Healing Through Creativity

I am looking for a way out of this cycle.
I am searching for a beacon as I lay afloat this rocky ground.
I'm hoping to find a way to hear my story
and to share it with you
and to have you listen
and then I listen to you.

For at least 10 years I have struggled to make sense of my life, I have struggled to feel joy, I have struggled to see my successes.  I have been caught in a cycle of chronic discontent.  Lately, I have been thinking about how to heal myself and my life creatively.   I've also been thinking a lot about how I can make this blog more relevant and useful to others while using it to give me focus and utilize it as a space for me to document my progress in life.  And, so, I have decided to make a task here.  I will begin documenting my progress of healing through creativity.  It is my goal and intention to use creative expression as a way to discover myself.  It is additionally my goal and intention to integrate creative expression into my daily life, not as a career, not as a way to get attention, but as a way to enhance the quality of my life and the lives of others.  I will be seeking ways to bring creativity into the work that I do and into the play that I partake in.  I may do things that most of us consider creative, like dancing, singing, and drawing, but I'll also be doing things like making plant medicines and healthy foods, learning how to identify birds and bugs, and practicing communication skills.  The experiment is to find out how everyday life can be an opportunity to excel at our innate god-like ability to create joy, meaning and authenticity in our lives.  My objective is to unleash my potential by living my dreams one little step at a time.  My thesis: life is better when we are empowered to express ourselves creatively in all aspects of our lives.  Here I begin a new way.  The goal is opening my heart in order to hear my story, so that I can share it with you, so that you can listen and then I listen to you.

The Breath Isn't Just Deep, It's Also Wide

The Edward Gorey Garden Party at the Historic Overlook House:

In a swirl of black and lace, I made my solo singing debut after almost 7 years of virtually no vocal performances. With the generous aid of my trusty new accompanist friend, Adam, I rediscovered the power in my breath and belly, to soar through the notes of pain and passion in 8 beautiful songs. These songs are people to me, people who I know intimately, like the best of friends and lovers. It was wonderful to meet with them again. Like a wobbly revisit on a long forgotten bicycle, things my body once knew in every bit of flesh and bone came inching back into my consciousness as I reconnected with these song people. The most profound of these old knowings was the sensation of breath which supports truth and tone. This breath isn't just deep, it's also wide. To get the right support to release a high B or C or F, a singer must allow the breath to open and fill every little crevice of their core and let it become the fuel for inspired vibrations to emerge. It's the the play of breath and flesh and space that make the instrument what it is. Free, flowing, and alive, or pinched, frightened, and controlling. This breath is the ultimate Wu Wei, the art of non-doing, or doing effortlessly. In the the not trying, the magic emerges. It's about trust. When we trust, everything flows.

Wake Up Orange Flower!

Okay, so I've really been working the creative flow.  It's going really well, even if I still haven't established a regular discipline.  It's a dynamic process, which I'm okay with.  Anyway, for quite awhile I was feeling like my red (1st) and orange (2nd) energy centers were pretty closed off.  These centers are very much about sexuality, survival and creativity.  I was feeling a bit dead in this area and was aware that to get my creative flow moving in an optimal way, I would need to give them a little push in the right direction.  Focusing on getting my basic needs met through work and trusting that I'll have what I need has helped in the red center and revisiting the movements of the belly dance (mostly working the pelvic and perineal areas), and movement in general seems to have unstuck the orange center.  I consider this all good, but what has caught me by surprise is a seemingly sudden reawakening of sexual interest.  I was mostly shutdown in that way, which was a conscious choice on my part.  I didn't want to be bothered with sex, lovers, longing, lust, desire....  All too messy and distracting for an aspiring Bard.  It seems however, that the Gods have different plans for me.  They want me to be alive in all ways human, despite what I think I should have.  I may desire an asexual and rather hermetic existence, but They desire a Nova full of the juicy life-giving potential, sensual, attractive, and twitterpated.  I suppose this is good for my creativity.  It gives me a drive and energy for expression that may not exist otherwise.  I'm not totally opposed to it, just a bit curious, watching, wondering and observing my thoughts and visceral impulses.  I'm in a place right now, where I need to understand the whys and hows of my sensual side so that I no longer unconsciously react to it.  I have made a dedication to being with myself at the moment.  I am even planning an inner marriage ceremony for my 30th birthday.  Now that I'm not in the game, however, the game seems to be coming to me.  Despite a variety of intense happenings this week, my mind is fixated on a certain crush which has emerged out of my Svadhisthana reawakening.  I'm bemused by this and I'm seriously considering how to proceed.  I'm pretty sure there's some sort of mutual interest and curiosity, but I'm not particularly concerned if I'm wrong about this.  I'm attempting to maintain a firm level of detachment here.  My goal is to remain firmly rooted to the Earth and to not let my wild imagination to run away with me, as I've often done in the past to my deep humiliation and detriment.  I wonder if I'm simply being challenged to learn how to focus this energy into my creative projects, or if I should actually explore this potential partner.  I suppose, as long as I don't over-invest myself in any expectations, I could ease my way into an exploratory friendship.  It certainly couldn't hurt so long as I remain tightly reigned to my roots of rationality.  Part of my artistic quest is to deepen my self-knowledge and raise my consciousness, but it's also about relating and sharing my experience with others.  I wonder how I could experience and explore this consuming crush as an act of creation?

An Imaginary Friend Came for Tea

He took my eyes.  

"Because," he said, "Seeing doesn't give you Sight."

He put them in his pocket for safe keeping.

And now, I was under the influence of pure black.  My skin prickled every time he spoke, I could feel the caress of every word vibrate into my cells.  

"Listen quietly, my dear, and perhaps you'll come to know a small vestige of Truth."  

I nodded, then gasped.  My breath seemed to catch fire and blow out with every cycle.  I was afloat in infinite vitality.  There was a cool heat, radiating everywhere.  

He poured me a cup of licorice tea.  As I sipped, every droplet of that hot sweet liquid cast upon me a cataclysmic shudder, my heart leapt for the sounds of my swallows.

Silently, I gestured to him, hand reaching for his.  As his flesh met mine, I gripped and pulled him toward me.  I put my ear to his throat and listened for a rush of tea to drain, mouth to stomach, into his body.  The sound of it washed through me like the blue light of falling water.  The taste of it entered through my feet.  He and I were an obit of stars, our own separate Earths.  

It was then, I began to See.

Objects of Desire

I made these hair-pieces for my performance troupe, Source Lab.  We're performing and hosting a salon on April 25th.  We will premiere Story 1, our first movement and sound composition!

Here is a mysterious collection of magical objects.  Guts, scepter, fluids frozen?

Fledgling Myspace Music Page...

Hello my dear fans and readers!

Please hear some of my musical work on myspace at www.myspace.com/novadawnsong.  Everything that's up right now, I did in college.  Hopefully, I'll be adding more recent stuff soon.  Enjoy and let me know what you think!

Cheers!

Mlle. Novadawn M.

Lost, Miserable, and Hopeless

I'm in a process of searching.  For what?  It's rather vague.  I know that I'm not reaching my potential and that I need to move on and out of what I've been doing, especially in the realm of work.  Unlike many others, I have not the capacity to separate my work life from other aspects of my life.  For me to be fulfilled, my work must fulfill me, otherwise I will keep trying to escape my own life.  I am an artist and as such, I cannot ever seem to turn that self-identification off.  This creates a great dilemma for me because I'm keenly aware of the lack of talent and skill I'm currently employing at my job.  While it's been something that has earned me money for essentials, it was always meant to be a temporary step between here and somewhere else.  Unfortunately, 5 years later, here I am, still doing the same thing in the same town and with very little to show for it.  I'm burnt out.  I've been burnt out before, but this time it's even more serious.  This time I have a push and pull need to dive most destructively into the creative processes that will actually lead to a sense of personal fulfillment.  Rational thinking would tell me to be patient and ride it out until an opportunity for a better kind of job comes along.  Emotionally, possibly intuitively, I'm deeply compelled to up and quit, despite the shite economy, and take a gamble on my talents and true passions.  Can I really take another day, another month or six of a job, that while meaningful in it's own right, no longer brings me much joy, a job that acts as a constant irritant reminding me of my underachievements?  I'm finding that rather than letting me relax about basic needs being covered, my job leaves me emotionally and physically drained.  I have very little energy left for pursuing my creative aspirations.  Not only that, it may pay the bills, but it can't sustain certain things like music lessons, supplies, and other such things which I consider necessary to my success as an artist.  Perhaps, I'm just making a bad excuse here, so that I can cop out of just doing something, but I am doing something, and from where I stand, it's not enough.  I need more money and more time and more energy to dedicate to my creative pursuits or at least a job that doesn't suck my creative resources dry.  I've spent enough of the past 5 years sucking it up and making it work, now it's time to make it change.  I will not be doing the same thing in a year or two, I will be doing something far more exciting and personally fulfilling.  Personal fulfillment does not mean that what I do is all about me, on the contrary, I couldn't be fulfilled unless I knew that what I was doing would be to the benefit of others.  I know I'm not the only one in the world who is struggling with these dilemmas.  I know that it's as much a symptom of our imaginatively-challenged society as it is a personal issue.  That said, I'm desperately hoping to gain some practical sense of direction out of my sticky situation, and very soon.  Otherwise, I am ever more liable to make rash decisions.  Maybe that's just what I need....

The Salon Gets a Face Lift!... Sorta...

Dear fans and readers,

I've decided to dedicate this blog to the wanderings, meanderings, adventures, and explorations into my world of creation.  To translate, I will now focus entries on my creative work and that which lies within it's orbit.  Perhaps, I'll still throw in an occasional personal diatribe or rant on other goings on in my life, but for the most part, I want you and me to enjoy the pleasures and pains of my laborious journey into a life lived for art.  So, here we go!  The Siren is singing, let her reel you in!

Love and Light (and Midnight too!),

Mlle. Novadawn M.

Creativity Titer

The question has been, "HOW?".

Now that that's out of the way, I remain unsure of many things.  The titer has returned confirming a positive.  My immunity to creative death is strong!

I've been infused with the knowing once again.  I'm infected with a good disease, right to the core of my bones.

Creation Flows.

Yesterday, on the bus a rather strange woman invited me to a party.  She thought I looked down, but I was just tired.  I was good tired from the hard work of creation.  She saw books in my bag and asked me if it was science or history, or what it was that I was studying.  I told her it was singing, and performance and such creative things.  She said she wanted to be like me.  She asked me how.  It finally, truly made sense to me.

The answer is and always was, GO, DO!  It's sometimes called showing up.

Away with the intellectual pondering of potential and possibility.  Go into it with not a thought, but what to sing in this moment, or that.  It's not the song, it's the voice.  It was always the voice.  The voice alone is enough.

Donum of Vox Vocis ~ The Gift of Voice

Now I obsessively repeat, "Today is a good day to sing."  It's my mantra, my melody.

Now I step through every doorway of opportunity, and let it lead me into the mystery.

Tomorrow, I fly south to sing.  

Ten of Swords Revisited

Hindsight is always 20/20.  

Well, yes, I should have known, but again, yet again, I didn't want to KNOW.  

The Ten of Swords, the Knight of Swords, have come and gone.  These cards, among others, signified the deceit, betrayal, lies, intrigue, and the ensuing disappointment I've recently been entangled in.  I was blind to the truth before me.  

One of the skills of great magicians is the ability to see WHAT IS.  It's not easy, because what we fear and what we desire so often combine to create fantastic illusions in the mind.  If we're not able or willing to push through these illusions, we cannot see the TRUTH, even if it's right there, plain as pudding.  We live in a society that favors intellect over intuition, so it's dually hard to respond and act on the intuitive messages and reflexes we receive daily.  The intellect wants control.  It wants to compartmentalize, rationalize, and demystify everything in it's path.  The problem is, when there isn't enough blatantly clear information, the mind too easily fills missing links with flimsy justifications.  Oftentimes, the missing links are more accurately filled with the visceral knowings of intuition.  This is great when one has learned to trust such sensations and can discern between irrational fears and actual knowings.  

I'm learning that I have a long way to go until I am able to trust my intuition.  There is so much I have to learn in order to strike a healthy balance between my intellect and my intuition.  I suppose, I thought I was much further along than I really am.  It is through this experience (about which I am being intentionally vague, to spare myself the humiliation) that I receive a lesson on the beautiful dangers of desire, desperation, need, fantasy, dreams, and romance.  I want to remain a dreamer and a romantic, able to trust in the wonders of the world, but I also need to know how to keep such ideals from running me into the brambles.  

On the other side of these swords (since they always cut both ways), I have found myself in the position to take a different approach.  This is why in my last post, I made a commitment and dedication to my Muse and to my practice as an artist.  I believe, despite lost hopes, I have found a new energy behind these things for which I am so passionate.  My art is something that is real, it's a relationship I've spent a lifetime building, which in recent years was laid to waste in many ways.  It has a solid foundation, but a lot of damage that needs my full attention at the moment.  There's a lot of restoration and redesigning that needs to take place.  Other things that I dream of and desire for my life, don't seem to be manifesting at the moment, and it's important that I open my eyes to WHAT IS, and accept it.  At this point, it's wisest for me to put my faith, trust and energy into something that I can count on.  I can count on the fulfillment that acting on my creative dreams will bring.  Maybe I won't gain the level of success that I dream of, but at least I'll be able to say I did every thing that I could, that I showed up, that I went for it, that I did my best.  Knowing this allows the deep pain in my heart to ease up and gives me enough lift to keep seeing the rainbow behind the clouds.

Ink

A couple of my recent artworks.  I'm still working on a series of drawings I call "Bus Drawings".  Once I'm done, I will be looking for a place to show my art.  I hope you enjoy!

Well, You Never Know Until You Try

The ten of swords... what does this mean?

Am I a martyr, a victim?  Have I hit rock bottom?  Is my life just a silly melodrama in the vein of Tartuffe?  10 swords... now that's excessive.  Where did they all come from?

I think I'm going to marry my art.  Nothing else seems quite right.

When I Remember

I tend to forget and remember in waves, the magic of moving my body.  I'll lock up for a few weeks, I'll become stiff and stagnated, then I'll recall a moment when my blood and breath spiraled through my body as if upon wings.  I'll think, "Oh yeah, that's what living feels like".  Then I'll get my weary self to someplace safe and let my body speak to me.  She often tells me all about my cruel neglect towards her needs, and then she slowly, compassionately shows me how to make up for it.  My body becomes lover to my mind, my emotions, my heart.  She brings me back to my breath, she takes me to inner temples, she slithers, she jumps, she spins, she releases intellect from it's frantic grip.  My body has a mind of her own.  Every cell, every molecule awakens in the bliss she brings.  By moving, she teaches me to be still.

Am I My Own Worst Enemy?

What sparks this question is the 8 of Swords.

This card popped up in a reading recently, and sparked a rather strong reaction in me.  Like any metaphoric system, there are multiple interpretations to be had.  However, the most important one's are those with personal significance, the one's that speak to us in a language we are able to receive and understand.  With this in mind, I wish to explore the significance this card holds for me.

So, let's begin with the number.  Eight is a numerological symbol for power.  Some sources have a materialistic take on it, interpreting it as a number of material wealth, business acumen, and positions of authority, while forgetting more esoteric significances.  Eight can also symbolize the joining of the above and the below.  Turned on it's side, the eight is the sign for infinity.  While the materialistic interpretation has a value of it's own, I'm more privy to the arcane interpretations.  The fusion of spirit ("above") and matter ("below") is the work of the magician or alchemist.  Through the process of this "Great Work", one discovers the source of true power (the ability see beyond illusion/delusion, manifest through Will, serve as conduit to the Divine, etc.).  Thus eight, is a symbol for the achievement of true power (which is not power over, but power within).

The suit of swords in the tarot represents the intellect and the air element.  The eight paired with the swords indicates a relationship between power and mind.  It asks us to ponder what purpose intellect serves in the wielding of true power.  It warns us that the mind when given credence over the heart, only serves to bind, blind and banish us from our power (see the woman in the card).  This is not to downplay the importance of the intellect.  On the contrary, it serves a very important role in our ability to discern, critique, explore and understand.  However, for true self discovery and empowerment to occur, the mind must work in service to the heart (otherwise defined as intuition, Holy Spirit, Chante (Lakota), etc.).  It is through the heart that we receive pure guidance (inner knowing) from our essential selves.  The fusion of the above and the below takes place at the heart center.  It is here that intellect and emotion meet to share their respective observations and information so that one can act consciously from the heart.  

Considering the above, we can see that the eight of swords card is a symbol for powerlessness caused by intellectual beliefs.  In other words, the state of powerlessness shown is merely an illusion of the mind, choice still exists, it's simply unacknowledged.  The woman in the card is bound and blindfolded, barren and barred.  However, the way in front of her is clear and she has the freedom of movement in her feet.  A trickle of water lays a path for her.  The water being a symbol for emotion, gives her the encouragement to feel her way out of her predicament.  To be freed, she must loose the shackles of the intellect, allow her emotions to flow and will the two to meet in a moment of self-realization.  She has been party to her own oppression all along.  She has created many of these limitations for herself by buying into dis-empowering messages, external and internal alike.  On the other hand, some of the limitations have likely been imposed upon her from outside sources and are out of her control.  However, the point is not where the limitations originated, but what she perceives as her level of choice in the situation.  The better she can recognize what is, the better she can recognize the what kind of power she has to shift her circumstances.  This is the number eight, this is the magical act of grounding intent through the use of Will.  So, does she choose to give in to the limitations or use her creative spirit to find ways around, through, and beyond them?  Does she choose to activate her latent emotions and give them as much import as her fear-filled, dominating mind?  Is she what stands in her way? 

Alas, I must ask myself these very same things.  When considering these questions in the context of the intellect I must be careful not to negate the hard reality of social inequities that exist outside of my immediate control.  That said, I am challenged to see how, in my beliefs about myself and the world, I disallow myself a better life.  To tell the truth, my life isn't all that bad, especially when compared to many of my fellow relations, but subjectively speaking, I'm not fulfilled.  My dreams seem forever unattainable and I feel powerless for it.  But, perhaps I have fallen victim to my own lack of faith and my unwillingness to call up the creative forces innate in me to solve the riddle of my bindings.  It's difficult to put a mirror to one's mind, to deconstruct those brilliantly laid internal stories, in order to really see what's going on.  I've already asked myself what I want.  I know what I want.  Now, I just have to see what's standing in my way.  I have feeling that, as I lift my blindfold, I'll discover many faces of me staring back.  It's just a matter of convincing them that I know what needs to happen, that I've got it straight from the Source, and that they've got nothing to worry about.  Well, it's easier said than done, isn't it?  Or is that just a good example of how my mind is tricking my heart?

Death is Awaiting!

Recently, I've pulled the Death card from a number of tarot and oracle decks for readings on various questions. When one pulls a recurring card, it becomes a strong indication that the card's message must be heeded. Contrary to popular belief, the Death card does not usually signify physical death. It does, however, imply an ending and a beginning of something major in one's life. It makes perfect sense that I have been visited by this Grim Reaper lately. I am undergoing a major transformation in my life. The Phoenix has burned and is rising from the ashes. The old is slipping away, the new inching in. Due to changes I've made in my life, my spirit, my psyche, I can no longer live the life I've been living. It must die. Composting, fermenting, incubating, sprouting... this is the phase I am now beginning. More specifically, I have been called to live a creative life, one where my self-expression is the modus operandi to my healing, my happiness, and my freedom. This artist's life is not just about me, it's also about sharing my gifts with the world... allowing those 'Waters of Life' to flow into the heart's of others. I can no longer be stingy with my voice, my music, or my visions. If I didn't let my old life of resistance, avoidance, and fear give way, I would eventually die. This may sound melodramatic, but it's very true. My old life was slowly suffocating me. Now, I choose this death, to choose new life. Now, I embrace the call of my heart, to uplift myself, to uplift all our relations. My creative dreams made real, are my offering to you, in honor of your innate wonderousness.

Aho, Mitakuya Oyasin (All My Relations)