I tried something different today with my five minute writing free writing/brain dumping time. I took an essay I wrote ten years ago and had a conversation with my past self.
It was the closest thing I can imagine to time travel, witnessing my thoughts in the past and communicating back to myself.
I even quoted myself from ten years ago on twitter and facebook and got responses from dear friends who offered reassurance. So much love abounds: for all versions of me and for all versions of you.
Do you wonder what a conversation like this sounds like?
Here it is – me now in bold italics and me then – not bold and not italics.
Collaboration with ten years ago me:
Sometimes I think I pour too much of myself into my art. I get concerned that somehow the dark corners of my being will “pollute” the art itself.
(Just this morning I worked on a mixed media piece and smeared paint across a segment of the work I thought was “just right”. Even as I type here I think “maybe I should go pull some of that paint up, restore what’s underneath. Admit it, self, it did look cool as was and now, as you so often do, you messed it up.
And then I remember the following whisper into my mind-heart. “Trust the process” it told me. I took a deep breath, set the newly smeared canvas aside and walked away. “Trust the process” – don’t intervene anymore and allow someone or something outside yourself to decide what is just right and what isn’t.)
Then there comes a time when I get to purposefully and intentionally explore my artist’s journey, like
I did when I was asked to prepare an artist’s statement for an upcoming art show.
(Note to self: seek submissions to art shows. Trust that process, too, of rejection to rejuvenation and the steps in between.)
Here is what I wrote (back ten years ago).
My artist’s journey has taken significant twists and turns since the first (burn the witch).
I watched myself dive into wordlessness (through watercolor paint and photos) and trust that
even without my preferred creative medium words art is born. Three words encapsulate this year: Loss.
Sacred. Love.
(I didn’t know it at the time but these words became the foundation for the following decade.)
Loss, through absence and broken perceptions and death awakened a different form of creative
communication. The Sacred invited others into my world of flow, trust, divine guidance and non-judgment. I discovered love cannot always adequately be communicated with words, it must be felt in breath, in energy, in what is conceived when we collaborate.
(Note to self: this paragraph is worth reading daily, maybe several times a day. Your ten years ago self was wise. And by the way? Don’t go into self critique. – You temporarily forgot this wisdom.
What were we just saying? “Trust the process” even the sliding backwards. The world is waiting for these words of backslides as well as the words of victorious celebrations of insight after insight after insight.)
It is especially joyful when we join hands to experience (metaphoric) creative tandem bungee jumping. I love feeling the wind whip through my hair and the whooping and hollering in my heart as we careen towards the earth and then get swooped back into the loving arms of the Divine.
(Note to self: I was writing about Soul Poetry. It is time to write this again.)
This year that deep, profound, sacred love looped back into loss which bred even more art. This year I picked up a camera, I wrote another play, I allowed myself to step into the darkness and draw the door
closed behind me so that I could learn from this year’s gift.
(This decade-long gift)
Feel the loop now: Sacred. Love. Loss. Art. Love. Sacred. Art.
(Feel the loop now: Sacred. Love. Loss. Art. Love. Sacred. Art.)
Where has your artist’s journey taken you this year?
(Where has your artist’s journey taken you this decade? This life?)
(Where do you want to go next?)
Julie Jordan Scott inspires people to experience artistic rebirth via her programs, playshops, books, performances and simply being herself out in the world. She is a writer, creative life coach, speaker, performance poet, Mommy-extraordinaire and mixed-media artist whose Writing Camps and Writing Playgrounds permanently transform people’s creative lives. Watch for the announcement of new programs coming in soon!
To contact Julie to schedule a Writing or Creative Life Coaching Session, call or text her at 661.444.2735.
