The Muse is IN Blog

The Rain

“The real world is much smaller
than the imaginary”
~F. Nietzsche 

 

I wrote imaginary stories during the pandemic to make the confinement of the real world a little larger. With the collective exhaustion from the aftermath of Covid,  divisive politics, and climate change - the imagination is still a way to find restoration, refreshment ... and to enjoy the music that is the rain.

 

I'd like to share the healing, wonder, and relaxation of these stories with you. 

 

It's raining right now in San Diego and that's what this first story is about. What if rain played music as it came down? Read the story and hear the music in your imagination or here's the podcast - music is synced to the rain.

 

 

The Rain (from A Muse's Daydream podcast)

 

It’s been a tough day… year, it’s been a tough year. It’s sad and scary and frustrating.

 

So I’m headed up to my writing loft. It’s upstairs.

 

And when I get there, I instantly feel more present to this moment where things are safe and comfortable.

 

There’s a floor to ceiling window looking out into an enchanting little forest of trees, all green and reliable. Inside is the smell of cinnamon clove tea and cedar from the wood, a welcoming red cozy rug, my ballerina mobile is dancing slightly, breeze in the high roof, and my big teddy bear recliner chair, where I write poems and prose and podcasts can almost be heard saying – get over here, sit down, and surrender, so I do. The chair is deep and easy, plush and padded, I sink in and feel taken care of.

 

Breathing in and breathing out, I go deeper.

 

I hear rain against the window.I love the sound of the rain, its percussion, its erratic insistence, and then I listen closely and I do hear the music of rain…the rain becomes music. I close my eyes and imagine rain falling down on me like musical notes falling from stars.  Everywhere the musical notes rain around me, on me, and near me there is a sense of relaxation, I relax in this shelter of imagination, in this daydream. I breathe again.

 

 And then I write this:

 We run between lightning and shudder from thunder while in this world. But the rain doesn’t care, the music still plays just as it did when the sun was out, and stars still send light. The world gives us so much beauty in so many forms that all we can hope to do is welcome it into our daydreams and make it medicine for the days, or the years, that don’t feel so good.

 

We can replenish our clarity so we can see the moments that lead us to creative celebration and believe in the power of daydreams to do just that.

 

Stay safe, Jill

 

The Muse is IN Creativity Prompts

Writing Prompt:  Write a rain or snow haiku or three line story. Then write another one, going outside your usual first response to something more novel or edit the first one until it makes you smile.     Art Prompt:   There may be one person you haven't thought of to send a holiday card to who would love to get one from you. Make a simple one like the bear on the left and surprise them.

 

Upcoming Creative Things:

 

       Tuesdays, January 3- 31, 2023 Wild Abandon

Ror Sketchbook Skool's Spark Program:  Letting loose with sketching and watercolor painting  especially for the intimidated beginner but for all levels wanting to have fun and find an artistic voice.   More information

 

January 23 - May 15, 2023
Kaizen-Muse Creativity Coaching Certification Training 

A new 17-week training begins January 23, 2023 on Zoom. Something for yourself as well as others. Get trained as a creative catalyst but it's also a sure-fire way to take your own creativity to a new level, especially if you're feeling resistant, overwhelmed, or unsure.  19 years of training.
Check it out here or email me for a chat.

Two unsolicited testimonials from the last training:

"You and your program have changed my life in many wonderful ways. I’m very grateful." ~S
"It’s been such an amazing learning experience …I .have drawn so much from the experience. It’s been deep learning and enriching. With a heart full of gratitude. " ~JW

 

February 21 - May 9, 2023

The Nine-Modern Day Muses Facilitator Training: Meet 10 powerful creative principles in the guise of modern day Muses - they will take your creativity deeper and teach you how to run groups to do the same for others. Based on the book, The Nine Modern Day Muses (and a Bodyguard). More information and registration here.

 

October 1-6, 2023 Wild Abandon at Omega Institute in NY
Save the date for Omega Institute of Holistic Sciences in the forest at Rhinebeck, NY. I'll be teaching Wild Abandon Creativity. Watch for it in their catalog.

 

Rewiring Wonder

 

Wednesday I travel to Crete – a beautiful island off the coast of Greece to lead a creativity retreat. That’s 15 hours of flying from San Diego International.

I have a little Anxiety Thing. I’ve had it since I was nine years old when everything from a thunderstorm to the film, The Ghost and Mr. Chicken sent me hiding in my parents’ bed.  

My anxiety comes in several varieties, including but not limited to social anxiety, fear of losing/neglecting details/forgetting/ throwing away important stuff, and… travel.  

Preparation for the trip took a more stressful-than-usual turn a month ago when I noticed that my passport has expired.  My Port of Entry card doesn’t expire until 2024 which is what I was looking at,  thinking it was my passport.

Port of Entry cards don’t work as passports no matter how creatively you think about them.

The "Neglecting Details" anxiety is actually fueled by a series of events where not paying attention brought real calamity. If you have my brand of ADHD, you are familiar with overlooking important details which cause undo complications, hair loss, and laying in bed face down.

Hi, Anxiety

Passports take 5-7 weeks through regular channels. My travel at that point was in THREE weeks away. The get-your-passport faster channels require waiting until 2 WEEKS BEFORE travel to make an appointment and getting an appointment is not guaranteed. Real not imagined anxiety was my companion until I secured that appointment.  

After a few hours of panic, I took out all my mindfulness tools to move into a less frazzled moment with a LOT of meditation. I put the anxiety in a separate mental compartment so it wouldn’t further sully my sanity and fed it Oreos. I got my passport. Most of what we fear, doesn't happen, might as well enjoy the ride.

Travel Variety 

One of my favorite paradoxes is that I follow and teach creative mindfulness, and yet I forget, neglect, and lose things.  But I am also fortunate enough to know how to inhabit and celebrate the majesty of moments and all they have to offer in terms of creativity, beauty, and wonder. We all have flipsides. Those with ADHD often have a remarkable ability to see ideas, imaginings, and amusement in details others may miss. 

 

Rewiring Anxiety to Wonder

As the trip draws closer, the usual free-floating travel anxiety ramps up.

 

Noting anxiety with equanimity can neutralize it  I never experience anxiety 100%, it’s more like 30% of my emotional preoccupation.  

 I also love travel, the feeling of the plane taking off, being captive to a good book, clouds outside the window, landing in a new place,  people watching, food from different countries!. I have a Wonder Thing in addition to my Anxiety Thing.  It’s about 50% of my awareness – 20% more than anxiety. That leaves 30% for habits, on-line shopping, and applying facial cream.

Plugging into the Wonder Thing with awareness feels MUCH better than focusing on the Anxiety Thing. It comes from reframing my experience which is one of the most important uses of creative thinking. How can we think differently?   

How's your Wonder Wiring?

 

Let me know, 

Jill

The Muse is IN Creativity Prompts

Writing Prompt:   Use the word OCTOBER as an acrostic (different from an acronym). Use each letter as the beginning of a sentence that weaves together a poem. Here's more about acrostics.     Art Prompt:  How to paint a fall  leaf like the one above. Let it DRY and add the veins with a thin brush.

 

In Person: Wild Abandon Creativity Workshop and Lunch

November 12. 2022  10 am - 4 pm  San Diego: Rancho Santa Fe

Join me for some liberated, loose, and fun art in a beautiful setting in San Diego.  Limited space More information here

 

And save the date for Omega Institute of Holistic Sciences in the forest at Rhinebeck, NY. I'll be teaching Wild Abandon Creativity again October 1-6, 2023.

 

More workshops and trainings here

 

Found Poetry

  

 

Writer, Henry James said "It is by detecting patterns and meanings in our experiences that we become artists."

 

I've been detecting poetic meaning in unlikely places lately. When I'm feeling stuck creatively in any pursuit, I find poems by blocking out existing texts and leaving what's left as a poem I never would have discovered otherwise.

 

It stokes the embers of my poetic soul without having to start with a blank page (mind). Found poetry, the literary equivalent of a collage, is often made from newspaper articles,  graffiti, speeches, letters, or pages in books.

 

I've been finding them in on-line science articles and art reviews. I made it a dailyish habit in my current Finding Uber Bliss class so for the last several days, I've fed my poetic self with these crazy little verses that lay hidden until I take the rectangle tool in my Adobe Illustrator and block out everything that isn't a poem. I don't add or change the order of the text, that's what make it a challenge and often those limits save the quality of what comes out. Brevity in poetry can be more powerful than length at least when I write them. 

 

Classically people use a hard copy of a book or document and black out all the words they don't want with a marker. 

 

 

 Here is a quote often attributed to Michelangelo when asked if it was difficult to sculpt David: "It is easy. You just chip away the stone that doesn’t look like David." It was later debunked that he said it, but I still like the concept because that's what sculptors do and found poetry is a little like sculpture.

 

Found poetry is also referred as "black-out" poetry by some, including creativity guru,  Austin Kleon. But "found poetry," which is similar, is traced back to the 1920s, when the Dada movement was first emerging, followed quickly by Surrealism. I call it therapy and am addicted. 

 

In case you're curious, there's more of my found poetry on Instagram and the Google images has a plethora. 

 

Thanks for being a subscriber!

Jill

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

FOUND WORKSHOPS 

 

THE MUSE IN WINTER, TAOS

 The Muse in Winter retreat in Taos, New Mexico  happens for the 12th year this coming February 4-8, 2023. 

 

 Seems a little crazy to think about sitting around a fireplace in winter while we are still in the dog days of summer, but my mind is already traveling to the next nurturing and creative gig at the Mabel Dodge Luhan House. We sit around the fire making art, writing, and sharing.  And meal times are spent in awe of Sophia's 3 course gourmet meals as well as laughing and making friendships that last for years.

 

All during an immersion in creative exercises even the intimidated introvert loves... A private concert with original songs from Kate Mann and Mark Dudrow, yoga classes, and an evening salon make this one of the highlights of my year. I love that people come back four and five times but if you haven't been, you're always welcome. 

 

 

 

Diving in Again

Jumping Too Soon

“So much of what is neurotic or damaged about me is the thing I tap into to be creative or to write or to create comedy, it’s all from the wound in some way.  I find myself swimming in it creatively and in my imagination to create stories. “

-Writer, director, comedian, Judd Apatow  (from Sam Harris’s Making Sense podcast interview)

There are moments in our childhood that shape our lives. realizations: first time I saw a cat… first time I sat in a movie, first time I went out to eat, the first time I made my parents laugh.

Begin Again

Some mindfulness teachers teach that there is no “self,” but that doesn’t stop my fascination with the neuroses that seems to follow me around.    I may not have a self, but I am a person with quirks. They are a cocktails of ADHD… the H standing for Highly Sensitive and not-soendaring personality flaws   When I’m in a mindfulness zone, I watch them as a benevolent observer. When I’m not, I feel damaged, awkward, and outcast.  

There are moments in our childhood that shape our lives. I clearly remember the first time I sat in a movie 101 dalmations– I was hooked and I became a cinephile, I remember vividly the first time I saw a kitty kat, and I’ve been in love with cats and owned them ever since.  And I remember the first time I made my parents laugh.

“Laughter is carbonated holiness.” ~Anne Lamott

Humor

 Although there are exceptions, in the 60s and 70s, kids weren’t a high priority so making my parents laugh was pretty much the only way I could get their attention other than putting a thermometer on a lightbulb to feign a high temperature.

Humor can help us skirt reality, channel anger, and process awkward circumstances with laughter instead of suicide.   I used humor for skirting, channeling, processing, and to connect with parents preoccupied with tennis,  the stock market, and what the neighbors thought.

At three-years-old, there is reel to reel film evidence of me wearing my dad’s boat-sized shoes and a rubber nose with mustache glasses dancing around the living room, my mom laughing demurely. To make my parents laugh was a newly found three-year-old discovery that I found delightful and if you had given me a cigar, I’d have willingly headlined at the local comedy club.

When I was five, we moved to from New Jersey to Miami and my family joined Kings Bay Country Club where kids waited in line at the high diving board for an exhilarating jump into the Olympic sized pool beneath. When it was my turn, I’d climb to the top, dance in clown-like antics, then purposely fall into the chloride sea, making sure I pushed off from the pool floor fast enough to catch my parents laughing.  That was the important part.

 

Does Not Rebound Quickly

One time I jumped too soon.  I just missed landing on top of six-year-old Eliot Kleinberg. Mrs. Kleinberg came over and in a New Jersey accent shouted,” You almost killed Eliot!! What is the matter with you, you’re a terrible little girl.”

My parents shook their head at me in disapproval, then put magazines in front of their faces.  I did see Eliot, but it was shortly after I jumped off the board so all I could do was wiggle in midair as best I could to avoid him.   Gravity doesn’t work that way. Wiggling did nothing to change where I landed, which was close, but not on top of Eliot.

I did not like being yelled at by Mrs. Kleinberg.  It ruined the rest of my swim. I wasn’t used to being yelled at because my midwestern parents never did it. They disciplined me with passive aggressive looks of disappointment. I thought the words “terrible little girl” was terribly unnecessary hyperbole – although I did not know what hyperbole was back then.  I did not rebound too quickly from the  Kleinberg incident. As mentioned earlier, I was highly sensitive, and we hang on to embarrassment as long as is earthly possible because self-torture is an effortless by-product of being highly sensitive. 

 

Impulsiveness

What I didn’t know was that the diving board incident was a precursor to other instances where I jumped into things too soon. Unsuitable jobs, unwise purchases, … hot tubs.   A few years ago, it was a destined to fail romantic relationship. As a child, I believed that when you ask a prince, “So how long since your last relationship ended, your majesty?” he would answer honestly. This guy told me he was out of a relationship for two years, so I went ahead and let infatuation blind me because he was the lead singer in a rock and roll band, and you know how that is.  Turned out his last girl broke up with him two weeks prior to our first date and he was still seriously, SERIOUSLY, hung up on her.

He was desperate not to be lonely. He had no courage to give it time, go it alone and heal, nor to be honest with me … when she wanted him back. He chose me as the placeholder, the fool, the rebound. As I mentioned earlier in this very same chapter, I do not rebound well. My delusional thinking flared up and I was certain my charms would overcome his pining for her. You know, that old fairy tale. Nope.

Aversion to Being Ignored

Relationship Physics: When someone who was dumped (him) gets into a new relationship (me), the party who dumped him (her) often thinks twice about the breakup because this new love interest (me) seems to have discovered something appealing about  the dumped one (him) that the dumper (her) took for granted. “Her” wanted him back, so she stealthily played on his aching affections. Because he realized she was jealous, I got a free trip to New Orleans as his ploy to deepen her envy. I didn’t know this until well into the trip.  Once very attentive before his ex-wanted him back, he now treated me like an annoyance and spent an inordinate amount of time responding to her posts on social media. That’s nevert a good sign. The jazz, jambalaya, and beignets almost weren’t worth the heartbreak. Almost.   Then he invited both of us to his next CD release party and I, with poor judgment despite a red flag the size of Jupiter waving in my face and covering my neighborhoo.  When he sang a song he wrote for her right in front of me I walked up to his face and said, “Bye.”

Snarky

If he was ever in a pool under a high diving board, I would jump right on top of him even if his mom was watching. That’s a snarky thing to say but I was snarky as a child too – and there ya go, snarky then, snarky now.   I am a terrible adult.  

Writing Inclined

When I was in Junior High School, I would write and illustrate elaborate notes for my friends complete with satire, gossip, and commentary on boys. There were news stories, multiple choice questions, fill in the blank, doodled pictures with captions.  I loved writing then and am a writer now.

So, it should come as no surprise that if you use me as a rebound to a relationship you aren’t over, I will write about what a coward you are and it might end up somewhere public. Like here. Beware of relationships with writers.

Creative

When one jumps off life’s diving board, one might get a scolding from Mrs. Kleinberg and a heartbreak from the lead singer in a rock and roll band.  Stories.  Everywhere, every day, there are stories to write about. … and things to eventually, laugh about.

A highly sensitive person in a family that finds high sensitivity irritating can become alienated and lonely. As humor hurdles over, in between, and under the pain and in these downsides of existence, it cultivates in to a stand-up comedy act, a handy coping mechanism, or amusement that lends perspective.

In the book Delivered from Distraction, Drs. Edward Hallowell and John Ratey mention that ADHDers typically have zany senses of humor. Humor is often a gift of attention challenged.  Our busy brains can spontaneously put random, seemingly unassociated items together in funny ways that entertain those around us and relieve us from being banished from the kingdom.

Creative Workshops and Stuff

When Delusions Come in Handy

 

 “Start before you’re ready.”
~Steven Pressfield, author of The War of Art

 

It was the late nineties when I cooked-up the delusion of being an author …  a few years before I was one.

“Oh yes, I’m writing a book,” I’d announce to students in my writing classes in a voice that had a nasal arrogance to it, like Mrs. Drysdale from The Beverly Hillbillies, (a reference you’ll understand only if you watched TV in the 60s and aren’t afraid to admit it).

 

I was attending a new thought church and in between Sundays there were nine weeks of “Sacred Circles,” groups that centered around a new theme each round. 

With impulsive audacity, I approached the minister of the church and in my author's voice said, “ I am writing about nine Modern Day Muses and it would be perfect for use in the nine weeks of Sacred Circles if, indeed, the theme was creativity.”

Much to my surprise, not only was he willing to use my unwritten book for Sacred Circles, he upped the ante' and said, “Sure, I could do nine sermons based on your book, a Muse a week. How about we start that in May?”

“Why, yes, of course,” I replied with all the calmness of a jackhammer. I thought if I let on I wasn’t ready, this opportunity would evaporate.  It was January, May was six months away.

I went home to pull together the notes I had for the alleged book and realized when I got there I had written the names of Muses and their powers over and over much like Jack Nicholson's character wrote All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy in The Shining.  There wasn’t a book at all and much like me when I watched Jack Nicholson in The Shining, I screamed. And then I wrote the book, 250 pages. And Penguin-Putnam published it.  

It was a little delusional but I was also abiding by what I now call Ready-Fire-Aim, a Kaizen-Muse Creativity Coaching tool I teach to creativity coaches to help perfectionists get unstuck. 

As a recovering perfectionist who can get immobilized by high pressured expectations, comparison, and just starting, it's a tool I use regularly:

I booked a venue for a one woman show before I finished writing it.

It got done.

I scheduled several art shows before half the paintings were done. They got done.

I schedule workshops before they are planned. They happen.

I’m not saying there isn't some anxiety involved, but sometimes it’s that anxious energy that unlocks the bolt to where the genius is stored and certainly where momentum reside.  I learn to trust myself that either it gets done, or I'll be fine if it doesn't.  

It doesn't always work out, and that's good practice for letting go of attachment to the result, which has only brought me peace of mind and freedom to experiment. Mindfulness is a constant companion.

Hesitancy is a process-blocker. Jumping off into the abyss of unprepared intention not only gets our passions in gear a good percentage of the time, it cultivates confidence, and confidence is freedom in the world of creativity.

"We are what we believe we are."
- C. S. Lewis

 

“Belief and delusion are incestuous siblings.”
  - Aleksandar Hemon

Where can you apply Ready-Fire-Aim? Where can you trust yourself a little more? Where can you act AS IF you believe in yourself?

• Start in the middle? Begin at the end?
• Schedule an appearance?
• Sign-up now for a class, workshop, or coaching? 
• Let go of being perfect!
• Join me in learning more ways to unleash creativity for yourself and others. Kaizen-Muse Creativity Coaching Certification training

We will be doing Ready, Fire, Aim art, photography, and writing in the August version of Uber Bliss... check it out.

I'm on my way to teach at Omega Institute in Rhinebeck, New York tomorrow. A culmination of a lot of Ready-Fire-Aim experiences. 

The Muse is IN Creativity Prompt

Writing Prompt: Make a list of situations in your life you started before you were ready. Write as if you have already completed something or are where you want to be in your life. Write about it in first, second, and third person.     Art Prompt: Choose something you don't feel you're ready to draw yet, to eliminate the need to get it perfect, draw the whole thing in ONE MINUTE. Or scribble a chicken. Act as if you have your own reckless style. Go!     More workshops and trainings here Be kind to yourself. Jill

 

There Ain't No Ballerinas in Hiphop

A few years ago, I thought about taking a hip-hop dance class. My feet couldn’t stay still when I heard that music, my background is in ballet but I thought hip-hop would be more fun,  and there was a class nearby.   

When it was time to show up, I changed my mind.

I couldn’t imagine fitting in a hip-hop class with kids spinning and hopping complicated rapid-fire choreographed moves that could render me breathless, klutzy, and possibly in need of hospitalization.  

Back to Stairmaster.  

But the desire didn’t go away. Once again I considered going to the class but my fantasy was that there was a bunch of youngsters, with caps on backward, and pants half-mast saying, “yo!” while waving two out of five fingers. So I practiced saying, “yo.”

When I finally showed up, there WERE a bunch of youngsters from different cultures with backward caps and pants half-mast, including the teacher, but there were also soccer moms and white college girls -- also from different lifestyles than mine.  There was a woman at least five years older than me and one in the first row two moves behind everyone, so I thought maybe I have a chance of fitting in, despite no one saying, “yo!”

Then I looked in the mirror and saw that everyone else’s head in the class ended at my shoulders.   I was in a troupe of stocky, shorter people because hip-hop works best and looks best when you’re short and stocky. In the mirror’s reflection my 5’9” head looked like that of an awkward giraffe in a jungle picture where the giraffe’s head is high above the rest of the herd, and woman next to me looked up at me with an annoyed “You don’t fit in” look on her face. But I stayed, despite the hip hugger mishap.

What I saw in the mirror horrified me. The top of my hip huggers fell below the waistline of the big girl panties I forgot I had on so two inches of pink underwear stuck out of my black dance pants.  I cringed at how uncool I looked, yet I didn’t want draw more attention, so I left them. It was my version of pants at half-mast.

Then Miss Trina Lyons, the hip-hop teacher who moved like a movie queen in the coolest, baddest style of breathtaking, beat-perfect-precision hip-hop I ever knew possible was leading a dance move where she had the herd turn in a circle with arms in a stiff gangsta-tude swing and in the mirror I saw that my ‘tude  looked a lot like Marsha Brady with PMS.  I cracked up and quickly Miss Trina announced to the class, “I don’t WANT nobody smilin’, this move is all about ‘I don’t care about you, bitch,’" so, of course, I adjusted and wasn't carin’ about whoever that bitch is either. I’m turnin’ in the circle just fiiine, beginning to feel in sync with the steps, the beat, and the herd.

Then Miss Trina said, "There ain’t no ballerinas in hip-hop!" She was right up in my face saying that to me and the class is laughing because she’s daintily pointing her toe with the big hip-hop shoe on it.  Evidently, that’s what I was doing instead of a hip-hop foot slide. I smiled too then stopped smiling cuz you’re not supposed to smile, and I wasn’t sure what to do other than go home because I was getting a déjà vu of all the other times I didn’t fit in and instead of rap, I felt like crap.

But I stayed… I got caught up in the music. I followed the next move. and the next move and the next and broke free into muscle memory that comes with repetition, lost myself in the choreography in a way that was remotely like the other hip-hoppers.

I shifted from mental to visceral, self-consciousness gone, the hypnotic pulsing and rage-word-rhythms freed fury I didn’t know I had, from the circle of never-ending, never-enoughness I felt all my life.

Intense, fast arm movements coupled with feet hard on the floor was permission to simply be in sync with the rap, the rhythm, and the moment’s freedom, no matter how I looked.

I understood hip-hop. I felt more alive than I had for a long time. Turns out giraffe ballerina with geeky big girl pink panties and a white girl Marsha Brady pout loves hip-hop.

In the next dance step she led, I glared at Miss Trina with a look and arm movements that said, "Ain’t nobody gonna tell me I’m not coming to hip-hop, bitch." Miss Trina imitated my hands flying out from my shoulders in white girl style and said this, “Ain’t I Dream of Jeannie,” and laughed. So I laughed too and she was okay with that.  So was I. 

I came back every week for a year because when I danced this big defiant f-you music, I was free from being what I thought I was supposed to be.   I may not have looked like it, but I belonged in that class simply because …  I decided to.  Sometimes we just need to decide.

Join Jill's Underground, Workshops, and Trainings

For Friction Reasons

For Friction Reasons

I once lived far too long on a steep, boulder-strewn hill in the high desert outside of San Diego with an incompatible boyfriend… yet, just the right amount of time for what came next. 

One December day, after returning home from buying groceries and Martha Stewart Christmas ornaments that sported a delightful motif of pink and green, I opened the trunk of my car and hurried the groceries into the house. When I came out, eager to retrieve and hang the girly ornaments, my car was gone.

This is what my eyes looked like:

Actual size

I froze. I stared hard at the spot where my car used to be as if doing so would suddenly make it reappear. I stared longer than a psychologist might warrant normal. My state of shock constructed implausible stories like:

1. In the 30 seconds I was gone, someone stole my car.
2. Maybe I parked it at the bottom of the driveway and forgot.
3. It will be BACK in a minute. It WILL be back in a minute. It will be ...

My car did not come back.
 

I had to force myself to look down the steep, concrete driveway because a sickening dread pressed heavy on my chest. I didn’t hear any screaming, a good sign. I didn’t hear a crash, that’s weird.

Then I saw it. Just to the right of the driveway, my car was on perched halfway up a boulder.

Dramatization, not actual size.

Inexplicably, there was no damage to the car or the ornaments, but more importantly no one had been in the path of my runaway car. Kids lived on that block and an older couple lived right across the street. It could have been horrific. That I was relieved is an understatement.

The artist part of my brain briefly admired the composition of Red Car Climbing Beige Boulder with Pink and Green Ornaments. That moment was quickly replaced by Embarrassment, Gloom, and Shame. I called my boyfriend, he called a tow truck company, the tow truck company called the fire department, (for friction reasons).  The fire department and the tow truck company arrived, all chuckled in disbelief, had the car carefully towed back to the driveway, and waved good-bye.   Bye.

This was my wake-up call to be more present! I would be more mindful from now on so nothing like that would ever happen again.  “I am grateful for this momentous turning point in my life,” I announced to the Christmas tree as I hung the survivors of Runaway Car 2005.    I released a sigh of belief in this new chapter of paying more attention and preventing more potentially life-threatening incidents. I wish that’s what happened, but it’s not.  Two months later, I came out of the house, and my car was gone again.

 For a second time, I forgot to secure the emergency-brake and again thankfully it rolled into the front yard. This time it didn’t land on the boulder, it crashed into the boulder. It was totaled.

Totaled  

I was totaled too. I was drowning in self-loathing, it was titanic. I wished some nice person would throw me a life-preserver and make it okay. My boyfriend, the incompatible one, treated me like I was an imbecile. I should have had myself towed somewhere else at that point too, (for friction reasons), but I went inside to hide under the covers … and cry.

While I was under there, I started writing and illustrating my second book, The Awe-manac: A Daily Dose of Wonder, a book created with the intensity of someone needing an escape not only from disturbing consequences of absent-mindedness, an emotionally abusive relationship, and deep self-loathing, but from the emotional wreckage that included cutting ties with the toxic family I grew up with. Another story I’ll spare you. Not an easy endeavor but one necessary to my survival. 

As I wrote and illustrated The Awe-manac, I experienced the power of creativity, mindfulness, and humor to usher me to sanctuary, resilience, and confidence. I had a burst of visceral self-like. My illustrations were wobbly, reckless, and inconsistent, because so am I. I have trouble with patience and coordination, a few of my ADHD symptoms. But art allows for mistakes, in fact if you make enough of them, it becomes your style. It became mine.

I could pay quality attention to writing and art, even when concentration would allude me in other areas like remembering to use emergency brakes. Writing a book isn’t as dangerous as not remembering to set the emergency brake on a hill, or is it? Finding a reason to believe in yourself can be a life saver, I assure you, it was for me.

 

A Portal to Mindfulness

It became apparent that creativity was a portal to mindfulness for me. Creativity requires paying attention. It’s hard to write and make art when I’m distracted but the a creative task captures me in its meditative flow which has the fringe benefit of making sustained focus easier. The skills acquired from making art and writing eventually relocate to paying better attention in other areas.  As does resilience, resourcefulness, patience, and love for the world. This book will take you into that flow.

 Mindfulness is more than paying attention – it’s allowing for all the things that make us human to be there without having to fix them: the clumsiness, forgetfulness, moodiness. 

Not So Fast, Missy

When we allow ourselves to be just as we are, we are better able to gravitate toward our best selves.  We no longer need to put on the brakes to stop our flaws from running away with our pride. Accepting imperfections comes from the same department of humanhood that acknowledges our strengths.  This book will teach you how to allow things to be as they are . Creativity uses the gristle of life to make art and writing that people can relate to, heal from, and celebrate. The friction of our contradictions is our creative fire. 

I’m not okay with my car rolling down the hill, but I’m better able to contribute the world by understanding it happened because I’m human rather than diminishing myself with shame, embarrassment, and self-loathing. No matter what you define as your faults, you also have a sphere of brilliance. We all do. This book will help you see that again, or for the first time.

I am still mindfully challenged in many ways. I reread paragraphs over and over because my mind strays to the possibility of cherry pie, leaf blowers, or how cute my cat looks when he sleeps on his back on my yoga mat. I routinely get the strap of my purse caught on doorknobs and am yanked back as if a mother is grabbing my arm saying, “Not so fast little, missy, you left your flat iron plugged in.”     

 

I am Not an Imbecile

Turns out, however, I’m not an imbecile. I keep finding evidence that I am intelligent and creative with occasional flurries of distraction, high sensitivity, resistance, self-loathing, dubious online addictions, toxic comparison, difficulty with time management, a prevailing sense that I should be doing anything other than whatever it is I’m doing, frequent bouts of misplacing, dropping, and getting sticky stuff on my cell phone, and tendencies to try and include too much information into one sentence.

Most of those conditions are not that uncommon. Maybe some of them ring true for you. If so, you’re my people and I assure you, you can make those endearing traits work for your creativity. High sensitivity, moodiness, and even ADHD have creative advantages. 

According to credible evidence from the world of psychology, a wandering mind is also a creative one. Sometimes we bounce from thought to thought. Mindfulness helps us leverage this quality and tame that bouncing enough to make associations that become brilliant ideas.

We can find contentment, freedom, and vibrant self-expression amid a built-in set of obstacle courses.

I am no longer dangerous, at least not with a car on a hill in the high desert, because now I have an automatic transmission and live on a level street close to a cafe. 

 
 

 

 

 

Fresh Water Pearls and the Wild Abandon

  

When I was little, I accompanied my mom on art outings to Coconut Grove, a bay in Miami as tropical as it sounds, one that challenges painters to capture shimmering reflections of sailboats anchored in turquoise waters. Mom had her oil paints, I had my crayons. The crayons would melt together in the Miami sun which at first horrified me and then delighted me when I realized I could color in yellow, aquamarine, and midnight blue all at the same time.

Mom painted like a professional. She had been a draftsman for the aeronautic industry, and you could see this skill in her paintings:  Jamaican women with wicker baskets on their heads, true-to-life white foam waves so realistic they splashed over rocks and almost out of the painting, and … sailboats with the shimmering reflections perfectly captured.  Her art was gallery quality. She never considered her art good enough for people to purchase even when people offered to buy it. Mom was a perfectionist.

I inherited my mom’s perfectionism but having ADHD made drawing with precision a lot like a driving a car with no steering wheel. Although I have a lot of drive, I was and still am clumsy, resistant to instruction, and short on frustration tolerance. These things came with the factory setting of my specific model.

Mom would take a crayon and go over my drawings to make them look more accurate. With straight, professional lines drawn over imperfect ones looked like wobbly boats with corrective scaffolding. They looked incarcerated; it was the first known incidence of sailboat drawings, crying.

It didn’t deter me from making art. Tenacity felt like rebellion. I was still in love with art not just because I could bring doodles into existence for the amusement of my friends, but because it was a place to stave off the anxiety, neglect, and depression. The escape into a world of blues and lavenders melding together, discovering that flowerpots could fly, and the spontaneous emergence of an entanglement of an interesting doodle contraption became as important finishing something. The process is where I wanted to hang out and I was amused by the end product, but I just assumed the end product was just meant for my eyes. If the world was my oyster, frustration is what led to the pearl.

I stayed with my version of uneven, imperfect squiggles, they evolved into a style of imprecise whimsy, purposeful flaws, incomplete completeness to which people seem to relate. I liked the look of not being perfect. I related to it much more. My style is fleeting, freeing, mysterious, and for the most part has more of a story than something drawn neat and precise.   

It was a fixation with playfulness, defiance of inflexibility, and liberating experimentation.  My untidy style entered me into the happy league of Wabi Sabi.  

“Wabi-Sabi,” as novelist Tom Robbins describes it is, “the aesthetic of finding beauty in the imperfect and unexpected; the secret, private joy of being attuned to the Zen of things.”

Wabi-Sabi is Wild Abandon, a form of art I now teach.   Wild Abandon is letting go of conformity to rules, tossing to perfectionism to the wind, and sailing away to find fresh water pearls.   Fresh water pearls are known to hang out with melted crayons and wobbly sailboats. 

I suspect my style of art became popular among those who enjoy it because many people grew up not feeling they were good enough either. If you relate to this paragraph, you are granted that permission as well. PERMISSION

Wild Abandon requires letting go of control so it’s impossible to be perfect. In Wild Abandon we draw with our eyes closed, turn reference material upside down, make scribbles into chickens, use the non-dominant hand, draw without lifting the pen, and go fast.  When restrictive, pressurized techniques are surrendered for pleasure, wildness, and play, intuition and instinct are activated and letting them run the show leads to confidence. Confidence is the gateway drug to creative risk taking, passion, and a feeling of freedom. Authenticity can’t help but emerge.

Alan Alda said, “Be brave enough to live creatively. The creative is the place where no one else has ever been. You have to leave the city of your comfort and go into the wilderness of your intuition. You cannot get there by bus, only by hard work, risking and by not quite knowing what you are doing. What you will discover will be wonderful: Yourself.”

I never quite know what I’m doing or where the drawing will go and that works for me better than trying to follow someone else’s directions or render something with straight lines. It’s an adventure that may or may not turn out – like a lot of life. 

Begin Again

“Let yourself be silently drawn by the
strange pull of what you really love. 
It will not lead you astray.” ~ Rumi

 

If you're human, when you try to meditate, your mind wanders.

After years of instruction, daily practice, silent retreats, and the best meditation apps available .... the mind still wanders. 

Maybe after dedicated practice it wanders a little less, you may feel more tuned in to joy, and when the person next door is using a leaf blower on a Sunday morning, an intercepting daydream may want you to dismantle said blower and reassemble the parts in a piece you eventually call "Birds in Flight" to place in the front yard of the offender, but because you meditate, you might just  say to yourself, "Let it be, this too shall pass" or sometimes more effectively, "Well, bless their heart." Breathe.

The mind also promenades with distractions during the creative process to the expense of an idea that would like to shed its many layers, take you deep into its rich possibility, inspire your genius, then reward you with an aha-moment that guides you to a glorious fruition-that requires faithful concentration.   I confess, I have high velocity distractibility exacerbated by irresistible pets soliciting constant attention.

What I know for sure is I'm not alone but I am in charge, so I'd like to share some simple tricks that keep my clients and me coming back for more, both in the meditation and creative spheres; all made possible by the intersection of mindfulness and creativity:

1.The Welcome Back

Rather than berate myself, I welcome myself back to focusing on breathing or my creative pursuit. The discovery of a distracted mind can be reframed as a triumph not a reason to berate myself.

When I notice the habitual trance intercepting my preferred concentration, I choose relief rather than torment to return me to breathing, well-being, and the resting void of a smiling existence. Catching myself fall off-track then becomes a pleasant experience and helps me look forward to starting again with warmth and welcoming. Since perseverance is vital to success in just about everything, making it a more desirable experience to show-up is just smart. Why would I show up to someone who's constantly disappointed in me? I'm done with that. 

2. Applied Rumi

I remind myself what I love about both meditation and creativity: The freedom, transcendence, otherworldly experience, depth of living, calm, timelessness, and undescribable wonder of creation.  

I am silently drawn by the strange pull of what I really love. It will not lead me astray. Like Rumi said. This makes showing up effortless versus a struggle.

3. The Sanity Choice

Both meditation and creativity keep me sane and content in an insane world... and sanity often comes in handy. It helps me begin again. 

Distracted? Begin again. 

The 12-week Nine Modern Day Muse Facilitator training begins again Wednesday, September 1 on Zoom. Come traverse the creative journey with ten creative principles in the guise of nine Mindfulness Muses and a Bodyguard, and learn how to run your own creativity workshops, step-by-step, for joy and another stream of income. Three spots open. More info here

Jill

Podcast News

 I carried out a vow to stay focused for a year on my A Muse's Daydream podcast. No small feat with the fickle nature of my attention span. The podcast is celebrating  its first year anniversary.  The Anniversary episode, The Underwhelm Reloaded, has a drawing you might be interested in to celebrate; New, out of print Awe-manacs, $35 gift certificate to Bookshop.org, original artwork. Listen to the episode for details.

Join the A Muse's Daydream subscriber club at your favorite Podcast platform: Apple Stitcher, Spotify, etc. Here are all of the episodes at The Muse is In website. Write a review, share with a friend, write me a note. xoxo

All podcast episodes are based on principles, tools, and liberating thoughts from the the Kaizen-Muse Creativity Coaching Certification training. In its seventeenth year. Next training is January 2022.  More about KMCC here.

Mindfulness and Creativity

 

Creative expression and mindfulness are cousins, maybe even siblings that get along really well.

• Both cultivate an inner world that welcomes all aspects of who we are without expecting perfection.
• Both take us on an adventure fueled on an elixir of curiosity, courage, and rebelliousness.
• Both awaken us to a different way of thinking that moves us beyond fear to a more liberating way of life.

How we talk to ourselves results either in despair or joy, creative paralysis or unfettered creative expression. Creativity is a relationship with ourselves. That relationship will either result in resistance, pressure, and judgment in the creative process, or curiosity, willingness, and the kind of perseverance that leads to confidence, freedom, and delivery.

Here's a book I recommend if you really want to pursue the kind of self-talk that benefits your creativity. Chatter: The Voice in Our Head, Why it Matters by Ethan Kross 

Creativity serves the mindfulness because being in that process is like having an affair with the present moment.

This is what I teach in the Kaizen-Muse Creativity Coaching Certification training. It combines mindfulness, psychology, intuition and imagination. It's both for people who want to liberate the creativity of other and/or themselves. It starts in two weeks (Aug 2)