Let there be (more) light

I got the windows yesterday. They're currently stacked in the back of my Volvo. This is a major step in my whatever-phase of home renovation, which is going surprisingly well. When you are in whatever-phase, though, you probably haven't defined what it means to be "finished," so the end isn't exactly near.

The window factory was about two hours away. You would think that driving for quite some time on a gray ribbon of a highway in 92 degrees would render me relieved to find myself on desolate, twisting, winding, roller coaster back roads. Surely the window factory is not out among the river people in their unique puzzle-piece shacks. Driving by these abodes it's impossible not to wonder why exactly is it that I need new windows when these places seem to need new.... everything. And then there is the window factory, right along the seemingly not-moving milk chocolate Muskingum River (the name of which I had to come home to look up). Armed with my windows, I drive past the river houses again, wondering who I would be if I lived here.

I've absolutely never been fond of roller coasters. I realized that is precisely the term that I've been using to describe my overall experience this summer -- er, year. At the crest, it is brilliant, clear, dry, obvious. At each turn, in every direction, other hills and crests recede in shades of greenish-blue, just past the even ordered rows of farmland. In the valley, it is damp, swampy, eerie, black. In these valleys the light is dappled, the growth is dense and jungle-like, and the scent of decaying earth is heavy. But it's here is where the real, uninhibited growth occurs, where all is fertile and things begin, wild and unhampered.

This is the room where the windows will be installed. It's my teaching studio, and I have been here for six years. This is a south-facing wall -- mirrors currently grace the exact space on either side of the mysterious chimney-ish outcropping where the windows will go. Once installed, the windows that have travelled over the river and through the woods will allow dappled light into a room and house to caress the places of breakdown and decay, ensuring fertile, uninhibited growth.

Belief

Your vision will become clear only
when you can look into your own heart.
Who looks outside, dreams.
Who looks inside, awakens.

Carl Jung

Entitled

O flailing one
You suck
The light
I will always
Flip the switch
ON

New or old

I am embarking on a new project a la Gabrielle Swain. She is a brave and wonderful artist and I think she is on to something with her latest commitment to self-exploration.

In keeping with this theme I am finally pulling together the list of seven that my dear friend J tagged me for weeks ago. I adore her 100 things post. The list of seven merely requires sharing seven random facts/habits about yourself on your blog, and then tagging seven other people to do the same. I have not yet tagged seven people -- watch out, you're on my list.

1. In middle school I went out for track because my good friend J was in it. Because she was throwing discus and shotput, that's what I did. Hilarious! I was not built for that -- she was. My niche was running at high speeds for short distances.

2. I was born with "trigger finger" in my pinky fingers, which meant my fingers would curl up tight due to inflammation of the tendon flexor sheath. I could straighten them with much snap, crackle, and pop, but it was painful, and they almost immediately returned to their curled up position. Not good for playing the piano. I had to wait until a certain age for surgery. My scars run along the heart line on each hand.

3. In my pre-teen and teen years I religiously listened to the radio; I gravitated to classic rock stations vs. the top 40. Soon I had my favorites and patiently waited until they came on so I could punch the record button on the tape player and preserve them for all eternity (ha). When I finally learned the titles and artists, it turned out what I was most excited about were Led Zeppelin tunes and I had no inkling who they were. Later in high school, classic rock was all that was played in the art room where my creativity was honed and nurtured by my all-time favorite teacher and mentor.

4. I learned to play the harp in college when I witnessed a woman playing one at an art gallery opening I was required to attend. I was majoring in both art and music at the time, and piano was my primary instrument. The conservatory agreed to set me up with harp lessons once they pulled their one and only harp from a professor's office where it was being used as a coat rack.

5. I became a vegetarian in high school when it was so not cool. Finding healthy, whole, organic foods was not as easy then as it is today. Even though my focus was on healthy eating (the only family member at the time devoted to it), I was the dessert-maker at home and I relished that role. As a young girl my very favorite food -- what I requested for birthday dinners -- was a big steak. Today my favorite foods are organic dry roasted salted cashews, Organic Valley feta cheese, and as-dark-as-possible organic chocolate.

6. I have kept journals for as long as I can remember. I am currently on journal #31, and I don't think this counts the Strawberry Shortcake journal with the special lock and key, or the ones made of ruled paper sandwiched between marker-decorated construction paper and stapled together. I have hand painted the covers of the last ten journals, abhor lined paper, and write very small. I have relied on these journals as reference guides to what really happened when my memory (consciously or subconsciously?) slips.

7. I was a painfully shy child, almost mute in the presence of others. I attended a private school where my class had a whopping number of eight classmates, which was way too many for me. In middle and high school I had experiences that brought mortality up close and personal, and delved into what now looks like a torrent of attempts to establish an identity. The result: sophomore homecoming attendant, senior homecoming attendant, newspaper write-ups for school murals, class VP, Student Council, secretary of NHS, Valedictorian. Just what was I trying to prove?

Interview with Eric Maisel - Ten Zen Seconds

San Francisco-based creativity coach and author Eric Maisel has been working with creative and performing artists for more than twenty years and has written over thirty books, many of which address the ups and downs of the artist's life.

His recent book, Ten Zen Seconds; Twelve Incantations for Power, Purpose, and Calm, explores techniques for reducing stress, centering, and remembering how you want to live your life.

Eric is engaged in an extensive blog book tour, and I'm excited to be a part of it! My interest in his work is personal; I've used his creativity coaching services and own several of his other books, including Fearless Creating, Van Gogh Blues, and Coaching the Artist Within. My interview questions explore only a facet of how this program works. Please visit the Ten Zen Second website for other blogs and interviews with Eric; more information about Eric Maisel follows the interview.

TH: How might TZS help to organize/prioritize the many ideas and actions that arise each day for a creative person?

EM: The Ten Zen Seconds technique is part of a program for increasing daily mindfulness and helping people learn how to create “islands of mindfulness” in their busy day. By practicing this program you begin to prioritize around meaning and learn how to put your most meaningful work and your cherished obligations higher up on your to-do list, rather than being continually yanked about by deadlines, crises, and day job/money-making responsibilities.

(View the twelve incantations of this program here).

TH: As artists, feedback from the outside world is crucial. How might those who are learning to not be completely dependent on outside sources for validation use it?

EM: The most important incantation in this regard is “I trust my resources,” which in this case you would interpret to mean “I trust my own judgments about my creative work and my creative life and I trust my ability to know what to do next and how to do it.”

The second most important incantation in this regard is “I make my meaning,” which reminds you that you must take responsibility for your choices, your work, and the way you live your life, irrespective of what others say or what others, by their silence, imply. We need others to buy our books, come to our concerts, buy our paintings, and so on, and so our audience must be cultivated—but they do not validate us. That we do for ourselves.

TH: How might TZS help artists remain authentic to themselves and not forego their own identity in order to please the outside world? Or, how might TZS help an artist maintain a grip on her own reality, vs. buying into that of someone else?

EM: The idea embedded in the incantation “I am doing my work” is that I have a solid sense of what I want to do with my life—or, if not with my life, at least with this next hour and this current day—and that it is incumbent upon me, in order for me to respect myself and earn my sense of heroism, to do the things I know that I ought to be doing.

We may not actually feel equal to this challenge by using incantations like “I do my work,” “I am taking action,” and “I an equal to this challenge,” but we begin to put the habit in place of honoring our vision for ourselves and maintaining a grip on the reality we want for ourselves.

TH: When engaging in meaning-making, sometimes artists find that the environment in which they were working may not have been healthy, and in some cases, toxic. How might TZS help an artist continue to create in this type of environment?

EM: First, by identifying which aspects of that environment, if any, can be changed and by then finding the courage to stand up and make those changes (which often means confronting others, including loved ones).

Conversely, if, say, you are working with a rude editor whom you need and whom you know can’t be changed, then you let go of the idea of changing your environment and move to incantation 2, “I expect nothing,” with real eagerness, learning how to detach from the toxicity of the interaction with that editor while still engaging with her.

To expect her to change when you know that she won’t is a common but profound mistake: instead, we detach from that need and, by detaching, reduce our experience of pain in our dealings with her.

TH: On the flip side, how might TZS help these artists find / build a supportive community that will contribute to their growth?

EM: Incantation 5, “I feel supported,” along with incantation 9, “I am open to joy,” can really help in this regard. If you know that you want community and better connections in the art marketplace but also know that trying to make those connections makes you anxious, then using those two incantations to promote an attitude shift and some anxiety management can prove really useful.

You want to change your mind about other people and begin to hold them as potentially valuable, rather than as dangerous, and as potentially on your side, rather than indifferent or hostile. Many of the incantations, among them “I am free of the past” (especially if past interactions now make you wary of future interactions), can help to build this new habit.

TH: There is a lot of talk about the Law of Attraction ("The Secret"), which focuses on visualization and outcomes. What is the difference between the Law of Attraction and TZS?

EM: I actually don’t know what “the secret” and the “law of attraction” are all about, but I doubt them on the face of it. We don’t attract earthquakes, military dictatorships, or the sun setting for all time—the idea that we can attract things (probably wealth, I would guess) strikes me as absurd as inventing gods who look like men.

I suspect it is a version of the oldest con game, namely one person telling another person that they can have something for free, with no effort, if only they will believe and fork over some money for the book, video, and the training program. But, as I say, I don’t know what these hot, new things are, so I can’t say how TZS differs from them. My hunch is that TZS, by promoting hard work, personal responsibility, and the letting go of outcomes, probably stands in opposition to any law of attraction.

TH: What might a TZS plan look like for someone attempting to come out of a creative rut?

EM: The first step is always recovering the belief that what you do matters, at least to you. You want to recover the sense that you are committed to your creative life and that you are willing to take responsibility for your creative life. To help encourage these feelings to return, you might try incantation 12, “I return with strength,” as renewed strength is one of the key ingredients to starting back up with something as arduous as “real creating.”

Another piece of the puzzle is reminding yourself that there is no perfect time to begin, that you are always in the middle of something, and that beginning is the thing to do, an attitude supported by several of the incantations, among them “I am equal to this challenge,” “I am taking action,” and “I embrace this moment.”

TH: Have you noticed any trends about who uses what incantations across gender, age, or creative path?

EM: The one constant is that women are much more likely to adopt self-help mindfulness practices than men, perhaps in the ratio of 10 to 1. It is not at all unusual for me to run a workshop that has 18 women in it and 2 men. In fact, this past weekend I facilitated a small Coaching the Writer Within workshop that 9 women and 1 man attended.

As to age, I think that cuts across the board, as does creative path, both in terms of creative discipline and accomplishment. Of course, I believe that these methods are great for everyone, including adolescents and older children—and men, too, if only they wouldn’t stubbornly cling to their refusal to ask for directions when they are lost!

TH: How might TZS work in conjunction with journaling, counseling/therapy, or other forms of self-introspection?

EM: In a seamless way, I think. Other methods of self-awareness, growth, healing and introspection have their important place in a person’s life but they are not typically available as a tool or strategy when you are driving along and want to center, are in a meeting and want to reduce your stress, have fifteen minutes at your disposal and want to work on your novel for a bit, and so on.

Most other methods and systems are not designed to promote mindfulness quickly and “in real time,” whereas that is the main function—and strength—of the Ten Zen Seconds method.

****
Ten Zen Seconds can be purchased through Amazon. To learn more about Eric's new projects as well as his creativity coaching services, visit www.ericmaisel.com.

Fire and light

I am not unlike the fire I lit in the firepit today where I attempted to burn away the bank statements and fallen branches and dead leaves from last year and weeds that have no other place to be. I love fire. But the pit smoldered and sputtered and smoke pillared and billowed and infiltrated the neighbors' yards. Layers of material needing to disappear only suffocated under each other, stifled pathetic little flames and sent out white gray warning smoke signals for hours making the pile virtually impossible to get near.

Next time I will burn quick and high and hot.



I removed the hateful humming flourescent light from the kitchen. There was nothing technically wrong with the 50" x 18" box of dreadful dead light for the one room where the most time is spent. But when it's on you can hear the humming upstairs, sometimes and indicator of whether or not someone is home yet, or whether someone is watching TV in the dark or passed out, or whether you accidentally left it on when you finally crawled into bed. There is nothing to put in its place, but there is a lightness in knowing the hum will never be heard again for any reason.

Listening to:
Radiohead -- You, Nude, High & Dry, Videotape, 15 Step, All I Need

Fullness

Tonight is the full moon. My favorite. I am creating a space outside for moonflowers to climb underneath my window. Moonflowers bloom at night and are known for giving off an intoxicating scent. If all goes well, I will post pictures.

One of my best friends in the world had her first baby at the end of March. She grew so large and full, and now there is this extension of her, outside of her, and I love the idea that this little boy will know and so unconditionally love the wonderful woman that I am so grateful to have known since college.

Usually I send a crocheted blanket, but I'm pretty sure I had already sent them one a few years back, so baby Ethan got a handmade doll, fashioned in the Waldorf style. About 6" x 6" of squishable softness. Some Waldorf dolls don't have facial features, presumably so the children to whom they belong can use their imaginations about how they look at any given time. Because the Waldorf / Rudolph Steiner school I attended for only a few years in grade school shaped a lot of who I am and what I hold dear today, there will inevitably be more references made to it throughout this blog.

Start over

There is a thunderstorm blowing through right now. Which probably means I shouldn't be on the computer.

This is a real thunderstorm -- "real" means true bright bluish bolts of touch-down lightning followed by the sound of the sky shattering. It reminds me of when I was a girl living in Colorado, where the prevalent thunderstorms always felt like opportunities to start over. The driving rain would wash new gulleys in the driveway, or wash out the dirt roads altogether; the lightning might splinter a tree, or cause one to completely explode. If possible, I would park myself outside somewhere to watch; if my aunt was in town, she would join me.

Always, the intoxicating fresh and clean scent of sage hung in the air after the clouds and the lightning and the rain blew by. The storms wouldn't hang around in Colorado like they do in Ohio. The billowing purple monsters forged through the sky and the sun would come out again, and inevitably, UNFAILINGLY, the rainbow.

Full color, sometimes double, arching over the mountains, or over the house... run run run through the neighborhood to get the best view, over pitted dirt driveways and through scrub oak and sage.... we're clean again, shining with new(er) promise and hope -- see? There's the rainbow. Now we can start over.

Andrew Bird -

Flying

I've got Spinning Brain Syndrome, which I've realized provides enough thought-and-experience fodder to conceivably post an entry every day. So that's what I'm going to attempt to do.

This past month (April) I attended the Andrew Bird concert at the Great Southern Theater. This venue was a step up in size compared to last year's concert, and the glow of the gold walls and ceiling was ethereal -- the photo in the link doesn't do it justice. I had a last-minute balcony seat so was able to so clearly view Bird dipping and spinning and nearly tripping in his ecstatic state of improvising through and above those walls of sound with a single instrument (or two) and at least one octave and five looping pedals...

I've tinkered with a looping pedal and it is a humbling experience. Timing/rhythm is everything, and just one of this kind of tool absolutely tests to what extent you are really hearing the rhythms both internally and externally. Adding more than one pedal demands memorizing what loop is recorded where. And hitting it at the right time WHILE you are creating sailing melodies over it all is imperative.

A note about the violin -- the sustaining qualities of this instrument lend so well to the looping pedal. The decay of sustained tones on the harp is much more rapid; a quandary to which I've devoted a lot of thought. I was a pedal-to-the-metal pianist because I loved the effect the sustaining pedal had on whatever I was playing -- it made everything seem bigger, bolder, and that much more magical.

When you watch someone so enraptured by what they are creating, losing themselves in the rhythms and notes and sounds beating back at them through the sound system, they are allowing you a tiny peek into what it really means to be truly, fully alive. Bird is lost in the wash of sound yet aware enough to assign shapes and colors to those sounds and rhythms flowing through and around him, painting vibrant, pulsing, magnificent landscapes.

His blip on Letterman was disappointing only in that it seemed to lack the high energy of the live shows, and Bird sans violin -- blasphemy! Ah, but we get a taste of his whistling-that-matches-exact-pitch of whatever instrument he is playing, in this case the xylophone...

THIS (link above) was the most amazing piece he did in Columbus -- "Why?", by himself -- leaving massive gaps in his loops as ready-to-fill entry points for his seemingly random creative sparks of musical ideas and spoken word. This is a video from Bonnaroo, but imagine it performed in a darkened theater, with the echo on the violin magnified, single spotlight on Bird while he lurches and reels, always coming back to the pedals, poised and hovering with striped-sock foot, kneading and shaping the walls of sound...

If I could, I would follow this guy around on his tour for the mere reason of knowing every performance would be its own improvised masterpiece.

Nourishment

In times of great chaos, turmoil, and trauma, cooking can be a tremendous source of comfort and peace.

Many of you already know this -- I'm a little late coming to it. Chalk this up to my abusive love/hate relationship with food over the majority of my lifetime. It is a great accomplishment to now view food as a way of taking care of myself instead of a way to control, shape, contort, and escape from my body and mind. Healing = viewing food as nourishment and coming together, instead of as punishment and coming apart.

I'm not talking about eating a quart of ice cream when feeling down. I'm talking about feeling a suffocating swell of anxiety and panic and realizing; What can I count on? Well, dinner. At least dinner needs to happen. And you find solace and air in chopping potatoes for potato leek soup with garbanzo beans and frozen mixed vegetables, or fresh garlic and ginger for stir fry with tofu, or portabello mushrooms, spinach, and garlic with olive oil and a bit of feta cheese over rice.

Because, even when you are doubting where you are going and what you are doing, you deserve to be nourished. And sometimes with good, healthy, organic food. And yes, that includes chocolate.

You were born with potential.
You were born with goodness and trust.
You were born with ideals and dreams.
You were born with greatness.
You were born with wings.
You are not meant for crawling, so don't.
You have wings.
Learn to use them and fly. -- Rumi

And cook.

I believe in all that has never yet been spoken.
I want to free what waits within me
so that what no one has dared to wish for

may for once spring clear
without my contriving.

If this is arrogant, God, forgive me,
but this is what I need to say.
May what I do flow from me like a river,
no forcing and no holding back,
the way it is with children.

Then in these swelling and ebbing currents,
these deepening tides moving out, returning,
I will sing you as no one ever has,

streaming through widening channels
into the open sea.

~ Rainer Maria Rilke ~

New thoughts, new year

Dear One,
Remember when you were small
Falling into your written name
Not from awe that it defined you
But that you exist in spite of it.
You are still that.
You are still,
Still are.

The preacher said
Almost off-handedly
"If you cannot be humble,
your marriage will not work."
The words sat beside me
in the harp hearse
flying through the blue-black night
over vast full fields
past tired Christmas lights
toward the stars.

Do not panic

Here it is September already. Once upon a time, long long ago in a faraway land where the goal was to receive the right letter grade and gushing remarks from numerous authoritative figures, I had stellar goal making/achieving abilities. Progress was inarguable, measurable and blatantly obvious. Those goal achievement skills have either left me completely, or my goals nowadays are more complicated. I'd like to believe it's the latter. Another possibility -- I continue to believe the story that I need an external motivating source to get anywhere. Glaring Reality: If I want it to happen, I must take responsibility for making it happen. Oh.

Sub-categories of Glaring Reality;

1. Placing blame is pointless and a waste of time.
2. Laziness is not the issue.
3. Productivity is relative.
4. Fear is misdirected energy.

Ah, there it is, small and non-threatening in the distance -- the support issue. Decide now how crucial this is to your progress before it sneaks up on you from behind. I have personally sampled several flavors of Support so far this year. There is the paid counselor, the paid creativity coach, the unpaid just-resurfaced friend from eighteen (gulp) years ago, the partner and trying-to-understand family, and of course, dark chocolate, feta cheese, and cashews. Oh wait -- those last three jumped from the "Yes I'm dealing with it!" list to make their special appearance here.

I do know that none of these sources are effective unless I first decide -- yes, DECIDE, which is a conscious, present, and deliberate action -- to do it. DO. No one else can make me do. They can tell me to just get to work, plot the graph the chart the outline the list, that I am worth it and it will all be worth it in the end. But I must first decide to do it.

Here I am performing my own composition "Scarlet." Living the words: "There aren't any mistakes. There are opportunities for another direction."

Create

I have been inspired by several good books lately on the creative process. I have a habit of collecting them all at once -- from the library, it's free! Navigating through the stack is both exciting and overwhelming. One book in particular, The Creative License: Giving Yourself Permission to Be the Artist You Truly Are by Danny Gregory, encourages using your blog as a means of putting out into the world what you love, not for the intention or hope that other people will read it, but because doing so simply brings what you love to the forefront of your mind. A blog is art, just like making a meal, typing an email, moving color around with a paintbrush or pen, sweeping the front porch, writing in a journal, day or night dreaming.

Where can you create? Scott Wade uses the dirty back window of his Mini Cooper.

This book has thousands of illustrations and every word is handwritten, not unlike Sark. So it has also encouraged a new dimension in my journaling, where creativity has a chance to run rampant vs. being mired down in black and white scrawly handwriting. Doesn't it make sense to draw wherever you can, whenever you can?

For me, this summer is about remembering what I love, want, and dream about. The next step is bringing all that to the tip of the brain, tongue, and fingertips.

Internal shift

There is no reason to wait anymore, for anything!