Creative Life Midwife

Inspiring Artistic Rebirth

B is for Bella Bella Akhmadulina: Literary Grannies from A-Z/2018 #atozchallenge

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One of my favorite aspects of doing this challenge is I encounter new writers. Bella Akhmadulina was a Russian poet, essayist and translator I didn’t know until I wanted to find a new granny to represent for the letter B.

Those of you who are writers and poets, what would it be like to perform in front of a packed arena, as if you were a rock star or super bowl athlete?

That’s what happened for Bella Akhmadulina! She was well loved, defended the dissidents and in doing so, was not published much. She was among the top 4 poets of the time in Russia – and the only woman in the group.

She was one of 40 writers who banded together in 1993 a group of writers to stand up against then President Boris Yeltsin.

I want to get to know Bella Akhmadulina better. I hope you do, too.

Writing Prompt: Imagine yourself a Writing (or whatever your passion may be) Rock Star. What would you say to the crowd gathered to watch you do your thing? Take 5 minutes to write – and just let your words flow without forethought or editing.

Julie has participated in the A to Z Blog Challenge for several years and is thrilled to be back, once again with Literary Grannies. Follow here throughout April for blog posts featuring women of literary history along with a daily writing prompt that reflects each featured writer.

Julie Jordan Scott is the Creative Life Midwife: a writing coach who specializes in inspiring artistic rebirth for those who may have forgotten the pure joy of the creative process. She offers individual creativity coaching as well as creating individualized programs for businesses and groups in the form of workshops, webinars and more. Contact her at 661.444.2735 for immediate assistance with facilitation, speaking or experiencing an enriched life no

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Overnight Discoveries: from Choking on Fear to Long Awaited Insights. Yes, Easy Does It

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It had gone unnoticed.

It has probably been there for several days, this actual glob (for lack of a better term) of not wanting to give voice to anything for the past few days, since the nightmares started. Three nights in a row of troublesome dreams that don’t seem to want to let go.

Processing in the morning with Pegi, my long-time, ever patient friend during the unexpectedly eye opening app known as Snap Chat.

I heard it while I had a teddy bear face, I believe, and a squeaky voice. A slight almost unconscious clearing of my throat. A choking back, a holding on of something or nothing or I don’t know I just know it was there and while I am working through the depth of this

It is at that point where I think I will just go back to where and what I was no matter how badly it sucked maybe feeling better isn’t worth feeling the choking sensation I felt.

My deep awareness of choking came not from a past life, but from a question asked by my therapist and I believe a memory – a place I visited when I went to Katherine’s wedding. A space where I almost choked to death as a child on a gum ball.

The exact space where my mother worked diligently to save my life was now the entry way to a Starbucks, the Grand Union now long gone.

 

i sit with my hands folded, waiting, tired, the tired not being real but being a block – a not wanting to go here and the choking in my throat my shadow side – whatever name you want to put on it that the strong intentional me knows is a barricade over the door marked “Transformation! This way to feeling so much better! This cloggy thing is temporary like how you have learned to use a plunger to get rid of blocks in drains when you used to helplessly call someone because you couldn’t do it and now you can!”

I realize then I never set my timer. Naturally. This was supposed to be a five minute writing in a carefully created container so I would be able to stop without falling apart.

(I set this writing aside and came back to it the next morning.)

7:15 am the next day. That choking sensation is a reminder from my most animal self, “This is what it feels like when you were dying. Beware. You don’t want to come close to death again.”

So no matter how irrational my adult brain is, no matter what I know as a smart, in step, working consistently on self-growth version of me, this protective animal brain pops in and chokes me to remind me, “You came close once, don’t risk it again.”

The thing is, when I don’t risk – when I don’t confront my darkness and bring it into the light so I may come to know it in a way that stirs and builds and constructs and translates and somehow makes good – I risk even more.

When I sit on the edge of choking, I live in fear of it.

When I instead say to my visceral animal self, “I know this is scary and I know we can and will survive and it will be so much more dynamic than we could ever imagine just please trust  and  be invigorated and become whole with me again so that we may have the impact we were meant to have all along…”

This is how the process of re-orientation begins. This is when we may get back into step with all aspects of ourselves – the afraid choking side of ourself who longs for reassurance and the bold, brash one who speaks without thinking and sometimes destroys bridges before you’ve crossed them.

I remember my acting teacher coaching me, when I was literally petrified in my performance. I felt outclassed and stupid in my first musical and he said, “What are you so afraid of? Every person here wants you to succeed.”

Every part of you wants you to succeed and many of us here, on the outside, do, too.

I rest my hands off the keyboard again. Another writing time of five minutes (plus a few extra) and I went from choking and being afraid and not wanting to go further to having an enormous, long needed insight.

by the way, if you wondered what happened with the bad dreams: I didn’t have any nightmares last night. I dreamed of sharing a meal around a table with friends. I dreamed about having a positive experience at Samuel’s school. I dreamed of talking to a friend I’ve been missing lately. I dreamed of expanding the circle because what we originally thought was just right was too small.

I dreamed I wasn’t afraid and I didn’t have to choke.

I can write, reflect and meditate. Wake up and write again and feel better.

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.

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Babysitting in the 70’s in New Jersey for Fun & Prizes: From Laura Ingalls Wilder Writing Prompt

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Yesterday I shared some writing tips from Laura Ingalls Wilder and Ursula K. Le Guin. Today I took a quote from Wilder and morphed it into a prompt. From the prompt, I wrote – as I suggest people do as well to learn the power of five minutes of writing – I wrote  a list of five different happy early memories (see them below the 5 minute essay) and randomly chose what one to use as a springboard to write. What could you do with just five minutes and a memory?

Laura Ingalls Wilder became a wild “overnight success” at age 57 back in 1932. Let’s get your words on the page. The world is waiting. Read mine to increase your inspiration. You’ve got this!

1970’s Julie (and a couple photos from 2017 revisiting the neighborhood where it all happened!)

Adventures in Babysitting was both a way of life for me for many years and a movie I enjoyed whole heartedly. The way of life provided me ample “fun and prizes” and the movie offers the one quote where I approve of the use of the F-Bomb, well used, by the character played by Elizabeth Shue while babysitting.

My babysitting offered me the freedom to purchase things I wanted but that I never expected my family to purchase for me. I had a very expensive hobby as a young girl: I had more pen pals than I can remember and my parents painstakingly footed the postage when I know financial times were tough.

As an adult, I get this more. I thought nothing of dropping three letters, five days a week and just expecting them to get mailed off to other tween and teen girls all across the country.

Babysitting allowed me the luxury of stationery and once weekly visits to the Hallmark store at the Bloomfield center. Saturday afternoons after tortuous Saturday mornings at the orthodontist I would walk to Bloomfield Center and carefully peruse the boxes of stationery.

I especially loved envelopes of different colors and ones with linings just felt so elegant.

My Granny even sent me the most decadent stationery products available to me: personalized stationery. I almost drooled when I opened the birthday packages.

Babysitting allowed me to do something I loved deeply in a way that felt abundant and luxurious. In a family with 6 children, a father starting a new business and a Mom in college and working as a teacher’s aide and two brothers about to begin college, we didn’t have much money for any extras.

Babysitting allowed me to buy stationery, favorite record albums and grow as a responsible tween – teen. I learned to save up for a small television for my room and a stereo eventually. I could have the same things the girls with wealthier families had.

Love love love remembering these and more  adventures.

Making instant friends has always been an adventure for me. I met Marisol two days after my daughter’s wedding. She’s looking forward to my return. This diner was a Stuart’s Root Beer we visited to have an occasional mug of root beer. It was such a treat!

What are some mundane   “adventures”  you had as a child that left happy memories behind for you to explore with writing? 

Write for just five minutes and make new discoveries, adventures and yes: gifts and prizes <— I remember this as an ongoing slogan and now a bit of tongue-in-cheek humor. 

5 Happy Memories:

1. Miss Foley: having a teacher who actually seemed to like me.

2. Mrs. Elder continuing our relationship – my Mom did her best, but obstacles were huge. Gave space to find others who had more support themselves and their love overflowed to me.

3. Granny’s surprise party

4. Carly Simon Complete birthday gift

5. Babysitting for fun and prizes!

My brothers, sister and I took our photos so many times on these steps. I loved sharing the experience with two of my children. Katherine has visited before both as a toddler and after her graduation from Smith College. During this visit, she was busily enjoying her honeymoon!

 

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 soon!

Contact Julie now to schedule a Writing or Creative Life Coaching Session, call or text her at 661.444.2735.

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3 Simple Steps to Knowing What You Believe & How to Achieve Extraordinary Results

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I sat down this morning to write for five minutes. I literally rolled out of bed thinking about the power of rewriting my narrative (after being horrified about rewriting my narrative publicly) and I thought about how to dig deeply into what is actually going on in the day-to-day narrative when I am feeling good and strong and in alignment -rather than triggered.

I had a prompt that was totally simple and yet left me totally stumped because I didn’t want it to be a cliche, I didn’t want it to be a bunch of trite phrases or posters hanging in the hallways of junior high schools.

I don’t know if I succeeded, but I know I went on a journey during my five minute writing that I could not have entered without this prompt – and without sleeping on it and waking up and writing soon after I got out of bed.

(On the way to writing, by the way, I plunged the toilet, cleaned up a mess or two made overnight and made a pot of coffee.)

To discover your beliefs and how they shape your world, follow these simple steps:

  1. Write for 5 minutes a day to simple writing prompts.
  2. Before you go to sleep, review what you wrote when you first woke up as you do an overall review of your day mentally and create a brief t0-do (or I call it a possibility) list.
  3. Repeat, preferably in community so that your transformation may be witnessed by people who believe in your newly rewritten narrative and may support you as you set out to create and live your life accordingly.

Here is the prompt and my response and I wanted also to offer a dare to you to write for your five minutes as well. Your “I believe” may be completely different than mine. Whatever you write is absolutely perfect. There are no rights and no wrongs here and I never ever ever expect other people’s beliefs to match mine. That would make for a very dull, uninteresting world.

I believe…love is the question and the answer. I believe the path isn’t paved with good solely good intentions like the common perception may believe, I believe the path is a playground for practice between love, fear and apathy. Love, hate and uncaring.

I don’t believe the opposite of love is hate or fear, I believe the opposite of love is apathy.

The road is paved with love taking form.

The road is paved with our actions which are most fruitful when they begin with the love question and are completed (if there is truly such a thing beyond momentary satisfaction – I have to sit with whether I believe in that whole finality rather than infinite loop de loop later.)

Our actions, projects, plans are the most productive, the most abundant and feel the best when we ask the question with love as the coating, the primary content and is filled with our breath of love inviting your breath of love to join the game.

I believe love is both the question and the answer and I believe that together, we will continue to make things better and better for now and the furute when we bring ourselves to make that belief into something whether it be word on a page or a photo in the book or a business that employs people or a song we sing on street corners or a meal we create to feed whoever happens to be hungry.

Love is the question and the answer.

And when the timer went off, I felt like a few more words would add value for you so I wrote –

So for you, love personified, reading these words, how will you take this reality and create something from it?

Perhaps this one and only day with this date upon it will be your first creation.

Perhaps you will write a thank you note in five minutes, free flow, #5for5BrainDump style like this one was.

Perhaps you will invent something or make a new life or be thoughtful by speaking up for someone (perhaps that someone is yourself) or maybe you will incognito take a task off another person’s overworked schedule.

You, after all, are love. Be the answer. Live the question. Report back what you find in your world. If you would like individual guidance, my phone number is listed below. Text me or call me and we can set a time for a transformational conversation.

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 soon!

Contact Julie now to schedule a Writing or Transformational Conversation Session at 661.444.2735. Please note she is in California in the USA in the Pacific Time Zone.

 

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Gifts of Forgiveness + Haiku, Breath, Questions & Moving Your Pencil Across the Page

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In revisiting my life narrative, I am revisiting all experiences without weighing in on judgment in the process. I found this from 2011 when seeking writing tips to share via social media. 

Instead, I found this gift to pass along to you, now.

I woke up this morning feeling fear rumbling in the middle of my chest. My heart was racing just enough to tell me “I am afraid. I should be afraid, I should be worried, I should – I should- I should.”

I rolled over to look out the window at the soft morning light.

There was nothing in that light telling me to be afraid.

I got up and poured myself some ice water, some vitamins and stood, quietly, breathing
in the silence as I shusssshhhhed my heart internally.

There was nothing in the coolness of the water telling me to be afraid, to be worried.

I felt my feet as I walked back to lie down for a few more moments before beginning my day.

I allowed the pillows to support my neck and head. I completely felt the sheets against my skin, the soft breeze of the fan offering up refreshment at the beginning of what will be another more than warm day.

This is what forgiveness feels like: support,cool air, hushes like a gentle mommy as she taps our back as we try to sleep, fitfully. She breathes with us, reminding us everything is fine, truly, everything including us is just fine.

I am an expert at forgiving others.

I tend to let go and forgive long before the other person has even thought to ask for it. Sometimes I think I forgive too easily, before I have given the true meaning of grace its due.

The one person I am the least likely to forgive is myself.

This morning, I started understanding self-forgiveness on a deeper level.

My primary teacher/life coach/personal development guru for today’s integration lesson was Louisa
May Alcott. Many of us only know Louisa May Alcott as the author of the classic tale, “Little Women”.
She wrote and lived so much more than this one book that made her a household name.
She wrote, “We all make mistakes. It takes many experiences to shape a life. Try again.”
in her short story, “Transcendentalist Wild Oats”

She knew and lived forgiveness more than a hundred years ago. Reading one short story of hers gave me more insights than any personal development book written in this century or the last has given me.

I thought I had nothing to write today.

I started with haiku:

waiting for coffee ~
book opened to page ninety ~
eye glasses on desk

Re-read an essay I wrote in January and gleaned this sentence to tweet:

“Today I will continue to give space for my heart’s wisdom to rise above the tyranny of the “must do now” list.”

From there I tiptoed to this quote from Miss Alcott I had carefully copied yesterday and remembered my earliest moments from today. I decided they were share-worthy.

“We all make mistakes. It takes many experiences to shape a life. Try again.”

What forgiveness are you waiting to offer yourself?

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.

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Now Begin Again: How to Find Success Through Rewriting Your Life Narrative

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One of my weaknesses is borne from one of my strengths.

I create so vigorously and so often I forget what I write – and in so doing I lose a lot of the depth that seeks to be birthed.

A little less than a month ago I decided I wanted to work on rewriting my life narrative. I wanted to intentionally rework some of the messages I believed from my past in order to create a present and future that is more aligned with who I am, more aligned with my core beliefs.

Ultimately, I sought to merge my core beliefs with my unique gifts and talents to create a body of work – in this case a life and a sustainable income – that matters to myself and to others in the world as well.

While flowing in some areas, I felt hopelessly blocked in others. Reworking my narrative vigorously and openly seemed to be the best path.

I started along the journey and almost quickly as I started I stopped.

It wasn’t a big. dramatic stop with brake marks from my tires left on the road, it was just quietly not continuing because… perhaps the coffee finished brewing or a child made a request or I got a notification from Instagram or who knows what but I got distracted.

Note: this is a common practice, too, right on the verge of breakthrough I have a tendency to veer off course. I know this about myself. It doesn’t mean I always act accordingly in response.

The rest of this brief chapter I’m writing will right that practice. It is interesting to note in re-reading what I just started to edit and mold less than five days ago  I can’t recognize when it is is the seven-years-ago me “speaking” and when it is the just several days ago me “speaking”.

Today, I realize that isn’t the part of the story that matters.

I also realize this preface is taking on a life of its own which isn’t necessarily fruitful, another way block shows up. Let’s get to it.

Let’s explore the originating story now.

On this path to rewriting a damaging narrative, I have been reviewing content from the past and fusing those stories with the light of what I now know to be true.

This morning I read a seven-year-old blog post wherein I wished about having and themes of grace (a topic of exploration scheduled this week) and the be-do-have coaching formula which popped into my head and thoughts last night as I drove. I had no recollection of the relationship of “I wish” with “Be-do-have” – the seven-years-ago me is once again reminding me how smart I was and am.

The final synchronicity was in the opening paragraph. It overflowed with woundedness – both writing wounds and be-ing wounds: when people who matter to you reflect your being is somehow not good enough or is otherwise ugly or unwanted. Read now from 2010:

 “As I prepare to write my Wishcasting entry, I can’t help but hear a chorus of voices from my past, intoning slight variations along the theme of “You just can’t do anything in a small way, can you?”

In my mind’s eye  the “small way” tended to include either a facial or a vocal jeer or both and I always ended up feeling somehow less than even if I had accomplished something unique, visionary or just more out there than most people are comfortable with, but the jeers left a lasting scar on my psyche. That scarred kid doesn’t want to post my wish, doesn’t want to admit the lengthy process I took to getting to my wish because other people who made wishes  simply dove right sharing their wishes without risking life, limb or burning down your homes.

My end-of-2017 self reappears writing:

I wish to have a sense of peace that comes from abundance, from prosperity of the tangible kind – like my wish to have cash flow in and out, out and in, from multiple sources. My specific wish for a long, long time has been $25,000 dollars in and out, out and in, coming in from purchases of my products and services, flowing out to invest in making the world a better place and continually, infinitely repeating this joyful, deliberate practice.

I smile into that thought, feeling my fingers as they continue to tap even after I almost stopped – my limiting beliefs were about to hijack my fingers so instead I will intone.

I wish, I wish, I wish and I willfully intentionally lovingly agree to take action toward this image of actively manifesting and taking steps toward this wish coming to fruition. Further, I will continually, infinitely repeat this joyful, deliberate practice.

I will trust this process.

I wish to have the sense of peace that arrives on the wings of plenty and extends beyond one’s heart. I wish to move beyond an illusion and concept into reality. The birds begin to sing out my window. My heart smiles as my fingers continue to type.

I will wish in a big way because I am a big, larger than life persona. This isn’t a bad thing to be hidden, this is a fun, festive reality. Nowhere did “offensively large and loud” pop into this writing. Those people who jeer when they spoke to me of disdain were actually reflecting their own jeers at themselves, not at me or my hopes and dreams and plans. Whoever these people were – they live only in my past and may not harm or influence me now.

I wish to feel satisfied and content with the progress I make as I take action willfully toward this wish coming to fruition. This hunger I feel in my belly is the delightful recognition of alignment.

And today, Sunday, December 17, 2017 I will devote myself to repeating the key points of this chapter of my life narrative:

I trust abundance flows in the space where value is received from taking aligned, intentional loving action using my unique gifts and talents. My scars and wounds are part of the curvy road map to my most satisfying here, now and future. I trust my process, I trust in my resilience, I trust in the collaborative process of restoration and in rewriting this narrative I reclaim and rebirth my Self.

(And I can even laugh at the desire to say “This is a draft and I claim the right to continue to draft as necessary.)

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 soon!

 To contact Julie to schedule a Writing or Creative Life Coaching Session, call or text her at 661.444.2735.

 

 

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Where Has Your Journey Taken You – Artist, Entrepreneur, Human? Let’s Explore Together –

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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.

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Love for Systems and Structures: The Artist’s Dream Companion for Success

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“What sorts of systems and structures may I put into place that will support me and not feel like a noose around my neck?”

What makes a system?

What makes a structure?

What makes me think of them as a negative or something I don’t want?

I love mission statements, I enjoy guidelines, what makes me feel like I’m being strangled is this:

The first time I was witness and a victim of a “according to procedure 467.3” mentality I had recently lost Marlena. I had taken on a job as a Program Manager at a home for the developmentally disabled. It was the start of my getting underpaid for my work because I was holding on by a thread and needed to keep holding on and it felt like the best I could do.

This man (The one speaking about procedures and repeatedly parroting them back to me) was a bumbling bureaucrat, former state employee. He had worked at the dreaded state hospital my mind always told “avoid, avoid, avoid” and then he did the droning on about numbers and “the state the state the state” was something of a God at that place I worked and that was a natural turn off and fear inducer for me.

I remember being sick over that stupid, didn’t pay enough job.

I remember when I was stressing out about something and Katherine jerked in my belly and I freaked out more. I was literally in a chronic state of fear, a chronic state of “I am risking the worst pain in my life in order to have something really great but damn I feel like I myself am on the verge of death all the time!”

He was tall, on the edge of portly and was losing his hair.

He wore glasses. He bent his neck when he looked down at me and droned on about whatever whatchamacallit he was worshipping.
I wonder how many times my subconscious mind said, “I will never be like that blow hard, I will never, ever EVER be like that blow hard.”

He was a caricature of a small time good ol’ boy and therefore to be avoided at all costs.

I saw him as systems and structures personified.

Note to self: this bumbling bureaucrat was NOT systems and structures personified, he was a buffoon.

  • Let go of him as a representation of systems and structures – which are in place to support you – and start recreating your relationship with systems and structures which will keep your vision alive:
  • spiritual practices (Gratitude, Art, Meditation, Prayer)
  • timed writing daily
  • a calendar to keep track of appointments and tasks for long, medium and short term
  • a daily list of 5 passionate possibilities written the day prior.

These are systems that nurture and nourish.

These are structures upon which you may build your sustainable transformed life.

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Blue Lined Conversations: Writing from This/That… Ten Years Later.

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Over the many years I have used writing practice as a way of life I have found sometimes I need different methods to get deeper, to tune into that soul-voice asking me to listen more carefully.

Today I found this writing from more than ten years ago. I wanted to share with you about the “Infinite Loop de Loop” so I searched my old blog for content and this is one of the pieces I found.

it is a suggestion from Natalie Goldberg, where we write back and forth from two sides of a the same statement.

In our #5for5BrainDump we will write, “I give…. ” and “I don’t give” as well as, “I receive… I don’t receive.”

On this day in February 2007 I wrote from “I am…” and “I am not…” The process took two separate writing sessions and the result was an ongoing deluge of a-ha’s, bubbling up everywhere I look.

The Julie of 2017 had forgotten every moment and now scooped up even more insights.

Here is where it began:

I am hopeful. Well, _begrudgingly_.

I am pondering conditionalism – is that a word? What I mean is I am contemplating my own experience of loving with conditions attached.

I am not so pleased with the discomfort I feel when I surround myself with past happenings of “If you ________, then I will show you love. If you don’t _________ , I will withhold love.”

This is so contrary to my being – and I am open to the discoveries the divine is requesting I make.

I am different.

I am not ordinary. Convention? Pah. I am glad the Dixie Chicks won a lot of awards last night. I am not used to having people be mad at me, so the last few days of people seeming to be mad at me has made me WAYYYY uncomfortable… and again, there are discoveries to be made and growth to happen, all of which is just right.

I am frustrated as I witness stupid stuff causing my nerves to fray (as I am allowing it to do, not that stupid stuff ‘causes it, it is my opinion that causes it so sayeth Epictetus… nothing like ancient Greeks showing up in my 43 things meanderings) I am letting it go now.

I am not prone to tantrums but maybe just maybe if I gave myself space to have one… oh, I don’t know.

I am willing to grow.

I am not amused by meanness and sarcasm. No wonder I don’t fit in with a lot of people.

I am tuned into Sam today. I am so glad, because he seems to be feeling so much better – relief.

I am not concerned about tomorrow.

I am Julie.

I am not anyone else.

I am.

Who are you?

(Something was waiting in the conclusion of the writing earlier today… that something asked…)

Who are you? So I answered my writing –

I am a fledgling collector of crystal doorknobs – these objects of fear, of wonder, of curiosity, of bewilderment.

I close my eyes to feel with, with the palm of my hand and my fingers. An iced over pond, with a new dusting of snow that stands clear of footprints until I walk across it.

The doorknob has eight perfectly symmetrical indentations – eight, the infinite, standing up. The doorknob – held, turned, let go. Grabbed, tugged on, pushed on, always so momentary.

The doorknob that is never really held,

So I hold the doorknob and sob, feeling like we have this in common.

My fingers wrap around its slick exterior and my palm grips it fully. My cheek rests against it. I wonder for a moment if the little Julie’s cheek ever grazed the old bedroom crystal doorknob, the one that seemed to mock my middle-of-the-night, eight-year-old spiritual musings we assume eight-year-olds don’t muse.

Constance-the-Cat doesn’t quite know what to do. She grazes me until she senses I am ok. The wind chime sings its approval of the moment to which it is witness.

I kiss the doorknob and nuzzle it from the other side.

My smallest finger notices an imperfection inside, a place where a tool pushed too hard and scarred the doorknob. Its scarring makes me delight in the doorknob even more.

Why?

Connection.

We are all scarred. Doorknobs, cats named Constance, outdoor-living-so-weathered-wooden-desks, women named Julie. You. We can choose to bear scars – with dignity, grace and wonder. We can choose to bare scars with vulnerability, unfamiliar to most, yet desired – in truth – by all.

I traced the scar on the doorknob and traced my own scars with a sacred hush… alighting gently from my fingertips directly into my heart.

I look deeply into the soul of the doorknob and see the core, the artistic beginnings, the casings and the laser-like narrowing into oneness as the doorknob offers itself into a lifetime of service only to be passed off as salvage until….

Until one conversation lead to one spark which lead to one man walking through another door to pick the just-right crystal doorknob that is now nestled in my hand in its own, unmoving stand… placed on the outdoor desk of this wildly passionate writer, relentlessly following her divine call and allowing the observations to flow….

And the loop of infinity swoops up and down and back and around, once again….

Who are you?

 

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I’m ready…. to sing with the soul-voice… to create the new choir

by

“To sing means to use the soul-voice… to breathe soul over the thing that is ailing or in need of restoration.”
Clarissa Pinkola Estes

Before I returned to acting after thirty years, I took a voice class where I got to sing, intentionally and with great heart – and the longing and pure joy was so strong in that first class, I cried.

It was a teen and adult voice class and I was the only participant who was over sixteen-years-old. These young women were in musical theater in their high schools, I never intended to do any theater at all.

If you’re a long time follower of mine, that might make you laugh. Countless plays, awards for acting and directing, music videos and films later I obviously found my acting voice but it wasn’t until I gave myself over to singing, learning an aria, hitting notes I didn’t know I could hit, performing in a recital, that I knew I could indeed sing and dance and be comfortable on stage.

I re-discovered my soul-voice.

For ten years, nothing could take me away from the stage. This year, I intentionally took a respite from theater performance. I made one film – it was an absolute blast and only took a couple weeks of my time and attention.
This week I have been decluttering in earnest, reclaiming lost space, and I have a week left of my self-imposed exile from stage. It is time for me to discern if and when and what circumstances will bring me back to theater.
It has been a lonely year.

It was a year of dynamic self reflection and transformation.

I have read more books. I have cried more tears. I have traveled but not as I had expected or hoped.

I spent a lot of time treading water, much more than is healthy.

I am much more clear about my hopes, dreams, ambitions and where my place in this world is one of mutuality, love and collaboration.

I have heard myself spontaneously singing again, humming, free styling as I work.

The restoration process isn’t complete and it is much closer than when the year started.

I am standing at the edge of the bridge into 2018. There is a misty fog here, rising up.

I have become more courageous and more sure of my footing.

I am ready. Are you?

(Vide0 – during a day of poetry writing I spontaneously went for a walk and sang – lyric free singing, I video taped it… and there is still something speaking to me of that brief 1 minute 18 second video adventure. Watch with me here)

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