The Connection between Art and Vitality
Art isn’t pretty.Art isn’t painting.Art isn’t something you hang on a wall.Art is what we do when we’re truly alive.…But art is who we are and what we do and what we need. Seth GodinOkay, so I have been in a funk. By that I mean not really inspired to blog anything. Yet, somehow still inspired by life. This may sound trite but Michelle Obama's bangs and her and the girls attire on inauguration day are now my wallpaper on facebook, they inspire me. I don't know why but I smile every time I see them. Maybe because the colors are so beautiful and the lines of the clothes, elegant. But I may be making this up. My strategic mind HATES the idea that it can't explain everything. ;-) What I know for sure is the image of them makes me smile. Something else that inspires me: the comings and goings of the chickadees at my bird feeder. AND right now, I am really jazzed by my I brand new elegant red metal dining room table to launch valentine's day week. All of these makes me happy, grateful and young in spirit. Yet, not inspired to blog.When I started this blog I understood that the muse comes and goes. And accepted that, but I didn't expect the fickle girl to disappear for almost 6 weeks! AND I committed to not write because some voice in me said, I had better write something or... In other words I wasn't going to let my strategic mind take the my love of writing and connecting things and turn it into just another thing on my "to do" list. This blog that bears my name would be filled from a place of possibility and abundance. I would write because I get to, not because I have to.Trusting this path was part of my emergence as an artist. Yes, I did say artist. Not because I think my writing is actually worthy of the word art. But because I think how I am in the world is. My definition of art and making art is similar to Seth Godin's. It puts me on an edge. It asks me to begin and not know where I am going. Hmmm, that sounds like motherhood, marriage, most jobs, most projects doesn't it? I think so. Godin says we are all artists. We must make a world we want to inhabit. So ask yourself:What can I make in my world today, given all the things already scheduled and required of me, that would make me come alive in the making? That would give me energy?And of course ... go do that!
Part 2: Moving from one year into the next
“Don’t ask yourself what the world needs. Ask yourself what makes you come alive. And then go and do that. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.” Howard ThurmanThis Part 2 of "Moving from one year into the next..." is an invocation or a "call". You are invited to glimpse your unknown future, to look into your heart and the year ahead and petition God/the gods to release you to your destiny, to your bold angels. To the part of you that is courageous, even while fearful, and that is joyful and grateful even in the face of loss. To the part of you that is ready to "come alive".In this part of this reflection exercise, you are invited to notice what may want to emerge in your life and in you at this time. When I celebrate the beginning of a new year, I ask myself: "What is the quality or energy that I want to bring into my life in this brand new year?" Consider taking the wisdom of Howard Thurman’s words to his black congregation in the middle of the civil rights movement. His congregation, some would argue, needed everything, but listen to what he said to them:“Don’t ask yourself what the world needs. Ask yourself what makes you come alive. And then go and do that. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.”So at the dawn of 2013, why not consider answering the questions below and see if you can glimpse what your bold angels might want for you this year:
- What makes you come alive now?
- What would fill your life/your world with "lovely"?
- If you knew you could not fail, what might you do or pursue?
- Where in your life do you want to live or need to live fearlessly?
- What could you get truly excited about bringing forward in yourself? That feeling of “really, really I get to do this or be this?”
Now set this aside for a day or so and come back and reread your answers. What is the new future you declare for yourself in 2013 and why does it matter to you? See if you can write that in a short sentence, maybe in the form of a declaration:I am a commitment to ________________________________for the sake of _________________________.The secret in making a declaration an incarnated reality is to keep it top of mind every day. Make a daily habit of creating 3 small steps you can take toward your declaration. Do this every day.Happy New Year. Happy New You.
Nothing stops her...
"Our deepest fears are like dragons guarding our deepest treasures." RilkeToday is Katharine Lillie Dearing's 27th birthday. My daughter's courage amazes me. How many things she has done for the sake of her career in acting. She continually has faced down each of her fears for the sake of this career. Fears like, rejection and whether or not she could make a living in a big city AND still create time and space to fill her life with things and people that bring her wonder and joy. And as we speak she is now challenging some of her deepest fears. So, I write this to remind her that her deepest treasure is barely a breath away. AND to remind us all that it is worth the grand quest. It is worth taking on that which we are most frightened by because (as is true in the realm of myth and magic) it is in those moments the great transformation occurs. The frog becomes a prince. In Phantom of the Opera, she kisses his ugly face and he frees her. We must prove ourselves worthy or our deepest treasures, before they will reveal themselves to us and drop their costume of our deepest fears. We must prove to our sweet souls that we won't let their deepest treasure be co-opted by the strategic mind, the ego.Yes, it is true, that which you resist most or fear most, you will one day discover this to be the source of the greatest healing and comfort. You will say things like: "O, if only I had known, that what I most wanted and longed for all my life, was actually in the thing I most despised." Let's say your greatest fear is being unaccessible, not there for others, unavailable and/or self-consumed. Yet one day for strange reasons you risk being that one who is unaccessible and unavailable to others and find the greatest peace you have ever known, the peace that surpasses understanding.So, Kate as I sit on the sidelines of your life watching you take on, challenge after challenge, always rising to the occasion, and always overcoming your fears...I realize that you are my teacher. Your dream is much harder to be faithful to, than many others. The path less clear and so many examples of those who tried and failed. Yet, nothing stops you, angel girl. Who would have guessed that angelic little easy going, baby girl who entered the world 27 years ago would turn out to be an amazon warrior for her right to have a life that takes her breath away. It will be so angel. It will be so.
Earth's crammed with heaven
"Earth’s crammed with heaven, And every common bush afire with God;" This could have been written by Elizabeth Barrett Browning about my son Zachary Robert Dearing who is celebrating his 23rd birthday today. Since his arrival he has grabbed for this earth as if it were indeed crammed with all things divine. At age 2 in the grocery store checkout, he would stretch away from me to watch the cashier, mesmerized. (He received a toy cash register for his next Christmas). At age 5, he pursued T-ball, basketball and any other sport with such focus and determination that he was typically the coach's example to the other five year olds. At early as 3 years old when he was giving his new birthday roller blades a trial, he fell. Then promptly picked himself up with "Good fall, Zac" and went back after it again.Zachary has treated this world as if it truly is sacred, as if it were indeed created by God, (whether in 7 days or via the big bang and evolution), matters not so much to him as loving planet earth well. Loving it though, not with a mother's or father's love, but as lover. He devours this world and is the most present person to each of his experiences I have ever known. He expects to fall in love with all aspects of earthly life and so he does and has; now for 23 years. You know with all the focus on saving this planet I wonder if we are really present to it? Do we truly experience it? Do we love it and more importantly our own precious lives as if they will never come again? Because each moment will never come again. Somehow Zachary, from the moment he arrived (he slept only 10 hours a day as an infant... until he was 14 years old) has intuitively known how to love this world and his life here as if he had only this one shot at it.I know something about loving one's life. I was raised by a man who truly loved his life. Zachary's grandfather, Robert Wonders loved all the days of his life. But more quietly than Zachary. Zachary's enthusiasm for the world can take one aback, especially in his younger days. He takes up space. He has big ideas and pursues them and most importantly he does not focus on outcome. He focuses on the hunt. He celebrates each achievement, mourns his losses but never for more than 24 hours, then on to the next pursuit. It is clear that victory is not the point. The point is life. The point is being "all in" his life. The point is being truly alive.What does this have to do with you and with me?Ask yourself,"Where am I concerned with outcome?" or"Whether something makes sense enough to give it a shot?" or"How will I look doing it?" or"What so and so might think of me?"or some other form of doubt that is distracting you from channeling your inner Zachary Robert Dearing and simply loving this "earth crammed with Heaven?" Happy Birthday, Tiger boy!
2012 is the year to learn how ...
2012 is the year to learn how...to put fear and anxiety behind you and keep possibility and the larger meaning and purpose of your life, in front of you...e.e. cummings said it is the privilege of a life time to become who you are.Or something pretty close to that. There was a recent cover on Newsweek that said "Heaven is Real". It went onto describe a Neuroscientist's experience while in a coma. According to him his journey could not just be attributed to the strange firings of the brain (as he used to believe) because the part of his brain that could do that was out. He journeyed to another dimension and was met by a feminine guide. She had a message for him that he in turn is offering to us.Her Message:You are loved and cherished dearly and forever.You have nothing to fear.You can do nothing wrong.So, today is Halloween or Samhain as it was called in ancient times. It is said to the be time in the calendar of the year where the veil between the manifest or visible world and the invisible, unseen world is the thinnest. This is why there are Day of the Dead celebrations at grave sites in Mexico. It is time to commune with your most dearly departed, because it is said to be the best time for this.The moment I read the message in Newsweek I knew I would blog about it. I am asking myself, my clients and now you the reader ; "What would you do differently if you 100% believed the message given to this doctor?" In another such experience, an Indian woman was dying from a body riddled with cancer that was miraculously cured right at the end of her life. she was in a coma for 36 hours and she had a near death experience during that time. She wrote a book "Dying to Be Me". (on Amazon) describing what she learned. You can hear her discuss it at length on you tube.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7jFN9XQeEn4But the message is similar. We are here to be ourselves. Our whole authentic selves. And these authors don't say this but I would add, and help others do the same or at least allow, make space for others to do the same. So on this ancient holy day, when the gods are able to best hear you, what do you want to tell them that you are ready to begin? If you truly believe that in the eyes of the Eternal you cannot make a mistake, you have nothing to be afraid of and that you are loved beyond your wildest imagination...how would you lead your life? What bold action would you take now?