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.

My Own Center

For years now I have been struggling to find focus, definition, a goal, or some sense of purpose. Creatively speaking, I have been yearning for a specific discipline to center my work in. However, every time I’d come to the conclusion that it’s music or more specifically singing or maybe even writing, I would feel a great sense of loss for those things I was relegating to the backseat. Instead of feeling sure and fulfilled with the choice I was making, I felt an emptiness. It would seem right until I started to remember my love and passion for all the other sorts of art making that I do. One problem has been that I don’t want to be too much of a generalist, a novice at many crafts, a master at none. Being spread so thin amongst so many art forms has felt too chaotic and ungrounded. I have been struggling. In order to help myself along, to find some clue as to what this calling is and what I should do about it, I have read multiple books on creativity, on being an artist, on what it means, what it takes to succeed. These books have helped to an extent, they have soothed my fears, helped me take a closer look at the ways in which I sabotage myself, and have given me greater resolve and inspiration to make something of my creative urges. However, they have not proven to be the source of the deepest questions I continue to ask myself, they have failed in telling me exactly what to do and how to do it. Not that I consciously expected them to hold such personal and specific wisdom, though an unconscious part of myself secretly hoped they would. Answers to such questions are rarely found in the external, which my mind/ego finds quite tragic. Answers such as these are usually found within. The journey within, to the essence of self where the truth lies, seems like a lot of hard work, especially when we have never learned how to do it. Often times, one must be patient for insights to emerge as layer after layer is slowly revealed or like a riddle the answer is deceptively simple, so we don’t see it right away because we are looking for something far more complex and convoluted. It has taken me years to realize that there is no simple answer to my dilemma. The answer I’ve been seeking has remained elusive, because on the one hand, I am not ready for it and on the other, there is no answer to be had. That said, with the help of books, inward journeying and conversations with loved ones, I have come to a small revelation of late, which in it’s beautiful simplicity has released some of the pressure I’ve felt all these years to find a sense of direction. I am the creative project I have been seeking, I am the grounding, the focus, and the sense of purpose. I have been slowly discovering and remembering the shape of myself beneath the stone. It has been a glacial process, sometimes ecstatic, sometimes harrowing, always deeply rewarding. Being alive is in itself an act of creation, and as I work on myself, that which I am becomes ever more apparent. As I become, I open to the work, to the task I came here to do. By creating myself, I am readied to birth the currents of heart and spirit who want to emerge through me. As I continue this process, my way will be revealed. All I must to is remember to have patience, to be compassionate with myself and to remember the importance and validity of being my own center. From there, I am better prepared to share the gifts I’ve been given and to be of service to all my relations.

Cookies are Round and So is the Moon

It’s a full moon tonight and I seem to have limitless energy. I sit here at 1:15 in the morning, baking cookies and making tea. What’s come over me? Late night baking is usually the last thing I want to do. Maybe there’s some romantic urge in me being extracted by the gravitational pull of that full moon which inspires me to undertake such domestic expressions. Perhaps it’s my need for silence, discipline, and simplicity. There’s something humbling about baking, especially when your baking requires the omission of many usual suspects. For me, it’s gluten grains, eggs, soy and often times, dairy. My sort of baking is a meditative adventure. Following a recipe systematically, being as exact as possible so as to allow the magical chemical reactions to take place and end in a tasty oral experience, is much like knitting or singing a well known song. Follow the steps, take your time, let it flow, don’t think too much, feel it. One of the best things about baking is that I’m not a baker, and I don’t aspire to be. It doesn’t matter if the world loves my cookies. I don’t spend my days assessing my strengths and weaknesses or trying to decided just what sort of baking I should specialize in. I can follow the rules, or tweak them a bit and experiment, i can eat the batter as I go or I can throw it all out the window if I want. There’s really nothing at stake for me. My identity is far from invested in my baking ability and experience, or lack there of. It’s a liberating endeavor, especially considering that so often, the things I aspire to accomplish are mired in a life time of illusions, expectations, hopes, fears and dreams. Staying up till the wee hours on a juicy full moon night and baking for the sheer experience of it is a way to remember the sunshine feeling of joy and to rediscover the centering silence of play.

Creation no Expectation

I have no direction, no discipline, no purpose beyond surrendering to moments of creative transference. I shed the need for an artistic identity. There is no singer, dancer, composer, or artist in me, those are only words. Words are boxes that I cannot fit inside of. I wish I could. I wish it were so simple. I wish words could solidify my identity and sense of purpose and give me direction. Words only mask the confusion. I have been long lost, and I will not find my way again to a place that one word can contain. I am here, in a cacophony of words which I often try on, one by one, just to see if they give me clues as to who I am and what I'm to do. So far the words briefly sooth my raw nerves, but soon enough bounce back into the whirl around me and again I grasp for answers. There will never be answers. I am here to simply dabble and stumble and perhaps if I can remember how, to play. I am nothing and everything. What you call me, what I call myself, is not really who I am. I am beyond the words, my identity means nothing.

Making a Point to Remember Goodness

All too often, it seems I fall into the habit of fixating on the negative events of my life. I brood over them or complain, trying to figure out how it all could have been better. This is, I think, a huge mistake. It's not that I want to bury the difficult moments in my life, but they certainly don't deserve the important place they usually find on my personal time-line, especially when the good times aren't placed there to represent the true balance of things. In honor of all the good, even great things I've experienced in my life, I have decided to make a small list of highlights. This way, perhaps when all I can see is the bleakness of life, I can look back and remember the goodness. I encourage you to do the same for yourself!

1. Digging up earthworms, catching butterflies and lizards and snakes on childhood adventures.

2. Eating parsley straight out of the garden, pretending to be like Peter Rabbit.

3. Dancing furiously to ballet music on records.

4. Playing for hours with barbie dolls, creating complex story-lines for them to play out and building barbie worlds with random objects from around the house.

5. Camping out in my backyard for about a week in a lean-to that I built.

6. Watching the Little Mermaid with my sister everyday for like two weeks during summer break.

7. Performing in musicals and plays at my high school.

8. Watching lambs being born.

9. Watching babies being born.

10. Listening to Tori Amos' Boys for Pele on vinyl.

11. Skinny dipping for the first time under a huge moon in Vermont with a bunch of women and one man.

12. Hiking barefoot and stopping to watch a slug for 20 minutes.

13. Going to the opera for the first time, I think it was Manon.

14. Winning the Oregon State solo vocal championship in the soprano category my senior year in high school.

15. Going dancing at Hive (a goth night) on Christmas Eve with my friends.

16. Writing "The Story" with my friend Jennifer over the course of many, many years (it's still not done).

17. Falling in love on a train.

18. Drinking Guinness and singing at pubs in Ireland.

19. Camping out with Keela the dog on Vancouver Island.

20. Soaking in hot springs that were really hard to get to in Washington.

21. Going on a backpacking trip to learn about alpine herbs with a bunch of really cool people.

22. Rolling around in the mud on a cold January night.

23. Picking cherries on my way home from middle school. Picking blueberries with my sister on Sauvie Island. Picking blackberries in the walking path on my way to an from work. Picking raspberries in people's backyards! (And eating them as I go!).

24. Being adopted by my cat Dyna, who's been my loyal companion for 11 years.

25. Trading tarot readings with Annie.

26. Contact improving with Jiro at Sacred Circle Dance.

27. Finding "new muscles" when learning to bellydance.

28. Dinners and rehearsals with Chelsea and Catherine.

29. Eating wild violets on a sunny February day (faerie medicine!).

30. Drawing cool pictures from random lines.

....I could go on and on!

Blog Asleep, Life Dreaming

Well... it's been a while. I suspect that has little meaning to most of the hairless apes cruising these interwebs, but to the few who enjoy my words, works and musings, I have missed you and my lovely blog. As strong shift in my life has occurred since I last set word to screen and now I sit in an entirely new town, on an entirely new porch of an entirely new house with a rather renewed sort of perspective on my life. Now that I'm a little better settled, I just wanted to get the ball rolling once more. For now, I'll leave it at this small and reaquainting "hello", so that soon I can return with a fresher gem or two of my nonsense. Be well freinds, and stay warm!

And the Train is Long Distance

This is a small poem for my lover who is far to far away.

My eyes are darker now
so I can fly along
with your loping grace
and that steam fueled heart

It wasn’t so long ago
all I could do was hop
from branch to branch
hoping to catch a glimpse

Then there on the rails
I caught you, my prey
you were willing to be
kissed by talons and beak

And the woman on my wall,
well, maybe she holds this all
in her small brittle mold
an idol of two yearning forms

Maybe she’s the white haired one
and we’re familiar friends
she feeds us in her cabin
so we’ll come back again

She offered me some hot tea
to put me on the fast tracks
yet still, I wait for bridges to lift
so I can fly even faster.

I wonder when I see you
and I’m laying in your bed
will the smells come back with me
so I can last a little longer?

I wonder, will I stay
and melt into your walls
to soak up your dreams
and quench our lonely love?

Every time the distance feeds
seems it should get easier
but I find my need grows stronger
for the big cat to warm my feathers