Julie Unplugged

One Word: Outlet

One Word today - OUTLET

Sixty seconds.... WRITE!

Some people see outlet as a place to feed their shopping addiction, the chance to buy inexpensively so they may fill their closets with the latest clothing clutter.

I see outlet as a place to express myself, or a place to plug into, like an electrical outlet. I find a space where I fit, where I am fired up and juiced and know I will be able to use everything I am to be able to become who and what I am meant to become.

OUTLET.

Loss, Letting Go and Love: Lessons in Passionate Detachment

This definition comes from The Whole Self: The host of "21 Days of Creative Divine"... I am writing along with the lesson offerings. I realized in reading this definition how far I have come:

Loss: the act or instance of losing; the failure to keep or get something valued; the harm or suffering caused by losing or being lost.

Loss has been a definitive life experience of mine, ever since the "loss" of my firstborn, Marlena Sarah. We are coming upon her twentieth birth/death - which continues to be unfathomable to me. How can twenty years have passed since that bleak February night in 1990?

I have had many losses since then - the most recent loss being the loss of a dream followed at a most surprising time, by the restoration of another dream.

Sometimes I find my skin feeling prickly when I see writing prompts like this one. I don't want to write about loss. I find myself feeling self absorbed and at times, perhaps seen as self indulgent or masturbatory. I sat with my journal a week ago, when I first read this prompt, and simply scribed the words, "loss and letting go, loss and letting go, loss and letting go" in a sort of pencil scratch mantra.

I found myself incorporating words from the television show which played in the background, "Its not about your writing style, its about your substance." He kept his word. Why do we do these things? Loss and letting go. Loss and letting go. "A bit eccentric!"

Until I settled in and got to core and the shell, crackly and hard, keeping what felt like it needed protection, away from the movement of the pencil. "Too vulnerable" it felt, at first. "Too vulnerable."

I found myself scribing the "I nevers"... you know, those things I would say, "I will never...." those areas that I thought were so important I was unwilling to let go, unwilling to compromise, unwilling to negotiate until I lost the ability to control the situation.

Do we ever really have control, anyway?

As I continued to write, something perfect happened.

My pencil moved from writing, "Loss and letting go" to writing "loss and love, loss and love, loss and love..."

That first major loss, my daughter Marlena, taught me I wasn't protected from the pain of loss. I covered myself in a teflon coating of "I don't cares". Photographs of me from that time - a rarity - show me with half opened eyes and a zombie-like facial expression. I was much like an "undead" - not alive but not dead. Moving and sort of breathing, but all that was good and real and those parts of me that are quintessentially me got buried underneath that avalanche of "who cares" and "I don't care" and "whatever" and "What do you want?" and "What is expected of me?"

Ten years after my daughter died, I stepped into a completely different life. I started to become acquainted with a wholly different concept - that of loss, letting go and love being on the same continuum. It doesn't mean that loss and letting go are any more painful, but it doesn't make loss and letting go something to be avoided.

I am much more able to let go now because I recognize the power of loss and letting go are powers I give to the pain associated with loss and letting go, and when I learned to be passionate and simultaneously detached from outcome, all of a sudden a shift began which continues to move within me today.

Passionate detachment became my watch word.

It is a way of being of complete devotion and present to whatever occurs as being just right. It is letting go of having particular expectations or "this is how it is supposed to be".

There are certain phrases you simply won't hear me say, phrases like "It isn't fair!" with that victim-y lilt and whine to it. I watch the sunrise on most mornings with a grandeur that I think isn't fair, either. Why do I deserve to relish such beauty as a part of every day life. Is that fair?

That, my loves, is privilege.

Loss, letting go and love means that knowing what you are letting go may be the most important thing in your life AND the simple act of loving and letting go may bring the most vivid pain AND the most satisfying soul progress fathomable.

I haven't done this prompt justice yet I feel as if it will continue, gratefully, to work me.

I have some assignments coming up, assignments labeled "loss, letting go, and love".

Hooray - an opportunity to practice passionate detachment!

When I look at it from that perspective, I see lavender rather than black.

I like how that looks.

Flash Fiction Friday plus One Word = Intriguing Week End Growth Assignment. *Giggle*

I picked up a prompt, on a whim, from Flash Fiction Friday. Know I am not a fiction writer, I am a life writer and a poet, primarily. A teacher... and yet I often tell my writing students to use elements of fiction in their work so I decided to write into my own advice.

The prompt I read said:

Make my main character a Warrior:

 

What if, today, I pretended and lived as an undercover Warrior? A Bakersfieldien Zena? A woman who is powerful, all knowing, and underneath this monochromatic black exterior, wore superheroine garb?

In actuality, I do. And I am. So, now - to write and live it.

I wasn't entirely pleased with my slow progress, so I hopped over to "One Word" and added that word into my Flast Fiction Friday prompt. The One Word was "Export". I continued:

What if I chose to export my soul? I could wrap my soul in an exterior of weakness, rather than my superheroine self, my Julie-Warrior-Queen of her domain - what would happen if I exported my soul, my creativity, my vision?

What if I imported her soul? Her quibbles, her losses. Her bits. Her baggage, her fear - or what if, instead, together we unpacked her quibbles, her losses, her baggage, her fears and helped her put on her super-heroine self, repacking her quibbles, her losses, her baggage her fears along with a new sort of knowing.

What if I chose to export my soul with a different attitude and perspective?

What if exporting my soul became a product of sorts, a delectable experience of holiness and love, so that the "less than" had the room to be the "more than" after all, when it is added as jewels to the crown and sparkles to her breastplate.

What if I chose to export my soul?

Why - I think that would be pretty darn cool.

I think I may have found something new to write, to experience, to discover - like The Journal in my Hand. The Warrior Queen Inside My Clothes...

This weekend, will continue to live and create from the question, "What if I chose to export my soul?"

I will let you know what is born as a result. And just for fun, I fictionalized a moment from yesterday... and we will see where I continue to go with this:

She slid her red-faced key into the well-worn lock. It turned, she was in.

The voice inside shouted, "Who is it?"

"Just me, it's just me. Laura..."

"Oh, wow," he said. "You scared me. I didn't know you were..."

"I'll only be here briefly, working some things out... you know..."

His eyes told her he knew.

Her appearance belied what was inside her. The simple, classic lines of her black, wool sweater. The carefully wound scarf and hat, she could have been on her way to any Middle-America PTA meeting or Church Committee Fund Raiser.

Instead, her aim was completely different and more than a little bit out of the ordinary.

Laura was a Soul Warrior, on one of her favorite missions.

She crossed her arms, waiting for her first assignment of the day to cross the thresh hold. She was ready.

(And a final FYI - my most often used pseudonym is Laura Maxwell. So, in fiction I decided, for now, to use her name as my name and me as her. And when I went to post a link to this link? The prompt had nothing to do with being a Warrior. Isn't that wild?! LOVE IT! Someone start the twilight zone music, please!)

Tangible Soul: Day One with #CreativeDivine

This post is Day One of 21 of a part of Creative Divine: a program from my friend, Nicola Warwick, of the Whole Self.

I have a theme this year: I see it as a mannequin to dress and step into the clothing or a three dimensional mandala to craft my life inside. I waited until last Friday to say anything about it or even live toward it.

I didn't want to get caught up in all the New Year hoopla plus... I knew... starting a whole bunch of new stuff in early January wasn't working for me. I had to wait until the discombobulation mostly cleared and then... step into...

Tangible soul.

Paradoxical, perhaps, and yet - so true for me.

I teach writing and I am perpetually nagging - hopefully, it is more like inspiring - my students to move from cliches and abstract word combinations into new ways of saying what they want to say as well as using the senses, so that when you talk about "stepping into a three dimensional mandala" people can see in the mind's eye what that might look like.

You probably know the old adage: "Show, don't tell".  Well, that is a part of what I harp on. "Make your writing as real as possible," I encourage my students, followed by "Show your readers, don't tell your readers. Project your story on a movie screen in your mind and show the reader what is happening up there.

"Allow them the privilege of stepping into the screen alongside you."

This is what I want to do with my life this year - to make my soul increasingly tangible and through that, make universal soul tangible. Help people to connect with their own depths and see the connection points live.

I want to take "soul" from being a hazy concept into something we can sip from a coffee mug or tea cup, smell like the smoke from a crackling fire, touch like a down comforter we pull up to our chins as we sleep.

AND I want to begin that process through the 21 Days  of Creative Divine.

AND I know, I am starting a week late.

Sometimes life happens.

I may catch up, I may stay perpetually a week behind. I have, after all, been writing this on scraps of paper and in my notebook and in my mind for more than a week. *Giggles*

Oh, it feels good to take this and bring it into tangible form - my idea, my intention, and begin shining that light on the nooks and crannies I have yet to see so clearly.

How exciting....

First Kisses: Rehearsal mixed with #mindfulist

I tried something new last night at rehearsal. It was our first night rehearsing at The Empty Space and I everything was afflutter. With the big-for-Bakersfield rainfall, there were associated problems and distractions for us in the theater.

Step #1 - I circled (or with only three of us in each rehearsal slot) "triangled" up.

"Walk the X's and the Perimeter" I told them. "Walk, walk, walk and focus on your intention for rehearsal tonight.

"When you see me come silently to center stage, stand with me and wait silently for further instruction."

It worked, sort of... it did help people settle in, but the resistance was still palpable.

The exercise was valuable and valid and I will repeat it, especially as I am needing to retrain cast members to work on a thrust stage rather than a conventional stage.

I noticed I was a little bit fidgety myself at first, because I was worried my colleagues who were not working on my show might catch wind of some of my legendary "touchy feely" techniques and snicker about them.

Why do I care? Once I settled in, I calmed myself and stood in the knowing that the ways I direct work, just some of my methods incorporate different techniques.

We are doing lines and blocking and all of that sort of conventional stuff and I am layering OTHER stuff, just like each night I am layering things like costumes and technical aspects: tonight, sound and narrators. Tomorrow, costumes and narrators.

The biggest breakthrough of the evening came during our closing time, from Simone. We had been giving compliments and shared what was working for each cast mate - one of the bonding activities I do that works and also makes some actors uncomfortable.

Simone had a question, "I am not able to cry," she said. "I can't do it."

We talked about the "One moment before," exercise, which Justin has been using very effectively for the beginning of their scene.

"I tried," she said.

I suggested a different strategy - pulling something up from her own past and using that to fuel her emotion in the scene. "Have you ever had anyone hurt you, on purpose?"

I watched her sweet face, this face I have known since she was little more than a girl. I saw the cloud descend and the tears start.  I stood back as Justin reached out to hug her while her Mom and I stood, in our circle, waiting for her to be able to talk, not interrupting her process.

"See how that worked? You have found something," I told her. "Use it"....

"But then I won't be able to remember my lines..." she countered, laughing a little.

"You will remember, you will. That is why we rehearse..."

They left rehearsal and I said, "Hey, did you give your goodbye kiss yet?"

"I'm going to walk her to the car," Justin said, assuring me the goodbye kiss would happen.

"Goodbye kiss?" Michael Pawloski, the Director of the Late Night show, Mr. Marmalade, asked, as his actors were arriving.

"Yes, a new strategy. The scene partners kiss hello and goodbye at every rehearsal now."

I see it as a mindful stepping into rehearsal and a mindful end to the rehearsal period for the evening.

With a show called "First Kisses" is there a better way build relationships?

One Word: Pour - Becomes a Poem and a Prayer

My one word writing today began as a word,

Soon became a poem and finally, was a prayer.

 

So satisfying, the simple joy of clicking GO

And seeing what comes off the end of my fingers

Onto the keyboard and onto the page.

 

May you delight as well.

 

Today’s word: Pour

 

I pour myself out each day

Into life's vessel it calls

"Fill me!" and I do, I trust

with drink that is warm and

chilled, deep and light,

colorful and black-and-white-

and-grey in lines that make

one wonder and know

simultaneously

 

I pour a mug of life, in all its

richness and I smile, making pouring

and drinking and reveling in it all

my prayer.

Creativity Sparks: A Day in the Life of Creative Exploration #CED2010

The Self Portrait Challenge from Kim Owens, from Blissfully Art Journaling today was written like this:

 

This is an exercise that I used when I was an art docent for my daughter’s class. We were studying the art of Alexander Calder –an American painter and sculptor (1898-1976). He is best known for his wire sculptures.

This is very easy exercise, but it will most likely make you a little uncomfortable. Be fearless!! You should do this directly in your journal – not so easy to throw away. This is about the process – not the finished piece.

You will need –
Your journal
A free-standing mirror or a full length mirror that you can sit in front of.
A pen – absolutely NOT a pencil

When you are comfortably seated, look at your face in the mirror. Study your face for a few moments and then place the tip of your pen on the journal page. Choose a starting point on your face (i.e. your chin). Start drawing your face without EVER lifting you pen off the paper. You must move the pen across the paper as you follow the contours of your face with your eyes. Don’t look at the paper – your hand must be in sync with your eyes. When you move your eyes up the side of your face to your ear – your pen should move up the paper. Move smoothly – don’t think about what you are drawing. The pen and your eyes are joined as one. Just move, explore your face, let the pen flow across the paper. Use a light touch. Don't forget to sign and date your portrait. Then post your artwork.

 

I had about a half hour free this afternoon and the challenge kept calling me, so I grabbed a chair and plunked it down in front of the bathroom sink-and-mirror.

 

I am about to take a drawing class to remedy my limited abilities there, but I wanted to complete the challenge. I brought a crayon with me, one which bragged it was purplish but was actually closer to blue.

I started with my hair line and before I knew it, a not-too-embarassingly-bad (though I wouldn’t call it good) self portrait came into form.

 

I finished the crayon draft and wondered for a moment why we don’t do self portraits of the rest of our body with as much regularity. I was thinking of Elizabeth Vigee-Lebrun, one of my favorite 19^th Century French Self Portrait artists and also the months theme at Creative Every Day.

 

Elizabeth, I can’t imagine her painting her wrist and calling it a self portrait.

 

I could, however, imagine Leah Piken-Kolidas of Creative Every Day rejoicing in a wrist only self portrait. Again, recognizing my limits as a drawing artist, I leaped in and found… not so bad. The edge of my hand and wrist, holding the very journal I was drawing in at that moment.

 

Yesterday, later in the day I went to an audition at The Empty Space theater for an upcoming production of Hamlet Machine.  No, it isn’t Hamlet a la Shakespeare, I have heard it called a deconstruction of Hamlet. Tt is a unique theater production meets performance art. I don’t even know how to describe it but what I do know is this:

 

I relished the audition, which was a completely creative, wacky experience of creating three separate characters in voice and body while reading from a Dr. Seuss board book I had never read before. I had a blast and if the audition was all that was, I would have been bummed but it would have been enough.

I sat in my drive way after the audition and thought, “I really want it. I really, really want it” and took this self portrait. From a different angle you can see my chin is in a constant quiver, about to cry state. Intriguing, how I am literally "holding the quiver in" here. This series of self portraits, not at my most beautiful – is so beautiful.

 

The part that surprised me was the role I would play includes nudity and simulated… umm… intimate acts. Both of which I agreed to do.

 

I went to the audition thinking I was too old to begin with, but never expected to be included in the cast, at least in the role of Gertrude – given the whole nudity concept. I am reminded of four years ago – was it only four years? – the first time I did a nude photo shoot, completely for my own personal growth.

 

I never expected to come out of that experience with art which made me feel beautiful and more comfortable with myself. I expected the contrary.

 

My comfort with and appreciation for my physical form has continued to increase even as I am not standard, culturally appreciated norm of young, firm, thin, unscathed by life.

 

Whether it is my wrist or my nose or my hip or my more pudgy than I would like shadow, there is a continued appreciation for who I am and the space I fill.

 

Julie publishes her ezine, the Daily Passion Activator, which includes an Essay and a Poem every week day - inspiration delivered directly into your email box. Why not Subscribe today? It's free.

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From the Archives - The First EVER Daily Passion Activator - 1/15/2002 - Making the Most of Your Gold Nuggets

We are celebrating our 8th Birthday at

Daily Passion Activator - this is the VERY first

essay I published and at the time, this was

what I intended Daily Passion Activator

to be - a simple, daily "gold nugget" - which

I hope it still is... though I have grown and

shifted over the years, so has my work and

my writing.

Enjoy this jaunt down memory lane with me.

Making the Most of Your Gold Nuggets

By Julie Jordan Scott

There is a Growth Formula I have used in
Coaching that has really made some huge shifts
In the lives of those who apply it.

 

Very simply, it is:

 

Insight + Action = Growth and Development

 

After practicing a while, I learned that a minor
Shift of this formula made a significant impact.

 

Here is the change:

 

Insight (Gold Nugget) + Passionate Action =
Exponential Growth and Development.

 

Action  can either be Passionate Action
(which is deliberate, purposeful, intentional
based in moving towards the possibilities)
or it can be Frenetic Action (which is
usually based in a fear or  scarcity or lack:
poverty consciousness.  It is about running
away from something or avoiding something).

 

Choose the PASSIONATE action for
EXPONTIAL Growth and Development.

 

Action Tip: Today when you are spending
time reading any personal growth material
read it with a piece of paper or notebook
beside you.  Make a line in the middle of
the page lengthwise and label the left
side "Insights" or "Gold Nuggets"
make note of the Insights or Gold Nuggets
as they occur. 

 

When you are done with your reading,
reflect upon what Passionate (not
Frenetic) Action you can take in
regards to that insight.  Write the
action down.  Commit to it. 

 

Simply TAKE PASSIONATE ACTION!

 

(Please note: this is not the flavor of Daily Passion Activator anymore. The information in 2002 was valuable and it still is - but my tone has changed considerably. How I adore this version of me. *Smiling at myself*)

Julie publishes her ezine, the Daily Passion Activator, which includes an Essay and a Poem every week day - inspiration delivered directly into your email box. Why not Subscribe today? It's free.

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Happy Birthday, Daily Passion Activator! Celebrating 8 Year Body of Work #CED2010

I sat there looking at my keyboard, not sure what or if I should write.

 

I shrugged, what’s the big deal, eight years of publishing Daily Passion Activator? It isn’t anything, really. Just me rambling or sharing or flailing around praying, hoping, wondering if my words make a difference.

 

And then I thought what Daily Passion Activator has meant to me, and Discovering Your Passion before it.

 

My ezines have been there, have provided me a reason for writing for years. If I didn’t have the context of my subscribers, who I imagine wait to read my scribblings, I would be a lot less motivated to write.

 

I love my blogs, but they don’t have the same oomph for me that Daily Passion Activator has, perhaps because it came before the whole blogging revolution, before online social networks. Maybe it is the fact it is delivered directly into the email box. Like one Australian subscriber told me years ago, "When I was experiencing crisis and all my friends disappeared, you kept showing up in my email box, day after day with your stories of hope and encouragement. You kept showing up."

 

Daily Passion Activator came before I was involved in theater. It came when Samuel was a baby, before the autistic spectrum became front and center in my life. It came before Emma was in school, eons before Katherine had an inkling of Smith College and all the way along that path I wrote and I wrote and I wrote and people read.

 

Sometimes more read than didn’t and sometimes more didn’t read than did read.

 

I created teleclasses and ran programs and my life fell apart and then I started to rebuild, later. All of this, documented and experienced through Daily Passion Activator. I went silent when things were the most difficult or – when my brother, ohn died, when Samuel was first diagnosed, I got exceptionally bold and started publishing my prayers alone – because I needed to be heard. It was like crying out into the darkness and I didn’t feel comfortable sharing face-to-face with my local friends so I cried into the arms of my subscribers.

 

I remember that time of telephone calls and love across the miles.

 

When two of the big domain companies miscommunicated and I lost my 5passions.com domain to an Italian Poker Website at the same time Mom got cancer and Sam got his diagnosis.

 

Daily Passion Activator plugged on, when my closest friend disappeared into the ethers and I needed support so badly. Daily Passion Activator gave me voice and gave me an ear, both.

 

I continue evolving… and so does Daily Passion Activator.

 

I am grateful you are here – reading – and perhaps checking out some of the highlights across the January 15ths in the past with me because when you think about it?

 

8 years of publishing anything with this level of consistency IS a big deal.

 

HAPPY BIRTHDAY DAILY PASSION ACTIVATOR!

Julie publishes her ezine, the Daily Passion Activator, which includes an Essay and a Poem every week day - inspiration delivered directly into your email box. Why not Subscribe today? It's free.

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Untightening the crank to find flowing inspiration. #CED2010

It had been a day of frustration. One child home sick, the other child home (a homeschooler) but crankier than the norm. All day long I listened to onslaught of the television droning on and on and on behind me.

 

It was like a slow turning crank in the muscles of my shoulders. Each tick of the clock was a slight nudge, a slight turn to the tightening of my shoulders, my neck. I couldn't seem to write with a darn. My creativity was being all dried up in that slow turning crank as it squeezed my inspiration dry.

 

I looked out the window and saw the sun was beginning its descent. I saw Hank. I saw Samuel feeling better and I said, “Hey, you guys want to go to San Miguel Commemorative Grove?”

Together Samuel and Hank leaped. We were off.

 

I adore that place. Pure and simple.

 

It is a different place yet the same place for everyone I know who knows of it.

 

Not long ago, a well known realtor’s body was found not far from where Samuel and I walked. I enjoyed diving into my own conspiracy theory, but some of my friends told me the spot I love to visit is also famous for other activities. “Really?” I said. “I know there are cranksters under the bridge sometimes, but I don’t go over there if I see anyone else looming.”

 

I don’t even know if cranksters is a word for people who smoke crank, but I like how it sounds, so I am sticking with it.

 

I also find some pretty interesting graffiti art under that bridge and on the other side is more river and some great horses Samuel and I like to visit.

 

We have also found a fair share of hobos. Samuel and I like entertaining the hobos with our friendliness.  

 

Yesterday, our only companions for the most part were the sun, the river and ourselves. I brought my notebook, but I never stopped to write. I was having too much fun following Samuel and Hank who were so engaged with the moment, they almost forgot I was following them.

 

It is in times like these I know I am giving my children contented memories of their childhood. I want them to be able to tell my grandchildren, their children, “Granny used to love taking us exploring in some pretty strange places. And she loved the river. Oh, how she loved the river.”

 

Oh, how I love them, my babies.

Julie publishes her ezine, the Daily Passion Activator, which includes an Essay and a Poem every week day - inspiration delivered directly into your email box. Why not Subscribe today? It's free.

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