Julie Unplugged

Thank you, Bubbles

I carried my camera with me to several occasions this
past week but it sat, unused, in the bottom of my purse
along with a broken pencil and a used up lipstick.

I touched the case but didn’t open it up save for one
brief moment at Dagny’s when I took two photos, random
still-life photos. I didn’t take a photo of anything
with a pulse, which is my normal subject of choice.

I felt unsettled in my sadness. I knew intellectually
my sadness was present, but I was unwilling to name it
or honor it or give it space to roam. Part of how it
festered was to take away my will to capture images.

I uploaded images from the recent past. I edited images

in fun, Andy Warhol style and sepia or black and white.

I wasn’t ready to add to my collection of photos. Instead,
I wanted to dwell a while in the “what had been” and know
the “what was immediately in front of me” would be
patient and wait.

I know some people might “tsk tsk” this choice and
refer to it as something like “wallowing in self pity”
and to those people, you may call it whatever you call
it. I call it what worked for me in my process.

I spent too many years either denying my feelings or
rushing my feelings. It causes more damage than it does
good. I prefer “exploring” to “wallowing”, anyway. You
might want to try it on the next time you are
judging yourself or others.

More good news came last night, when I found a subject
that delighted me and called me into it.

I belong to a number of groups on Flickr, including
“Flickr Group Roulette” which was created for photographers
like me who embark on crazy goals like the 365Day
Self Portrait Project.

I looked up the theme, hoping it might yank my creative
chain and sure enough, it worked. “Black and White Bubbles”
was something I could do alongside my children, so we
made a date with Sunset. “Meet us on the Bluffs” we
said, and off we went about our day including a trip
to the 99 Cent store for some cool wands for bubbles
and Samuel, my love, wanted a boomerang. The coolest
part of the 99 Cent store is requests are easily
honored, one at a time.

We laughed and the kids fought a little. My friend Jennie
and her dog Bella eventually joined us. I took photos,
Katherine took photos, Emma posed for shot after shot
after shot. Samuel pondered on video and we reveled in
the cool grass against our bare skin as the sun set
right in front of our eyes.

We laid back and looked at the big dipper. Emma asked
Jennie some Math related questions. Sam asked some
astronomy questions. Katherine rested,
quietly, contentedly.

I felt my shiny, patent leather camera bag
fill the palm of my hand.

I swear I could feel its smile fill my hand.

It is ok to take your time with your feelings. It
is ok when those feelings take the back seat to
creativity. One does not preclude another. Both
feel just right in their own way.

My phone buzzed and it was a text from Katherine,
who rested close by me on the grass. “Can we go
home now, please?” she asked silently.

I texted back, “Yes” before saying aloud, “You
guys ready to go home now?”

We gathered our bubble tools, our boomerang, and
our love for each other and walked, once again,
towards home.

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Leaving the Road

The last essay I wrote for Daily Passionator
ended with the question:

What yes are you living?

The time when I was silent here - in almost
week daily emails to you, I was living one
of my Yeses - and this essay includes what
might not appear like a Yes and yet, most
definitely - is a Yes.

Here's what I mean.

The prairie spread in front of us like God's
tablecloth, more vast than my mind could grasp.
Samuel thought we would fall off the edge of
it and be flung into outer space.

Katherine, Emma and I sat on a comforter I
spread out alongside I-90, beside our disabled
car and cried. Katherine and I allowed gasping
sobs to be released from our bellies and our
shoulders while Emma fell onto her back saying,
"I don't even know why I am crying."

Samuel's seemingly endless chattering was silenced,
his head bowed as if in prayer, as the three women
in his life surrendered to the unknowing
of this moment.

We had to walk into small spots of connectivity to
call Triple A to beg for relief and assistance. We
would lose it, stand up, move and reconnect to
a pocket of connection. Katherine extended her arm
onto my back to keep the "carrots" on her cell
phone active.

I made one other phone call, to my long-time friend,
Mel, whose hug I longed for at the end of this
trip perhaps more than any other.

I had to try twice to leave a message, attempting
unsuccessfully not to cry as I left my voice
impression. I only hoped she would listen to it.

We didn't know then what was wrong with the car, but it
felt ominous.

Later that night we huddled together, the four
of us, in a motel room in Chamberlain, South Dakota,
and shared stories, feelings, hopes. Katherine cried as
she said she had loved the moments on the prairie,
just abhored the outcome.

The next night I watched the sunset over the prairie,
knowing I wouldn't be receiving that hug from Mel or
any of the other friends I had been planning to see.

Transmission failure, $3,000, an expense for which
I had not bargained. The car had been fully inspected
and received an "All's clear!" before we left home.
Unfortunately that "All's clear" didn't change the
facts of what happened.

I started this trip with a variety of intentions,
many of which were met. We created some incredible
memories, saw some sights I had only imagined, made
new friends, saw some long-time
only-over-the-phone-and-online friends.

Our love and appreciation for each other deepened.

We learned, first hand, about interdependence and
receiving as people who were strangers became friends
through opening their homes to us. Cornell, our final
couchsurfing host, picked us up from Chamberlain
(130 miles from Sioux Falls, where he lives) and
let us stay with him until we figured out
precisely what we were going to do.

He entertained us, fed us, worried about us.

Julie loaned us her GPS. We all called him Pete
and he became an integral part of our adventure.

Each stranger we met seemed to give us some sort
of gift and we began to give gifts, too, in
our own way.

That's what couchsurfing is meant to be, I suppose.

My longing for the road has intensified. This particular
trip was years in the dreaming, making, which is perhaps
what makes its sudden ending that much more difficult for me.

It feels similar to Marlena's stillbirth, actually. I
realized in a pacing, post-midnight texting session
she was conceived almost exactly 20 years ago. No
accidents, I remembered. No accidents.

So now, instead of traveling any further East, I am
back in Bakersfield and writing, putting all of
this into words.

I am reading Rilke's Duino Elegies and more Anne
Morrow Lindbergh (and a smattering of her daughter
Reeve's work.) The kids and I are a bit lost in
being spread out about the house. Sam and I are
planning to build a wishing well together.

We watched a how-to video last night, he was
so excited.

We are planning, now, to visit Smith and
the schools in that area in November sometime,
but we will be flying - because we have limited
time. We plan to go back to Portland, Oregon
in September.

For those of you who I didn't get to see and
laugh and hug and reminisce together create new stories,
I am more optimistic now than I was as we sat on the
prairie beside our disabled car. I know we will finish
this trip later, I know I am meant to write about
these lessons, these "Yeses that don't look like Yeses."

For the tremendous couchsurfing hosts, you were each
one a blessing beyond what you may know.

I trust we will see each other soon.

= = = = = = =

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Today - Scoop Up Your Life and Write with Me in a Forest in Los Angeles -

 

Teaching teleseminars from on the road is always an adventure -

become a part of that adventure by listening to this audio and

following along.

 

Listen to the recording and write along with me!

Step up on that rock, and feel the connection

To nature, the Earth, Divinity..

This oasis I found in Los Angeles -

this Sacred Haven.... this is important

to our showing up on the page,

as writers.

Let's step into the moment - and consider metaphors as

I walk around this space and witness the moment I am

in... listen and breathe and open up to metaphors or

examples in your life for this same thing we are experiencing

separately and together.

Consider this to be an invitation to you to be exactly

where you are in this moment - where you are and here.

The soft ground beneath my feat

in a pine needle cradles

flies, soft soil and I see

flies, like a school of fish in mid-air

Feet cradled by the soil

Newborn green branch

I stroke the needles on this branch

I feel a connection to the soil

To the Universe to all the people

in Los Angeles to the gardener

who perhaps is wondering what

this woman is doing, on the

phone in this grove of urban

pine trees or perhaps not noticing

her at all....

I feel connected to the people on

the large Metro, Rapid bus -

Such a big bus, it has an accordion

in the middle

During my years away from Los Angeles,

people have learned it is ok to ride

public transportation all across the city

I feel connected

I pull away and my hand is covered with sap

The smell is the same smell I experience

in Sequoia or Yosemite or the places I went

camping as a child or Calvin Crest -

The stories live in items left behind

Reminds me of the stories left in the items

we have left behind

As a writer and liver of life

When I show up exactly where I am

exactly as I am, words and creativity

will flow. I don't have to concern

myself with where the words will take

me because I know they will take me

to places like this - a grove of

pine trees in the most surprising

places - and stumble upon blooming

jacarandas - and I will smell seeds

of writing in that jacaranda and in

that pine tree, in my dirty, sap covered

hands.

In these moments, exactly as they are -

are significant.

Thank you, thank you for showing up.

For listening.

Perhaps you have been jotting metaphors

as I have settled into my moment here.

I know, from this moment in time -

my life will never be the same because

will say on June 2, 2009 I sat amongst

a grove of pine trees on Wilshire Blvd

and I spoke what I saw onto a recording

device for you to scoop up and write from

as I leave you with a prompt:

Today, I scoop from my life.....

Scoop up the moment, the metaphors, scoop

up your exact moment, a half hour ago,

before you listened - what were you

seeing and feeling and tasting and smelling

what will you scoop up that will change your

life and the world, forever?

A blessing, a moment, a present - THIS

present YOUR present....

Get close to your writing, get close to

your pulse, put your pencil to your paper

and scoop up your life...

Today, I scoop from my life.....

Today, I scoop from my life.....

Scoop up the moment and write it...

Thank you.

Julie publishes the ezine Daily Passion Activator and shares her thoughts (and future posts like these) so Why not Subscribe today, to keep in contact? It's free.

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Curiosity and Cats and You and Me

I think about my friend, Rainer Rilke, and his love
affair with questions.

I think he would appreciate Alasdair Reid's take
on Curiosity via Cats and Dogs.

Let's go there for a moment - read slowly, breathe
into the phrases and the words - and stay open
to whatever the message may be waiting for
you to hear it.

Curiosity

may have killed the cat; more likely
the cat was just unlucky, or else curious
to see what death was like, having no cause
to go on licking paws, or fathering
litter on litter of kittens, predictably.

Nevertheless, to be curious
is dangerous enough. To distrust
what is always said, what seems
to ask odd questions, interfere in dreams,
leave home, smell rats, have hunches
do not endear cats to those doggy circles
where well-smelt baskets, suitable wives, good lunches
are the order of things, and where prevails
much wagging of incurious heads and tails.

Face it. Curiosity
will not cause us to die--
only lack of it will.
Never to want to see
the other side of the hill
or that improbable country
where living is an idyll
(although a probable hell)
would kill us all.

Only the curious have, if they live, a tale
worth telling at all.

Dogs say cats love too much, are irresponsible,
are changeable, marry too many wives,
desert their children, chill all dinner tables
with tales of their nine lives.
Well, they are lucky. Let them be
nine-lived and contradictory,
curious enough to change, prepared to pay
the cat price, which is to die
and die again and again,
each time with no less pain.
A cat minority of one
is all that can be counted on
to tell the truth. And what cats have to tell
on each return from hell
is this: that dying is what the living do,
that dying is what the loving do,
and that dead dogs are those who do not know
that dying is what, to live, each has to do.

- Alasdair Reid

= = =

Rainer Rilke suggested to his Young Poet
correspondent he should ""Have patience with
everything that remains unsolved in your heart.
Try to love the questions themselves, like
locked rooms and like books written in a foreign
language. Do not now look for the answers.
They cannot now be given to you because you
could not live them. It is a question of
experiencing everything. At present you need
to live the question. Perhaps you will gradually,
without even noticing it, find yourself experiencing
the answer, some distant day.”

This reminds me of the curious cat.

I get the feeling the cat doesn't relentlessly
ask question after question after question. Cats,
in my estimation sit and stalk and then leap.
They don't chase relentlessly.

Cats are ever curious in a more....oh, can't
even find words to wrap around it and now I
must go pick up Emma and leave this string
dangling while I am away.

I will, more than likely, be batting at it
with my fist, cat-like, loving the questions
I have raised, sitting on a small rug in front
of their unlocked doors, waiting, sniffing,
basking in rays of sun from the window at
the end of the hall.

What are your thoughts?

The Secret of Infinite Art (or "I Call it Can")

My friend, Victor, set a single can of Pepsi on
his table cloth covered dining room table and
took a photo of it. He took it after I chided
him for proclaiming he had nothing to photograph
in his "Podunk-USA-home: Turlock, California."

"I took it for you," he said, before the
over-the-internet-via-instant-messaging
unveiling.

I sat at my keyboard, more than two hundred
miles south of him in my own version of
Podunk-USA-Home-We-Call-it-Bakersfield, California"
and I looked at Victor's photo image on my screen.

It was simple. A soda can on a table.

"I call it `Can'" Victor typed via instant message.

"I like it." I said. "The simplicity speaks. I
appreciate the contrast between the lace of the
tablecloth and the silver-aluminum can…
thoughtful choice."

If we had been together rather than separated in
space and connecting via instant message, Victor
might have play-punched me on the shoulder. I
couldn't read his response through our instant
messaging device, so instead I sat, quietly,
appreciating his attempts at both teasing and
creating art where he thought there would be none.

The thing is, I was sincere in my praise. There
were several reasons I was pleased he took
my challenge and ran with it.

#1) I have a firm belief there is always something
worthy of creating. I shared this belief and it
had obviously been rummaging about in his mind.

#2) He took action on the rummaging of my belief
in his mind through creating something.

#3) His action inspired more art on my part, which
reinforces one of my most potent theories which is:

#4) Art begets art. The conception of art conceives
more art, which proves creativity is infinite and
gets even better when artists create together and
separately, together as Victor and I did.

It doesn't matter where you are, what tools you have,
how much is in your bank account, whether you are
dining on Top Ramen, Top Sirloin or Prime Vegan,
you CAN create art.

The Friday after this conversation with Victor I met
my friend, Jessica, for lunch at Costa del Sol in
Downtown Bakersfield. I have known Jessica even
longer than I have known Victor. Until a little more
than a year ago we had lost track of each other.

When she was just in junior high school, she attended
the Poetry Open Mic night I also attended at one of our
local book stores. Many years later, we both appeared
in Moliere's "The Bourgeois Gentleman" and then later
in Eve Ensler's "V-Monologues".

Lately we have made it a practice to have coffee or
lunch together on a fairly regular basis. Our trip
to the hot springs was legendary, resulting in some
photographs which are among my best ever.

I arrived at Costa del Sol early, since I thought I
my writing might benefit by being away from my
home office.

I was right. I wrote the beginnings of two essays – including
this one – while I was waiting for my friend to arrive. It
was after she left that I took out my camera and started
shooting a variety of subjects, including the saltshaker.

I saw how it looked through the viewfinder and it reminded
me of Victor's "Can" series so I shot a couple photos.
Later that night, I decided to take "Salt Shaker on Table"
and play with it using my photo editor.

I wanted to surprise Victor when he comes back from his
week-end away. I want him to see how his birth of art
from my idea brought more art of my own to life
from his art. It felt, to me, like another example
of the infiniteness of the creative process.

Last night I unveiled my series to Victor as we
once again chatted on instant messenger. He and
I had another rocking-and-rolling conversation,
with his nugget "I am a concept guy" bursting all
sorts of creative bubbles for me and I am guessing
once again my words are rummaging about in his
mind, seeking more creative material.

Isn't it delightful that a creativity challenge
lead to a single joke-photo which lead to an unjoking
conversation and more art and more art and still more art?

You always have something worthy of creating.

When you take action on whatever is rummaging around
in your mind, creative fruit –art itself - is a given.

Your art provides energy and inspiration for other
artists to create art.

Your art is infinite.

Elizabeth Barrett Browning said it like this: "What
is art but life upon the larger scale, the higher.
When, graduating up in a spiral line of still
expanding and ascending gyres, it pushes toward
the intense significance of all things, hungry
for the infinite?"

Today, create art from something that looks completely
mundane and ordinary. Watch what happens from the act
of creating from the mundane.

Watch. Create. Watch again. Create again. Listen.
Create. Smell. Create. Touch. Create again.

Expand, ascent, push, discover the significance
of all things.

Rumor has it, Victor has given himself another assignment.

I can't wait to see it....

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Wednesday Wishers...

My Wish is that I could get the Widget to Work!

:-(

And as you wish, so shall it be....

Uninspired and Creating (Just Right) - 7 Tips for Making Art, Anyway

Last night I sat at my kitchen table, chatting with Tony on the telephone (and wishing I was doing almost anything else) when I remembered I hadn't taken my daily self portrait.

I took one, anyway, because I am, if nothing else, devoted to my goal, not to how pretty things look on the way to my goal.

Not pretty. Ick. Completely.

This morning I woke up and looked over my shoulder at yesterday.

I created again, from the same self portrait.

There is a sense of power which comes from experiencing and creating passion even though in the moment before, one was uninspired.

It sounds paradoxical, yet creating even in a space of "not passionate" yields surprising and impressive results time and time and time again.

Pause a moment, and consider, What saps your passion?

What deflates your sense of inspiration?

I don't bring this up so that you endlessly think about being sapped or uninspired, but to recognize the red-flags so that the next time you are there, you recognize it.

I hear this from beginner poets a lot.

"I can only write poetry when I am emotionally charged." I remember when I was that way as well.

Seasoned creative professionals or people choosing the path of creativity need to stretch beyond whim and riding the energy into creating a context to continually write, paint, photograph, sing - even and perhaps especially when it doesn't feel imperative to do so.

The photos here are examples of exactly that - and a combination of some of the tips below I will share with you to help you stay on track the next time your passion or inspiration is flagging.

1. Create assignments and schedules for yourself, just like an employer would. Sounds constricting? Let go of that thought. Schedule walks, yoga classes, coffee dates, anything that provides "get up and go" when you don't feel like "getting up and going". There is power in moving when you don't feel like it. Believe it and do it.

2. Goals. I use the 43things.com website as a Goals Headquarters. I have long-term goals in there but most effective are my daily goals and my monthly goals. I have goal buddies there who expect me to show up, so I do. Part of the reason for the continued creativity with the photo you see here is due to my May Goal which is to daily Merge Poetry, Photos and Prayers. Having Goals and looking at them regularly naturally draws you towards them. Feels like magic AND it is a Passion Strategy that works.

3. Games/Challenges: Create these when the passion is surfing through your veins. My 365 Self Portraits is a great challenge. Meeting a friend daily to exercise, a great challenge. A daily art journal - a great challenge. Make them up, do them. Buddies really help this one to work.

4. Musical accompaniment. Radio Swiss Classic and YouTube provide my tunes as I write, oftentimes. Yesterday I hit REPLAY on Samuel Barber's Adagio so many times I lost count. It worked.

5. Creative Buddies - See #3. Friends who are also creative who understand the ups and downs of creativity are the best friends to have. Network, reach out to new people, watch your art expand.

6. A Treasure Chest of Prompts - Prepare these from any programs or classes you are taking. If you poke around this blog you can find questions all over the place. These are perfect prompts. I asked a couple here, in this article. You might choose each paradoxical couple in the photo as a prompt. Prompts are everywhere. Make a chest and when the time comes for you to need inspiration, draw one out and use it to form your current or next project and then, take action on the prompt. Choose action. It always works.

7. Begin and continue a spiritual creative practice. Morning Pages, a la Julia Cameron are my favorite. Daily haiku. Daily Sentence Journal. Daily Art Journal Page. Daily Collaging. Daily walk-and-pray. There is juice in the daily-ness of sacred practice. Don't knock it until you have tried it consistently.

There - that absolutely, you better believe it, just right.

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Bring on the Troll Suit

Jennie and I ate our fiesta dinner outside last night at Hart Park. We hadn’t had the chance to visit for a while and I wanted to be outside. I wanted to have Jennie’s company and I didn’t want to be confined by walls so off we went, taking our meal with us.

The sun was doing its rapid descent and I said to my friend, “I need to go check out my special place.”

Jennie’s eyes widened. She had heard about this place, but she had never been privy to it.

I scampered away, down a bit of a slope and alongside a 1930’s era bridge. Jennie said, “What are you, a troll?”

I laughed and said, “Maybe, just maybe I am!”

 

I feel a hush in my heart when I visit here, this place that might not seem so beautiful to other people. There is sometimes graffiti on the walls – I find it beautiful. Some people might think lurking under a bridge is troll like and choose to see that as negative. Others may get to the bridge and take a deep inhale and say, “It smells stale here” rather than, “I can smell life giving way to life here.”

That is the beauty of openness.

That is the beauty of allowing people to have their own thoughts on the way to the next thought. That is the beauty of shining your authenticity so that others can see it without even realizing “Hey, my view, my way isn’t normal and for some people it might not be acceptable.”

It is sort of like not caring to care about other people’s opinions so much you don’t even notice their opinions anymore. That just becomes some of the residue, it just glides off. When people who are ready to hop into the not caring to care about other people’s opinions, they see that as inspiring and something they can do, too.

The first time I discovered my special place, I was with Sam, exploring. He calls it our Sanctuary and the entire surrounding area he calls “God’s Garden Center.” He came up with that on his own.

It was at an exceptionally difficult time of my life where I was open to pain, I was open to grief, I was open to exploring, I was open to whatever the surf washed up. I was so open, I lost labels most of the time. I am still that way. I choose not to look at the separation of labels because I see how that leads to disconnection.

 

I would rather live a life of contented connection, of gleeful not caring to care about other people’s need to label or boxify the world.

 

I sat in my special place that day and found myself tumbling into a place transcendent.

 

 

I found myself reaching out to my friends via text message.

 

I wrote, “I have discovered a slice of heaven and it is right here in Bakersfield!”

 

If to experience heaven I need to become a troll, then bring on my troll-suit.

 

 

 

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Our Shared Treasure

I was able to see the premier of a documentary film, “Straightlaced: How Gender’s Got Us All Tied Up” which is a part of Groundspark Films’ “Respect for all” series.

The film’s message moved me. It continues to walk amidst my consciousness me today.

What I took away, most of all, is how much we are all alike rather than how we are different. Underneath all the stuff we layer on top of who we are, we are all uniquely similar, diversely universal.

  

One of the young women in the film said something like “You feel like you are wrong for just being you.”

Her words cut me to my core. Sitting in my chair in the large library meeting room where more than ten years ago I had the origins of an idea to leave the conventional, 8-5 lifestyle as a county employee, I wondered “How many people share this sentiment?”

In authentic, transparent conversations, how many people would open up enough to admit that they also could say, “I feel like I am wrong for just being me.”

I walked into the darkness of the night after the film, chatting with some of the other audience members. We had found universal connections from the film in one another, even though outwardly we didn’t look like we would be in sync. I came to wonder, “What is universal among each and all of us?”

Today I sat with my photos from this week and I discovered some shots I took Monday evening as I walked towards the Flourishing Arts Floral Design class They were absolutely beautiful.

The photos were unique and they were similar. They were diverse and they were universal.

We all share this, in common.

None of us own it and all of us own it.

We each and all experience it in a slightly different way, I would imagine.

Look, here – at our shared treasure.

Just sit. Look. Be with it.

 

What does it say to you?

What do you say in response?

Sit. Look. Be with it.

We all share this very same sky.

Ready to Crack Open Inspiration?

Visit the Create for Your Life Blog - and read and hear a free lesson from yesterday.

It's a LOT of fun!

Check it out by clicking here now.