for being annoyed with Julia Cameron and I choose to LET GO of this FEELING - RIGHT NOW!


I acknowledge feeling upset with myself for not being perfect and and I choose to LET GO of this FEELING RIGHT NOW!

Going this far down has cleared me considerably... but what do you do when

You can't tell how you feel!

Sometimes it is really hard to come up with a word that encapsulates your feelings - it may be that one reason is because you don't actually let yourself feel the feeling - and feelings can be rather slower to form fully than words.

Sit and put your attention into your belly - this is often the seat of emotions - even those that have risen to block your throat can be found here.

If your attention is pulled to some other part of your body let that speak first.

My throat:

I am blocked - I'm really not going to put this stuff into words - its too dangerous and I don't want to say it or see it or hear it!

Okay... well how about finding a picture that expresses that.... lets search on flickr, under the creative commons license, for a something about not seeing or hearing...



An image uploaded to flickr by Miss Linds

I acknowledge feeling wary of expressing evil in any form and I choose to let go this feeling RIGHT NOW.

Ah, but I still feel wary - less tense about it but not happy.

Maybe there is a good reason for this.

Looking back at last year in my blog I find this:

The Curser



I blogged it in February 2006. At that time I wrote:

This card represents inappropriate stillness. Stillness used to send out (and therefore attract back) bad thoughts: moans, groans and whines. The hypochondriac, the bad mouther, the cynic - all these attract in just the things they think about so proving themselves right. Bad luck dogs their days. The little helping spirits are all ears so they attend well to their instructions!

But look a key word here was STILLNESS - I didn't see that at the time but emotions that are blocked and stuck become stagnant and still - this is not the stillness of a beautiful lake, nor the life-giving water of a deep, clear well - its more like that of a sludgy, dark, dank and polluted ditch clogged up with stifled emotions.

And the best way to clear blocked emotions is to LET THEM GO!

I acknowledge feeling blocked emotions about all sorts of things and I choose to let this feeling go - RIGHT NOW!

Stand by for the deluge!

What kind of water have you been finding?

Reality

Curtain - Painter IX

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This week in FW is called Uncovering a Sense of Reality. I couldn't find my book to read about it on Saturday but it re-appeared on Sunday. And having sat down and read the chapter I realised I needed to alter most of the exercises to suit me. They are too word-oriented for me. I need to do them in pictures.

Working with SoulCollage®, as I have been since the end of last year, is a great way to do them. For instance the suggestion that one falls in love with oneself, I find that much easier through making cards that depict me rather than by writing words. Sometimes the words do come later. But pictures speak louder than words to me. For instance I already have cards called such things as:

1. She who lives in the city
2. Beautiful me
3. Book Lover
4. Night Dreamer
5. The Gardener

I'd love to show them to you but I feel that it is breaking copyright to blog collages cut from magazines, etc. so despite the value of the pictures I'm only giving you their titles.

Now, using the five small actions diving rod, here is a list of cards for me to make:

1. She who loves to be alive and present now
2. She who prefers silence to noise
3. She who sings to herself
4. She who has the time to be herself
5. She who makes pictures to show herself to herself

I've no idea yet how these will happen but I trust they will. And if they don't something else worthwhile will appear.

Quite a few cards start off as one thing and end up as something else - for instance I was doing one about my working self from my 20's - I'd started off thinking of it as something like She who stood up to her bosses - but it ended up with the title: Worker - Unmanageable. And I felt compassion for the people who had tried to direct the firecracker I then was - this was very healing for me, I forgave them in that moment.

One of the exercises this week is to make a picture of the critic or censor. I did this as a SoulCollage® card a while ago.

It called itself Boo-er and my picture depicted a brain sitting on a settee - now I don't need to reduce this down to size, but redirect it, engage it. I now love this part of me too. I feel that Julia Cameron is still at war with her inner critic rather than embracing it, loving it and re-directing it. I prefer this second option.

For more about SoulCollage® see the soulcollage.com
Or have a reading.

The last exercise in the book requires a date with a friend and ends with asking them for spiritual help too... what I'd like from all of you is to wish me luck, please!

And I wish you luck too.

Finding Water - Optimism

A doodle in Painter

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Today is the start of working with this book, Finding Water: The Art of Perseverance by Julia Cameron. Alongside other bloggers at the Finding Water blog.

The theme for the first week is Optimism. Its always good to have a bit of a boost!

So as a measure of where I am now I tried a few tests... and I got really mixed results! From somewhat pessimistic on one test to total and complete optimist on another. I don't think I'm going to pay any attention to such tests - life is too much fun without fretting over whether I rate as an optimist or not!! You see I know, in my heart of hearts that I am, except when I'm not, its that simple.

I think I may almost be SoulCollage®d out. I've got over 200 cards now - though not all are backed - they'll be a bit heavy to cart around if I back all of them on mount board...

Every morning I select a card of the day and somedays I also do a reading with them. One particular sort of reading I've started to do has this general pattern:


You shuffle and cut and come up with the first card - put that face up in position one. Then with it in mind, shuffle and cut again putting out the other five cards face down until you've got them all.

And here is a made-up example using images that I've already published:


1. Past - Shadow: UnNamed One

In shadow, I am one who has no idea where I'm going, is unable to see what I'll become. This is okay and I have no name.

2. Physical - Shadow: Wren

In shadow, I am one who has made this reading up but will find that there is a message in it for me anyway. (Wren's are cunning creatures according to celtic lore).

3. Other - Shadow - Death

In shadow, I am one who will ensure that all that needs to end will end, so you may as well surrender to the change - it will be easier in the end.

4. Other - Light - My father

I am one who reminds you that you felt my passing. You and your siblings were not present in the same room but you all felt it and knew (and so did the dog).

5. Physical - Light - HK inspired distance healer

I am one who sends distance healing using very focused energies. I am one who is called to do this now and will do more when asked.

6. Present - Light - Can't see the wood for the leaves

I am one who sees a tree by examining it in detail and getting to know every leaf. Once I know a tree this well I do not need to re-examine it the same way again, I may return to it or I may not - that depends on what new ways I have of examining it. Some people say its better to specialise and stick to one thing, especially when you've got to know it so well; I say I know its part of my way to plunge in, do all I can and then move on. Nothing is wasted.

Today a book I'd ordered recently turned up. Barbara Sher calls such non-specialists scanners, I've always considered myself a Renaissance Woman - but if I wasn't already confident in being someone who must wear many hats to be happy then I might have appreciated the label of Scanner.

The subtitle to Finding Water is "The art of perseverance" - I hope I'm not going to find too much of a contradiction with my natural need to change hats.

How many hats do you have?

How many do you wear at once?