Tag: creative

• My Level of Creativity.

  “By Living a Life full of Art, we may achieve an artful life.”  Ellen J. Langer, who also said, “All it takes to become an Artist is to start doing Art.”

   

  As my daughter and I walked around and saw other people’s art, it inspired me to do my own. 

   

  I believe what we do inspires us and where we go and by how we spend our time, for if you don’t consciously attend to your inner passion, your passion will recede into a dormant state.

   

  It literally is true, what we focus on expands.

   

  I have felt the difference in the past few days of feeling the angst of making a point to many who feel it is pointless, in comparison to walking among fabulous art, inspiring fabrics and being immersed in shopping for the right accent for my daughter’s first apartment.

   

  The difference is vast.  One pulls you back into a vortex of manic expression and the other raises my level of creativity.

   

   

   

   

  August 12, 2011

  art, artful, creative, Ellen J. Langers, expression, levels, rising

  ---

• The soul that lies beneath.

  Julia Cameron writes in The Artist’s Way…

   

  ”Conditioned as we are to accept other people’s definition of us, this emerging individuality can seem to us like a self-will run riot.  It is not. The snowflake pattern of your soul is emerging. Each of us is a unique, creative individual. But we often blur that uniqueness with sugar, alcohol, drugs, overwork, underplay, bad relations, toxic sex, underexercise, over-TV, undersleep – many and varied forms of junk food for the soul…”

   

  I have never thought of overeating or any of the above as being junk food for the soul. That most of the things that are bad for the body is also bad for our souls.

   

  They blur our uniqueness, keep us living in with a fuzzy image of who we are, what we want, what we feel and where we heading, and above all, make it hard for the soul to shine through.

   

  In fact all the bad habits keep the soul from shining through and yet we believe we need these habits, we literally crave them, and what they are is a black out curtain for the soul.

   

  It is odd to me that we crave what keeps us from being our whole soulful self, and that we want the stuff that darkens who we are.

   

  Perhaps we want to darken our reality.

   

  We want to shut the shades on what is in order to survive…instead of taking actions to remove ourselves from situations in real life, we drape a curtain so we don’t have to see.

   

  It is amazing to me that we become so accustomed to living a life with a darkened drape, that we have no idea how to live a life without them.

   

  Julia Cameron is gently telling us what stands in the way from being you. What items we do to not be alive, aware and unique.

   

  By removing the junk food from our lives we can see what they were covering up.  The more we crave and hold on to things that are not good for our souls, the more chances there is big stuff we are not wanting to see, feel or respond to.

   

  For me, my big mess was revealed first.  I saw a whole life that I had no clue was going on underneath my dark curtain of denial, of self-numbing or fuzzy blurring of reality, and I then had to start eliminating things that contributed to the blanket of dysfunction.

   

  This blanket of dysfunction lived my life for 46 years, a thick layer of stuff that my soul was unable to shine forth through.

   

  It is surprising the difference between living as the dark curtain or the soul that lies beneath. 

   
  This is one of my first quilts after the revealation of my big mess….and you can see the sliver of gold, which is the soul trying to emerge.  I called this the Soul Lost.  I now have a better understanding of this quilt 6 years or more later!

  July 13, 2011

  abuse, Artist’s, Cameron, cover, creative, denial, habits, Julia, junkfood, life, self, sexual, The, up, way

  ---

• A More Artful Life.

  Here is an interesting view of creativity from The Artist Way, by Julia Cameron.

  “Spiritual Electricity – The Basic Principles.”

  “For most of us, the idea that the creator encourages creativity is a radical thought. We tend to think, or at least fear, that creative dreams are egotistical, something that God wouldn’t approve of for us. After all, our creative artist is an inner youngster and prone to childish thinking. If our mom or dad expressed doubt or disapproval for our creative dreams, we may project that same attitude onto a parental god. This thinking must be undone.”

  “What we are talking about is an induced – or invited spiritual experience. I refer to this process as spiritual chiropractic. We undertake certain spiritual exercises to achieve alignment with the creative energy of the Universe.”

  “If you think of the Universe as a vast electrical sea in which you are immersed and from which you are formed, opening to your creative changes you from something bobbing in that sea to a more fully functioning, more conscious, more cooperative part of that ecosystem.”

  As a teacher, I often sense the presence of something transcendent – a spiritual electricity, if you will – and I have come to rely on it in transcending my own limitations. I take the phrase inspired teacher to be a quite literal compliment. A higher hand than just my own engages us. Christ said, “Where ever two or more are gathered together, there I am in your midst.” The god of creativity seems to feel the same way.”

  “The heart of creativity is an experience of the mystical union; the heart of the mystical union is an experience of creativity. Those who speak in spiritual terms routinely refer to God as the creator but seldom see creator as the literal term for artist. I am suggesting you take the term creator quite literally. You are seeking to forge a creative alliance, artist-to-artist with the Great Creator. Accepting this concept can greatly expand your creative possibilities.”

  “As you work with the tools in this book, as you undertake the weekly tasks, many changes will be set in motion. Chief among these changes will be the triggering of synchronicity: we change and the Universe furthers and expands that change. I have irreverent shorthand for this that I keep taped to my writing desk: “Leap and the net will appear.”

  “It is my experience both as an artist and as a teacher that when we move out on faith into the act of creation, the universe is able to advance. It is a little like opening the gate at the top of a field irrigation system. Once we remove the blocks the flow moves in.”

  “Again, I do not ask you to believe this. In order for this creative emergence to happen, you don’t have to believe in God. I simply ask you to observe and note this process as it unfolds. In effect, you will be midwiving and witnessing your own creative progression.”

  “Creativity is an experience – to my eye, a spiritual experience. It does not matter which way you think of it: creativity leading to spirituality or spirituality leading to creativity. In fact, I do not make the distinction between the two. In the face of such an experience, the whole question of belief is rendered obsolete. As Carl Jung answered the question of belief late in his life, “I don’t believe; I know.”
  Julia Cameron

  What I love the most is that being creative is being your spiritual self…And being your creative self you are dancing with your spirit and dancing with your spirit, your partner is the Universe.

  Julia at one point suggests that we don’t all have to be artists, but we can have a more artful life.

  June 15, 2011

  art, artist, Cameron, creative, energies, expanding, ideas, Julia, life, The, way

  ---