I crack me up…

I’m such a right-brainer.  I just rebuilt the look of my blog again. I have some important things to do.. but they are dull, dull, dull… like  taxes.  I also am ‘meaning to’  gather my many new  ideas and create a plan to put them into action…    and that’s  a touch on the overwhelming side of life, and so I am procrastinating.  No, percolating. No, a bit of both. Definate procrastination on doing taxes.  Possible percolation on ideas .. because ideas and creativity do need percolating time.

So instead, I am incorporating a tool that is helpful for the creative soul.. I may not be doing what I intended but at least what I’m doing has a creative play aspect.  So. I’m lulling. Taking a break from the other stuff and playing with the blog look for no other reason than to play with it. 

Okay, not entirely true.. the tags flaming in bold letters on the other version was annoying. So ya, I can even give myself credit for getting something done that WAS on my list!

Does this then make it a non-lull project? YES!  I’d best go find some other adventure more lullish to refresh my overwhelmed procrastinating soul!

Thank goodness I ‘get’ all this about me.  Or perhaps I’d never show up to my passions.

I’m going to pot.  no no, I’m going to go pot.  (That’s better.)

What be in yer treasure chest, matey?

 Imagine you are a treasure chest full of ‘pieces of eight’ – gold and silver coins, priceless for their magic, wisdom, and inspiration. Imagine each one carries a piece of brilliance that is you.

Chances are you haven’t opened the treasure chest often… but let’s have a peek at what one might find:

«  Giant golden coins carved with your passions. Some try to catch your attention by capturing the sunlight.. these are the ones set aside long ago as not practical, but yearning to be found again.

 «  Silver pendants engraved with your values. Most of them feel safe in the treasure chest. Some, though, are tarnished. You pick up a tarnished piece and barely see ‘My Power’ engraved into the worn and faded piece. Ah, but there is a flip side, and as you turn it, words magically appear revealing a Hidden Untruth that has taken your power:

“You want more out of life. You feel guilty about thinking that. You’ve had a lifetime of being told to appreciate what you have, anything more is just being greedy.”

“Aha,” you say, “I have believed it’s wrong to want more out of life!  Well, I don’t need that thought anymore.” And as you speak, the tarnish disappears and your silver pendant, like new, clearly reads “My Power.”

Yes, there’s a whole treasure chest for you to play with, sort through, and enjoy. Within it are ALL of your answers just waiting to be discovered.

And within that treasure chest there are many ‘flipsides’ wanting to reveal the Hidden Untruths: commitments or beliefs that become so automatic we no longer notice the thought that it is playing havoc in the background of our lives. Those are pieces of eight worth finding; often one clear look and the thought can simply be released.

 What you won’t find in your treasure chest are ‘should’s,’ ‘have to’s’, or lists of weaknesses – those are mere barnacles on the outside of the treasure chest that will be happy to disburse when you find the real treasures.

There is, in fact, only compassion, gentleness, and warmth within the treasure chest. Precious coins and jewels there only to feed and nurture your soul, your passions, your strengths, your creativity, and your life.

Just for a moment, I invite you to see if you can imagine what’s in your treasure chest… even just a little. There’s some fine jewels in there, can you see?

~ And if you need help openin’ that chest, aye, I’d be delighted to give ye a helpin’ hand. Tis what this coachin’ and creatin’ stuff be all about.~

How to make Teeny Tiny Pots

It began with a student wanting a little clip of how I make tiny pots for a presentation.  Just before Take 5, my granddaughter Evalee arrived. I needed to create the video anyway, so I tried again.  WEll, commentaries from a 3. 5 year old is what MADE this video perfect!   (Okay, the imperfect is: yes, it’s a Qtip, not a toothpick as I claim in the video. And Evalee didn’t say WRONG, as I thought, she said LONG – minor flaws not worthy of TAKE 6, when the rest is so fun!)

The Shadow

The Shadow.. we all have some part of us we think is not so … umm.. nice.  And so we tuck away that hurt or hurtful, the cranky, the dark, and let it quietly simmer… haunting us occasionally with thoughts like ‘you shouldn’t be like that.”  But alas, there are gifts in our shadow… when you get to take it out, be compassionate  and give it some creative freedom, you may come to like what you see.  

In the Creative Muse Course, and in the Muse Leader Training, it is Shadow Muse Week… In honour of that, I’ve finally created this video.  The star of the show is my granddaughter when she was 2, on the day she discovered her shadow.

New way? hmmm. Not so new, but now recognized

Interesting article in the New York Times > All about the New Way of self discovery through self compassion

http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/02/28/go-easy-on-yourself-a-new-wave-of-research-urges/

I hadn’t considered my method of coaching to be ‘leading edge’ – just, perhaps, different.  Reducing guilt, reducing negative self talk, strength focussed ( and you can be sure most people are so hard on themselves, and have been taught to be so.. that they don’t know their most authentic strengths) … gentleness.. laughter…and YES, compassion for themselves… these are what helps people find their inspired selves, their unique best ways to ‘be’ in this world. These are what motivates and enthuses people.. because they are working from the soul.

  Happy to know my coaching process is ‘leading edge” ~smile~

This might be a good moment to ask yourself? How can I be compassionate with myself today? After all, the New York Times says it’s okay!  And THIS does thrill me…. we do need to find ways to have permission to respond differently in this world than the ‘high pressure, productive, deadlines, time lines, strategic plans, follow everyone else’s rules” game.

Now the New York Times gives you permission, I happily give you permission, feel free to give yourself permission.  So, again, for starters, what small way can you be compassionate with yourself today?

Once upon an imperfect pot…

 

“Zen for me is a misshapen pot.”  That’s a favourite line in my novel.. which is – woo whooo! – getting completed.  A crazy bizarre novel… but more on that soon. I like the line, though.. because it reminds me that I’ve come a long way from a time long ago….

My pottery: Misshapen, carved, tiny details, faerie hands, heads, hair, bits of clay flying everywhere, porcelain sails, torn to look like sails, and more carving … this is NOT like throwing a series of symmetrical bowls for cereal.

And one time at a show, another potter -a production potter-  took me aside and showed me the bottom of his pots. “See?” he said, “the bottom of your pots have to be smooth and perfect.”

Well, I wasn’t as wise as I am now, so I didn’t come up with a witty remark.  I might now have said,

“Uh, huh… so once I’ve built the pieces with 40,oo0 bits of carved clay scattered everywhere over the work space, and once I’ve attached tiny little people.. I”m supposed to squash them entirely as I put the pot upside down on the wheel to spend time re-smoothing the little dints that occurred as a result of the highly creative one-of-a-kind process for each pot?  Is that what I’m supposed to do?  Hello!  I clean up the bottom the best that is reasonably possible… given what I do, do you not see you are being ridiculous by suggesting my pots be  PERFECT like yours on the bottom?  My bottoms are perfect in being one more sign that they are different.. in a good way.”

But no, I didn’t say that. I walked away feeling like my pots were not very good.  I knew it was impossible to have perfect bottoms unless I quit carving frantically, quit adding details like a madwoman, and of course, if I stopped listening to the call of intuition, the zone, the higher self, and all those little faerie-like spirits that always bossed me around. 

Even though my pots started with a nice smooth bottom…. they were never going to stay ‘perfect’ unless I simply made a series of cereal bowls.

BUT still I felt bad.   The production potter’s  comment probably meandered around haunting me for awhile.  I probably even wondered if I should change what I do so I could have clean perfect bottoms. 

I’m so glad I’m over that. I’m so glad that my imperfect break-the-rules pots evolved despite that part of me thought I SHOULD be following rules of symmetry and clean bottoms to be considered ‘good’. 

But then, I can’t take credit for this… it was that crazy inspiration of spirits who first introduced themselves as faeries who pushed me past my perceived concept of perfect. 

Whoaaa, I just connected a previous disconnected:  I guess they were my coaches.  And now I coach people to get past their own perfectionism, and the influence of others,  that stops them dead in their tracks.  Well, I’ll be darned.

We really ought to listen to ourselves.

Hurray for our crazy information-inundated world for forcing us quickly into our next phase of mortal evolution: Fully accessing our intuition and inner knowing!*

It’s become impossible to know what is credible, what is not.. even photos no longer tell a truth with everyone having access to photoshop.

I’m sure you, my much appreciated readers, know we need to find our own truths. And I’m supposed to know this.. heck, my work for many years has been to help people with this.

Even so, I had a rather large ‘aha’ when I went to an intuitive naturopath this year who, as a result of testing said I was anemic.

“But it’s a form of anemia that upper asians might have.. not caucasians.” he said.

Well, there is upper asian in my background. He put me on a regular diet of red meat, and I tell ya, I felt sooo good.

I had limited the amount of red meat in my diet since .. well, let’s see.. I think it was the 70’s that said red meat was bad. (If you are calculating my age, I’m amaranteen)  An attempt at being vegetarian didn’t go so well, and so I included occasional red meat in my diet.

I especially limited red meat when my girls were teens and I realized how artifical hormones were playing havoc with women.

BUT I loved red meat, and even felt guilty that I would love to eat it much more often than I did. How unprogressive to think such a thing!

And when I did have a steak or roast, I would devour it as if it were the greatest thing ever put in front of my face. Ya, fat and all. My girls really bug me about that one.

Discovering that the Dalai Lama eats red meat every other day, after discovering being a vegetarian is unhealthy for him, definately helped affirm the whole red meat thing for me.  For those who look at me in horror as I talk about this story and my very real requirement of red meat, this fact usually stops any advice that was percolating in their heads.

Now, looking back – my body and my soul always knew I was meant to eat red meat.  My, how I had tortured myself by believing what others said was true.

* “Okay, we still have a long ways to go,” says I after 2 years of world hell.

Poor under valued, discredited, yet always used, creativity..

It’s a curious thing – creativity. In the Wheel of Life systems, you never see a space with ‘creativity’ on it.  Except in mine, of course.

Yet, we use it every single day.. every single moment we are creating our life.  Often by default, not by design.

But if we acknowledge that we are constantly creating, and then we apply the tools to help us understand our creative thinking and our creative process – whoa, wouldn’t that be simply magical!

Go, groundhog – shaking her bootie as she shakes up myths.

 

One day spring appears to be sprunging;  the next day the temperature
drops to minus 10.   The next- the sun is shining and the grass almost looks like it’s getting a tinge of green. And the next morning we wake up to a snow covered wonderland.

Everywhere you go people are commenting that the groundhog got it all wrong this year.  Apparently myth has it that by not seeing her shadow we would have an early Spring, at least on my side of the country.

 I think the groundhog (the one that affects my geographic location, at any rate) collaborated with the weather faeries to debunk myth, shake up limiting beliefs, and show us the possibilities when you think outside the box. 

The groundhog said, “Sheesh, I’m getting bored with this dull game; I pop out on February 2,  and they pretend that I’m predicting the future.  They continue to insist on this even though the accuracy is 37%.  I want more out of life.  I’m way cooler than that. ”

Being way more brilliant than the humans gave her credit for, she connived with weather faeries, power of thought, and all sorts of other brilliance to recreate weather into the completely unexpected. She did this because she could. Because she hadn’t actually learned that she couldn’t.

And she, with all her collaborators,  devised a scheme of completely wonked out weather patterns.. one day winter, one day spring… and now she sits back giggling at the world who watches in wonder. 

People, the groundhog finally got it right.  She’s  shaking  up the myths  and shaking her bootie in celebration.  She’s removed the limiting beliefs and I hear she’s conniving to hold a permanent position in the weather making station.  Yup, she called in the power of her brilliance to create the unexpected.  

I wonder if I could convince her to lead a course on this?

What is creativity?

From my Musings and Mud facebook page, I posted:

What is creativity? Given that were are talking about creativity.. there’s no right or wrong answers. Love to hear your definition/s!

Aileen B:   Producing what you imagine.
Kim S:  Creativity is that urge inside all of us to take things around us and make something new from them, to fill blank spaces around us with things that didn’t exist before, to make something with our own hands and minds and heart. I think it’s one of the natural drives, like eating, sleeping, sex.
Michael T:  To me, it’s the weird and unexplained co-incidence that occurs when what you imagine in your mind turns out to work or exist in the real world.
Pam E:  EVERYTHING
Pam E.:  …and noTHING at all ♥
Neil M.:   creativity is what makes the universe expand…..
Ian Brown:  Creativity: it’s when, by acting upon the belief of our imagination, we bring our dreams into reality, in either the smallest or the most amazing ways 🙂
Una C:   creativity is to be human
Solange Belleforte:  Connecting the same old dots in a different way and finding you have drawn a new animal!
Janet Whitehead:  a way of thinking, being and doing that provides one of the shortest paths ever to passion, gifts, soul, spirit, and .. the universe.