I
worked on the Creative Divine 21 Days project for two days in a row! This is a
landmark situation indeed.
Today’s
adventure will unfold in two essays. There is so much richness to be
integrated, I don’t want to say too much without breathing a bit in between.
It
feels more right that way, just like my body feels more right now than it did
earlier this morning.
Today’s
challenge? Nicola of The Whole Self was requesting me to "Use My Body as a
Divining Tool, so I did.
My
body had enough of the sitting at the computer thing this morning and urged me
to get out, go out, move, connect with soil, feel breezes and cloud shadows and
perhaps even get a raindrop or two upon my cheeks. My intellect could easily
pull all those lush ideas asunder with the weight of “to-do’s” and chores and
gottas, haftas, “are you crazy?”s but instead, I decided to take the
instructions from Day 8 of 21 from Nicola at Creative Divine. Instead of brushing
off my sleeves, I nodded to the insistent voice of my body which kept pulling
on my sleeve, asking me to please, please PLEASE take it outside.
I
grabbed my camera, my notebooks, my phone (just in case) and off I went.
I
never know what to expect when I go to San Miguel Commemorative Grove, which is
my closet near to nature location closest to my home. It is a sketchy place,
meaning there are a variety of elements present there: some sordid, some
sacred, some dangling in the middle. I can’t help but love the contrasts there.
Perhaps
I love the contrasts because they remind me so much of myself.
Today
was no different than the many other times I have found myself there. Wetness
in winter means very spring looking grass, very bright green pressing up
against weathered, dried up trees who bear testimony to the usual dry breath of
Bakersfield.
I
elected not to take my usual path, but instead find a different spot. I wanted
a spot where I could write and feel and listen and write and feel and listen.
I
even brought a chair with me this time, which, I eventually chose not to use
but the thought was a good one.
I
wanted to get a good spot to take a self portrait. I set up the shot and tried
to get there before the timer shutter clicked. No luck from two different paths
before a random stranger called out, “Do you need any help?”
My
usual response to an offer of some one else to assist me - my unconscious, gut
response is, “No, I am fine. I’ve got it covered” even when I haven’t. I
stopped and took a breath, asking myself or God or whomever might be listening,
“Is this a crazed crack head who will steal my camera or is it appropriate to
honor his willingness to help me?”
I
paused for a microsecond and said, “Yeah, sure.”
I
framed the shot I wanted using a tree stump as a tri-pod and said, “All you
need to do is push the button.” He said, “That’s easy enough.” I was all
business still, at this point. “And that, there, is the button.”
I
started walking toward the grove of trees.
He
clicked when I asked.
I
picked up my notebook, got quiet and connected to the earth, and wrote:
“My
feet notice the moisture. Last year’s leaves return to the soil faster when
there is more ‘weather’ to speed the process.
I
wrote, simply, “Visual Silence.”
Followed
by:
“What
does visual silence look like? This morning I noticed each creak of the car as
I drove. Today, I thought it was silent here – auditory silence – and now, as I
write and as I am both an object and a subject, I hear the silence doesn’t
exist here. We are still too close to the city. It still hums about us, here.
“I
notice I want to write standing up, with my feet slightly sunk into the moist
earth, a cushion, a just-right mattress. Not too hard, not too soft. I want to
feel this ground under my feet, I am at home when I am connected like this,
here.
“My
feet feel constricted by my shoes. They want to be free. Maybe I need to find
sandals. Maybe my feet, my soles of my feet, want to feel the skin of the
Earth.”
“I
lose self consciousness when I write, when I am home – here, in nature.”
My
photographer friend asked, then, if he could try other angles. “Sure,” I said,
barely looking up. “Follow your instincts… that would be great”
I
wrote, “People long to connect. They want to help other people. They want to
feel a part of something bigger than they are on their own. They want to
connect to “home” in a universal sense.
I
continued, on a different side of the art journal. “My photographer seems to be
enjoying himself. I allow him to find home in the creative process. It works,
it seems magic only it is completely natural and non-magic.”
His
voice rises from my left. “If I would name you, I would call you ‘One with
Nature’.”
I smiled up to him. “Yes, you are right, I am one with nature.”
The
wind is blowing, gently. I feel it in my hands and on my face.
I
feel done with this spot.
My
photographer, whose name I will never know, stops clicking.
We
chat for a while. He tells me he thinks reading is boring.
I
scrunch up my eyes at that assertion. He likes to draw. “Would you like to draw
now?” I ask him, “I have materials.”
“I
have to be in the mood,” he said.
I
nodded, not in agreement but in compassion. “Is all of this for an art class?”
he asked me.
“No,
except… well… my whole life is an art class.”
He
accepted that with a similar nod, perhaps in compassion as well, as he turned
back to the parking lot.
“Thank
you!” I called after him. “The shots you got are perfect!”
I
returned to my car, but my notebook and feet weren’t ready to go home yet.
I
stood beside them and listened.
I shut the car door and smiled.
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.
Love the path of Gratitude to your door! ;-)
Posted by: Stacey Robyn | February 23, 2010 at 04:58 PM
LOL. Yes, indeed, Stacey! I use the gratitude symbol a lot in my zentangles. It fits perfectly!
Posted by: Julie Jordan Scott | February 23, 2010 at 07:35 PM