Secret #2 Honoring Your Inspirations

Chapter 2/Secret 2 of The 12 Secrets of Highly Creative Women: Honoring Your Inspirations…
When I was reading this chapter I was trying to guess like the teacher’s pet student I was when I was young what Jamie and the rest of the group would choose as THE focus key this week. As I read through several of the first posted blogs I grew more and more rankled and itch-y, realizing I was/am slightly out of step. The enthusiasm and reverence I read for ritual actually kinda riled me. Just the word ritual makes my inner rebel rise up, though at the same time reading some so freely shared does sound peaceful and serene.

• I think of ritual as:
  *Repetitious
  *Innocuous
  *Timed
  *Undertakings
  *Abandoning
  *Latitude/Leeway
  

Albert Einstein is attributed with the quote: ‘Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.’ When I think of creativity I think of spontaneity and it just seems illogical to me for ritual to have a place in it. It’s good for productivity, maybe, but not creativity. Guess I’ll hafta think about that some more. But then it also seems to me there’s an awful lot of list-ing going on in your creative worlds all you creative women are opening up to me and I despise lists. *Grins* (to me list is a dirty four-letter word I think of mostly in terms of Limit Imposed Scheduled Tasks)

Ironically though, the quote that spoke loudest and deepest to me in this week’s chapter comes at the very end of the section on ritual Cathleen Rountree says, "The creative process is like a lover and you must treat it as such. You must treat it with respect, with regard, with appreciation, with love, with joy, with gratitude, with fear, with all the complexities of a relationship. And if you are able to give of yourself in the way that it requires, it really becomes a relationship." And McMeekin goes on to say, ‘This bonding with your creative self entails acknowledgment and the honoring of its wisdom.’ Personally, I’m excited by the idea of that kind of ‘affair’.

My creative self is wooed (inspired) by cottage and rustic/primitive interiors of comfort and beauty in magazine photos and coffee table-style books, art museums, time spent communicating with other creatives in a variety of fields and genres, reading stories/profiles/blogs of women who do whatever it is they find joy and accomplishment in (Suzie’s and other interviews and your blogs for great example), babies’ hands & feet & smiles and eyes, children, weddings, couples who love and respect one another, achievers, strivers, overcomers, the ocean, the mountains, farm land, cities, villages, churches, color, texture, spice-y fragrances, lush and whimsical gardens - lol, I’m inspired RIGHT now to devote a whole notebook to my inspirations. I hadn’t realized I had so many!

As to sanctuary – I’m growing into the appreciation of the fact that as an empty nester now living alone MOST of the time I have the freedom to allow MOST of my home to evolve into creative sanctuary if I so choose. It’s another irony that close on the heels of that becoming my reality first injury and then the sudden and rapid acceleration of rheumatoid arthritis limitations have frustrated progress. I’m slower than I want to be at this time but determined to make it so. Open, accessible desk space in the main living area with a new desk chair I can more easily get up from have been a recent giant step in that direction. I’m now contemplating accessibility and functionability accommodations for the sewing room and welcome any suggestions for limiting pain while using tools such as my rotary cutters.

WORD!

WORD! I used to work in a corporation in the LOOP in Chicago for a VP of sales who would greet everyone in his gentle English accent like and Austin Powers-wannabe with an emphatic ‘WORD!’ It really annoyed me then cuz I thought it was highly immature.

I’ve been visiting blog pages of many women who are also participating in the online book blogging class on The 12 Secrets of Highly Creative Women (started this past Friday! Yippee!). Being the first week or so of a New Year many of those pages are filled with resolutions, intentions, goals and such. Some of the ladies are in groups encouraging ‘everyday creative’ practices, some have adopted a ‘word for the year’ (a common-sounding one is ‘YES’) intended to focus on developing a new habit for responding to challenges of life, artistic pursuits and giving one’s self permission to proceed/indulge/ in trying new things.

My dutiful self would have chosen organize as my word for 2009 believing the act of getting/being organized would enable me to accomplish more and at the very least, please my significant other a great deal. Organized would mean neat and tidy cabinets, drawers and closets, on orderly pantry and fridge and more efficiently used space in my sewing room. The idea of all of that organization though leaves me feeling frigid, intimidated and paralyzed. So, I’m going back to the word I embraced as ‘my’ word while reading “Eat, Pray, Love” last year with my book club. There was a portion in the book where I got the idea from a character that every city has a single word that labels it and so probably does every individual. The writer of the book chose as ‘her’ word a single Italian word that means to cross over to the other side. I don’t remember precisely at this moment what that was – attravissimo or something like that. She was a woman on a journey to find herself after a disintegrated marriage left her questioning virtually everything about her life. She fed herself bodily in Italy for part of a year, spiritually in India for part of the year and another part of the year in Bali. An enviable journey!

The word I chose for myself then and choose now for pursuit in 2009 is Beauty. I want beauty in my relationships, beauty in my home, beauty in my garden, beauty in my writing and artful pursuits, beauty in body, soul & spirit. I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE it when my daughter, Rachel, says “Hello, Beautiful!” in greeting on the phone. Beauty is indeed in the eye of the beholder and there is beauty in every single person and thing around us. Beauty can be created, enhanced, magnified and reflected. I want to read books that tell beautiful stories, listen to beautiful music, read and write beautiful poetry, see and make beautiful quilts, de-clutter and beautify spaces in and throughout my home…

Page after page of the blogs of the other women in The 12 Secrets group are allowing me to see incredibly beautiful creations that greatly inspire me. Time spent visiting them qualifies I think for the prescribed ‘artist dates’ in the artist’s recovery process described by Julia Cameron in “The Artist’s Way” which I’m also presently reading. It’s almost like going to church to view the works of these ladies’ hands.

Today’s goal: make one spot in my home, the kitchen/dining table, truly beautiful – I CAN accomplish that much. Doesn’t hafta be the whole house in a day.

Acknowledging My Creative Self

This is a first for me, participating in an online book blog group such as Next Chapter: The 12 Secrets of Highly Creative Women and I'm very excited about it. So far since the first prompt was posted yesterday by Jamie I've visited about 50 blogs of other women - only 1 of whom I'd ever 'met' online before. Because I don't really know any of these ladies yet nor do they know me and many seem to already know one another, I haven't left any comments on individual posts but have found among them an encouraging display of variety of personalities, talents & skills. In some I see bits of myself past and present and I dare hope future as to confidence, achievement/accomplishment and aspirations/dreams. To me that's the beauty of sharing a book experience such as this with a large group.

The 1st Secret is to acknowledge your creative self. When I think of the word acknowledge my first association is the acknowledgements an author lists besides themself in bringing a book forth and those lists are filled with a variety of gratitudes to everyone from spouses, parents, siblings to editors, research assistants, character inspirations and technical advisors. In this context as to acknowledging the creative self I wonder why the word acknowledge is used instead of recognize or something else and dissecting the word a little bit - visually it appears to me to almost a contraction of accept & knowledge - accept knowledge. What that means in the context of this book blog group and where I hope it will take me is accepting knowledge of my creative self as a living being. Living things need nurturing to survive. They must be nourished and fed, studied and monitored so as to learn to recognize both spoken and unspoken needs and be prepared to fulfill them.

Hmmmmmmmmm...I guess I remember first knowing I was a creative individual around the age of 8 when for the first time something I'd handmade (an owl from two joined pine cones with felt wings and facial features) was imparted with enough of me to take it personally when the parent I'd gifted with it wasn't as thrilled with it as I'd hoped they'd be. I later rescued it from its location deposited among clutter on top of the fridge and took it to school to give to my 2d grade teacher, Miss Simpson, who adored owls. I learned then my creative self NEEDS to be appreciated and praised.

Since I was a teenager I've loved to write and I've tried a number of other creative pursuits and after knitting, cross stitch, crochet, etc. I discovered true obsession when I began quilting about 20 years ago. A few years ago though, I just kind of abandoned my sewing machine and fabrics after a much admired friend lost the battle for her life with breast cancer whilst I was finishing a banner to send to cheer her. And it's been okay until fairly recently to let the machine gather dust but it's begun to woo me back to it. That and the fact that I've been grappling with an inspiration for writing a book for almost 10 years now have been the draw to this book, this group and another book some of the women have also mentioned reading/using - The Artists Way by Julia Cameron.

So as to where I am on my creative journey - I'm movin' on. I kind of feel like I'm hitching a ride on a tour bus along with all of these other creative women. I'm along for the ride, the ultimate destination not nearly as important as the scenery and stops along the way.

My Perspective on Creativity

Before we get started as a group in the book, ‘The 12 Secrets of Highly Creative Women’ and begin to pursue the thought/blog process prompts from Jamie I thought I’d just share what I believe about creativity coming in.

I’ve been a quilter for many years and for a period of time in order to be near the essential elements of the art/craft, mainly fabric and thread, I worked part time in a fabric store. It used to frustrate me immensely to wait on customers who would come in with a book/pattern for a quilt and insist and precisely duplicating every single fabric in the illustration. I couldn’t imagine myself devoting all the time and effort to a project destined to be merely a replica of someone else’s choices and vision. I thought THEY lacked any creativity and imagination.

Not long after my present view of creativity began to develop when our local church became involved in a ministry to women exiting prison as a sort of half-way house and asked for volunteers and program ideas. Many skilled people volunteered resume writing skills, financial management, dress for success advice, etc., etc.

About that time I had read an article on art therapy and offered it to the program director as an idea for something that might be useful if they could find someone of that persuasion willing to donate time. The response was "What day/evening are you available?" HA! I had to laugh – one article certainly didn’t qualify me as any sort of expert but instead of refusing my thought was I could begin something, claim a time slot, and maybe someone more knowledgeable would quickly step up. As I prepared to begin I thought long and hard about why former addicts, prostitutes, etc. would accept arts and crafts, so to speak, as beneficial to them in any way. The premise of the entire program was the intent to help these women grow into the women God intended them to be. I very quickly latched on to the concept that I believe each of us to be a unique individual created by God and to believe in/accept a creator the Bible states in Genesis He created us in His own image and the very first, most primary thing we know of Him is He created. Therefor, it MUST follow that creativity is a basic, primary, even essential component of what we as human beings are.

Creativity can be expressed in any form – music, writing, art, the construction from wood or metal of any number of objects, the approach to child rearing or serving in whatever occupation compensates us, but we MUST flow in some creative way.

Embracing the 'newness'

Ahhhhhhhh...a new blog! Just like that first, fresh, virgin page of a blank new journal while the paper's still crisp and if you close your eyes you might even catch the scent through the bleach of whatever tree's pulp was pressed and processed to make it. I remember in grade school thinking the smell of fresh paper was kind of intoxicating until I realized it was the mimeograph inks my teachers 'printed' it with. Nothing in contemporary life comes close to the memory of that scent - it was probably not only eclipsed by photocopy machines in modern technology but I would bet somehow it was considered a toxic material to be banned forever. What a shame.

I came here to join in a process, a growth experience in creativity, with other participants and I'm excited about it. It's a step toward developing as a writer and artist meant to give hobbies and interests I've long felt passionately about more solid respect and worth in my own estimation and those around me. I've always resented that family members and friends seem to discount time spent on those pursuits as merely recreation and therefor open to being interrupted and even expecting me to totally push them aside to meet their needs and demands on my time & energy and yet I've let them do it. It's much easier to 'take a stand' now that I'm mostly alone and without much in the way of demands on my time and energy but I'm hoping easier doesn't mean less worthwhile or meaningful. That would be hugely disappointing. It's taken a long time to get here - to this freedom and room to spread my wings.