For an added bonus: Read over the quotes once, looking for which one or two especially resonate with you. Write that quote or quotes on a piece of paper or index card and tape it above the place you write.
Tomorrow morning, early, take the quote and use it as a writing prompt.
This is one way you will give respect and homage to your Literary Grannies.
###
“Variety is the soul of
pleasure.” Aphra Behn – Literary Granny 2013
“The human soul has need of
security and also of risk. The fear of violence or of hunger or of any other
extreme evil is a sickness of the soul. The boredom produced by a complete
absence of risk is also a sickness of the soul.”--Simone Weil
“If you would reflect well and wisely, you would realize
that those events you regard as personal misfortunes have served a useful
purpose even in this worldly life, and indeed have worked for your betterment.”
Christine de Pizan (Literary Granny 2013)
George Eliot (Mary Ann Evans)
"No great deed is done by falterers who ask for
certainty." --George Eliot (born with the name Mary Ann Evans)
“Sometimes, I feel discriminated against, but it does not
make me angry. It merely astonishes me. How can any deny
themselves the pleasure of my company? It’s beyond me.” Zora Neale Hurston
(Literary Granny 2012)
Risk! Risk anything! Care no more for the opinions of
others, for those voices. Do the hardest thing on earth for you. Act for
yourself. Face the truth.--Katherine Mansfield
Meet Denise Levertov, Poet
“Perhaps this very instant is your time.” ―Louise Bogan (Literary Granny 2013)
“Two girls discover the
secret of life in a sudden line of poetry.” Denise Levertov
“Perhaps it
is better to wake up after all, even to suffer, rather than to remain a dupe to
illusions all one's life.” Kate Chopin (Literary Granny 2012)
“We have to dare to be
ourselves, however frightening or strange that self may prove to be.” May
Sarton
###
Watch this blog for profiles of Literary Grannies throughout the month of April here at Julie Unplugged. To check out the first few entries of the year, visit here.
I have a love for storytelling and performance, both. I love
film and theater, I love going to galleries, I love talking about all of these
topics and how they intermingle.
I have been living the question, “Does ‘resolution’ have to
be a part of the process for the artist as well as the audience?”
I thought to a time when I was teaching Sunday School and a
very brave creator of children’s curriculum chose not to tie up the video for
the lesson with a big red bow. Some of the children spoke dissatisfaction with
that choice. They want and expect the resolution. They want to know the “what
happened” perhaps so they know how to move forward in their own lives.
Last Fall I told a story that put me in a very vulnerable
position. I had never told this particular story of my life and I was so afraid
to tell it. I felt as if I was opening my gut and allowing all that bloody,
stinky mess fall out onto the stage floor. I didn’t end my story with a big,
red bow, I ended my story with a question. “Was that what I think it might be?”
was the basic gist of the final line I spoke.
I remember the words of Adelaide Crapsey when she said,
“Artists give us not conclusions but evidence.”
Artists may leave breadcrumbs along the path, but they won’t
open the door to the cottage. You, the audience member, are charged with
opening the door.
Excuse me, what I meant to tell you is, you are privileged
to open the door.
Go ahead, open the door.
What will stretch you more, resolution or evidence?
Which will challenge you more, evidence or resolution?
If you feel stuck, write your responses to those questions, stream of consciousness style. Then tuck those two questions in the back of your mind, go about your business, and tomorrow morning write your responses to those questions again without thinking or judging or even thinking.
Let your pencil (pen, fingers on the keyboard) lead you.
This is my twenty-eighth post (of 31!) for the January Ultimate Blog Challenge.
Watch here for challenge posts which will include Writing Prompts, Writing
Tips and General Life Tips and Essays.
Mixed Media: Emily Dickinson portrait with book page and leaf - 2012, Julie Jordan Scott
The more I
get to know Emily Dickinson, the more I love her. I have been an admirer for
quite a few years now, but my word-love has flourished since I visited her home
in Amherst Massachusetts. Not once, not twice, but three times so far and I
think another trip there is long overdue. It isn’t as if travel to Western
Massachusetts is convenient: I live in Bakersfield, California, its more that
visiting her home is like visiting Mecca.
Not only do
I visit her home, I take in the stomping grounds of other literary figures.
My visit,
though, does not begin until I have paid due homage to Emily.
So many
people think of her as an odd recluse who had agoraphobia among other mental
illnesses. Perhaps she did fight some disease but we don’t know for certain.
There are so many books of research about her poems, I am sure we could find a
researcher or several right now who would argue for all sorts of illnesses and
quirks.
What I feel
most strongly about is this: Emily Dickinson was a one of a kind. She lived
with great passion, continually learning via the news of the day from both her
family and newspapers and magazines. She enjoyed baking for the neighborhood
children – she would lower Ginger cookies in a basket to them as they waited
below her bedroom window. She was a botanist – spending hours in
"The Thing with Feathers" inspired by Emily Dickinson's poetry. Mixed Media, Julie Jordan Scott, 2013
the garden
drawing flora and communing with the trees.
Yes, she
sought refuge in solitude.
She spoke
to people behind a curtain.
She also
corresponded with many and grew friendships via her entertaining letters.
What
impresses me most about her is how the mystery surrounding her continues to
invite inquiry AND the more I know of her the more I want to know. The more I
know of her the more I want to create in her honor. The more I know the more I
want to share with others.
I have just
finished a piece called “The Thing with Feathers” based on this stanza of hers,
one of her famous oft quoted ones:
"Hope" is
the thing with feathers—
That perches in the soul—
And sings the tune without the words—
And never stops—at all—
= = =
This is me, Julie Jordan Scott, writing in my notebook on the lawn of the house where Emily lived in Amherst, Massachusetts
I have two open spots in my creative life coaching practice. If you
are interested in discovering how creative life coaching might help you
in stepping into your direction and staying the course, send me an email
to : juliejordanscott@gmail.com or give me a call or text at
661.444.2735
Watch here for challenge posts which will include Writing Prompts, Writing
Tips and General Life Tips and Essays.
Before the Government provided help, widows needed to figure out means to support their children after their husband's died. Kate Chopin wrote and wrote well. Her book, The Awakening, is one of my favorites.
I am taken with their faces
Lucy Larcom: Lowell Mill Girl & Writer
Their courage
And her granddaughter says
“She was only taking care of her
children.”
Before there was welfare for
widows
there was writing. There were
people, interested.
There was engagement, wonder and
word~love.
I wonder if I could learn to trace
her face?
I wonder if I could learn to paint
by tracing her eyes
By learning the shadows and light
in her hair’s curls?
I am drawn to the women of the
literary past and present. I am drawn to my literary Grandmothers, my great
Aunties, my
neighbors, my sisters, the
artists who went before me. I want to know them, I want to spend time with
them. I want them to know that we know and notice and appreciate.
I want to share their stories, their wisdom, their humor. I want to dive into their connections and friendships with other creative women. I want to learn how they Mothered, if they had children. I want to read their letters and diaries, I want to thumb through the photos from their lives.
I want to know how they dealt with loss, how they wrote their grief onto the page or into the paint.
I crave visits to archives to touch the papers and pages they also touched.
The US National Archive keeps treasures like this. There are also archives at Libraries, Colleges and Universities. If you are interested in a particular author, search Archives - Author's Name or look in bibliographies about your favored writer.
I am beyond words drawn to the women of the
literary past and present.
Julie Jordan Scott
has been a Life & Creativity Coach, Writer, Facilitator
and Teleclass Leader since 1999. She is also an award
winning Actor, Director, Artist and Mother
Extraordinaire. She was twice the StoryTelling Slam
champion in Bakersfield. She leads Writing Camp with JJS &
this Summer will be traveling throughout the US to bring this
unique, fun filled creative experience to the people wherever she
finds the passion & the interest.
Did you enjoyed this essay? Receive emails directly to your
inbox for Free from Julie Jordan Scott via the
Daily Passion Activator. One inspirational essay and
poem (almost) every week day. Subscribe here now -
George Sand: Influencer of Women. Mother. Novelist. Feminist. Inspirer
This brief profile is meant to tickle your curiosity more than give you an exhaustive story of the life of one of the most fascinating women of 19th Century France: George Sand. I look forward to more study myself. I have concluded with five quotes from her writings, primarily because I always feel I come to know an author most fully from getting to know her writing voice.
Join me, now, in deep curiosity to an influential writing woman who you may not know much at all until right now.
She was born Amantine Lucile Aurore Dupin in Paris
in 1804. She became George Sand, a 19th century icon in women’s
literature who sparked the imagination of 19th Century American
women, including Emily Dickinson and Margaret Fuller, the latter idolized Sand’s
lifestyle and ideals. Her influence continues in the United States today via,
among other scholarship, The George Sand Society which has officers from both
UC Santa Barbara and University of Massachusetts, Boston.
Sand’s self confidence would have been threatening
had she not been so successful in her work. She often dressed as a man and her
eccentricities unfortunately sometimes overshadow her literary contributions to
the world. She penned more than seventy novels though some only think about her
life in relationship to her love affairs, especially her liason with composer
Frederic Chopin.
Her friend Honore Balzac, a respected French Novelist
from the realist school among whose ninety one novels include amongst them strong
psychological studies, describes George
Sand in this way:
“She
is a female bachelor. She is an artist. She is generous. She is devoted. She is
chaste. Her dominant characteristics are those of a man, and therefore, she is
not to be regarded as a woman. She is an excellent mother, adored by her
children. Morally, she is like a lad of twenty; for in her heart of hearts, she
is more than chaste–she is a prude. It is only in externals that she comports
herself as a Bohemian. All her follies are titles to glory in the eyes of those
whose souls are noble.”
"We cannot tear out a single page of our life, but we can throw the
whole book in the fire. "
“Guard well within yourself that treasure, kindness. Know how to give without hesitation, how to lose without regret, how to acquire without meanness.”
“The prayers of a lover are more imperious than the menaces of the whole world. “
“The beauty that addresses itself to the eyes is only the spell of the moment; the eye of the body is not always that of the soul.”
“Try to keep your soul young and quivering right up to old age.”
I bet the very creative among you will recognize yourselves
in my words today.
I can’t even tell you how often this happens to me: the car behind me honks to startle me awake
from solving all the world’s problems or writing my shopping list or
deciphering last night’s dream. Does
this ever happen to you? Sometimes I am thinking about how to help my children
lead their best lives or what I will cook for dinner or trying to remember the
details of a story from long ago.
My mind leaps from thought to thought to thought and all of
a sudden the car behind me honks,
frustrated because I didn’t leap to go through the intersection because the
light just barely turned green.
Actually, in these cases I have no idea how long the light
has been green because I am too lost in reverie about whatever is happily
holding my thoughts so attentively.
Last night on the way home from an event at the Art and
Spirituality Center where I created from a whole new-to-me version of Hansel
and Gretl, I wondered how Emily Dickinson might write a poem about a particular
intersection here in Bakersfield.
I sat in my car, looking at a street light. I thought, “How
would Emily Dickinson see this seedy neighborhood with this high powered street
lamp?”
I was having so much fun I almost didn’t see the traffic
light turn green.
Are you ready to experience the darkness on a Bakersfield
street corner with Emily Dickinson and me?
Street Light, Corner of 21st and Union
Electric orb
Sharing luminousness with the
Members of the pearly ancient profession
And the shaking, tittering loose toothed
Hungry for the next, next, next….
As well as the cars who have lost
Their way and landed
Underneath you
# # #
Think about one of your favorite characters: fictional,
historical, literary, and consider what might happen how they might experience
your life through you. Then write as that you-Emily Dickinson character or You-Cat
character or You-Green Lantern character.
Whatever it is, whichever or whoever combines with you –
have fun and write it.
Just beware of when the light turns green. The car behind
you might honk to startle you awake from your poetic word play.
Here I am, writing on the Lawn at Emily Dickinson's House in Amherst, Massachusetts
I worked more on my “Fragments” piece focusing solely on
Emily Dickinson today. She’s been on my mind a lot lately, not precisely sure
why but I am sure there are reasons. After I share my images, I will share a
poem I wrote in her style, but definitely not a topic she had to write about
when she was living.
This piece includes acrylic, snippets of ephemera,
photography and crayon.
This top image includes flowers she pressed, a handwriting
sample, poem fragments, a photo of her and the color you see underneath is my
Tempest Zentangle from yesterday.
This bottom image shows my work in progress yesterday during
a rare rain in Bakersfield, I lit candles and kept this “fragment” beside me. I
wondered at that point if it was finished… and no, it wasn’t. The photo above
shows some final touches I added. (the photo and more random ephemera.)
And finally, the poem I wrote in homage to Emily's style after wondering, "What would Emily write if she was sitting at this intersection?"
Street Light, Corner of 21st and Union
Electric orb
Sharing luminousness with the
Members of the pearly ancient profession
And the shaking, tittering loose toothed
Hungry for the next, next, next….
As well as the cars who have lost
Their way and landed
Underneath you
Thank you for visiting my Art Every Day Check in. I look forward to looking at your art, too.
There is
something that happens when the heart and mind collide and then consciously choose, to collaborate. Late
last night I spoke with a dear friend. I implored him, saying as I put my hand
on his head, above his ears, “Would you please get out of here all the time?”
He tortures
himself by replaying the past, especially past mistakes.
My thoughts
are about how to enjoy the sunset tomorrow while he is thinking about an error
in judgment twenty-five years ago that is completely unfixable now.
Who do you
suppose has a more satisfying life?
“We are so
different,” I laughed to myself and cried a bit to him.
These words
of Emily Dickinson speak to me of this: “The brain is wider
than the sky.”
It is like our bodies climb on a magic carpet and cannot even begin to
fathom the wonder that is within our brains, the power of the creative process
that longs to be accessed freely every hour of every day.
It wants to look at sunrises with you.
It wants to discover a new solution to a compelling right now not ten years ago or with people who are long gone
or thousands of miles away but right now“ problem.”
It wants to help you remember names of that person you worked with at the
county thirteen years ago and you just re-met and it wants you to remember the
names of those committee members you only see once a month but are so important
to your future.
This magical, wider than the sky brain deserves a bit of reverence,
though, and doesn’t often collaborate until we quiet the unconscious
meanderings of our amygdala, also known as the emotional center of our brains
and also quite a knee-jerk sort of response place.
I would rather look down from my magic carpet and hug my amygdala and
allow it to do its work in a conscious, centered, thoughtful way instead of
blowing up like a volcano whenever I bump into a barrier, especially those
which are self created due to the past or the future which remember, we can not control.
Instead focus on what you can control: your thoughts and the direction they take.
1. The moment you notice your thoughts have slid off the magic carpet, tune into where you are standing. "I am standing at my desk in my home office. I feel the soles of my feet inside my walking shoes. I smell the cookies baking for the funeral later today. I feel a slight chill from the window to my left." Be where you are, completely.
2. It may sound trite, but think happy or grateful thoughts. This requires authenticity and please let go of comparison to others. Saying "I am grateful I am not a girl child in the wilderness in Afghanistan" doesn't count. Saying, "I am grateful for water coming out of my faucet, clear and drinkable. I am grateful for the way a freshly laundered sweatshirt feels against my skin. I am grateful I took the time to create some art yesterday." These fit. If you pay attention, you will physically feel the difference in your body.
3. Recreate the ruts in your brain by changing your thoughts before your nasty-brain-chemicals have a chance to shoo you into your habitual way of responding. Immediately upon noticing, list and think of 5 anythings. "Winnie-the-Pooh, Belle, Pollyanna, Tigger, Tinkerbell" (five characters from Disney Movies) "Deck the Halls, Silent Night, Santa Claus is Coming to Town, Oh, Holy Night, Jingle Bell Rock" five Christmas carols. These are not five bests or worst, they are random fives. Five midwest states. Five sorts of soups. Five places you have visited. Anything. It takes your mind instantly off and helps you climb back on your magic carpet.
Where is your magic carpet mind taking you today, right now?
Julie Jordan Scott
has been a Life & Creativity Coach, Writer, Facilitator
and Teleclass Leader since 1999. She is also an award
winning Actor, Director, Artist and Mother
Extraordinaire. She was twice the StoryTelling Slam
champion in Bakersfield. She leads Writing Camp with JJS & next year she will be traveling throughout the US to bring this
unique, fun filled creative experience to the people wherever she
finds the passion & the interest.
Did you enjoy this essay? Receive emails directly to your
inbox for Free from Julie Jordan Scott via the
Daily Passion Activator. One inspirational essay and
poem (almost) every week day. Subscribe here now -
When I look at the photos I realize they don’t do them
justice at all. I need someone with a professional camera to shoot these
because… well… they are one of my favorite objects I have yet to create.
I layered images to pay homage to two
visual artists and two writers.
The first painter is Berthe Morisot – her necklace features
a portrait of herself in a photo in the background and her best known painting,
The Cradle. A regular participant
at the Salon de Paris beginning in 1864 at the age of 23, she also participated
in every Impressionist exhibition except for one.
The second painter is perhaps one of the most wildly
decorated painter – including men – having been accepted in to so many
different countries academies. Her name is Elizabeth Vighee LeBrun and I first
fell in love with her
from seeing her art at the Norton Simon Museum in
Pasadena, California. I chose to use one of her famous self portraits which
features herself and her young daughter, Julie. Layered underneath that is a
self portrait of me holding the same painting from a book to my face that was
taken in 2008.
I didn’t know until today Berthe also had a daughter named
Julie. It was destiny!
The writer pendants include Kate Chopin layered with a
painting of mine she inspired called “Sea in Bakersfield” and Emily Dickinson,
layered with a photo of one of my painted pages of her work with a rare
colorful autumn leaf here in Bakersfield.
There are more pendants to come. I am so in love with the
process I may need to open an etsy shop to justify my passion and addiction!
Julie Jordan Scott
has been a Life & Creativity Coach, Writer, Facilitator
and Teleclass Leader since 1999. She is also an award
winning Actor, Director, Artist and Mother
Extraordinaire. She was twice the StoryTelling Slam
champion in Bakersfield. She leads Writing Camp with JJS & next year she will be traveling throughout the US to bring this
unique, fun filled creative experience to the people wherever she
finds the passion & the interest.
Did you enjoy this essay? Receive emails directly to your
inbox for Free from Julie Jordan Scott via the
Daily Passion Activator. One inspirational essay and
poem (almost) every week day. Subscribe here now -
Today I will not share any words except for the intro here and my signature. I created these yesterday and.... love them so much. I hope you enjoy them also.
Julie Jordan Scott
has been a Life & Creativity Coach, Writer, Facilitator
and Teleclass Leader since 1999. She is also an award
winning Actor, Director, Artist and Mother
Extraordinaire. She was twice the StoryTelling Slam
champion in Bakersfield. She leads Writing Camp with JJS & next year she will be traveling throughout the US to bring this
unique, fun filled creative experience to the people wherever she
finds the passion & the interest.
Did you enjoy this essay? Receive emails directly to your
inbox for Free from Julie Jordan Scott via the
Daily Passion Activator. One inspirational essay and
poem (almost) every week day. Subscribe here now -
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