Julie Unplugged

The Art of Recycling… Ummmm…. No Answer into “YAY! An Answer!” for the #Best09 Blog Challenge from @GwenBell

"I have no answer to that,” was just the start of what rumbled through my brain when I first read the prompt for Gwen Bells Best09 Blog Challenge for today:

”December 15 Best packaging. Did your headphones come in a sweet case? See a bottle of tea in another country that stood off the shelves?

I read this question from the Best09 Blog Challenge and I almost didn’t answer it… but then I thought, “Wait – I may get a prize if I answer all of the prompts” so here I am thinking, “I didn’t buy anything that had particularly interesting packaging.”

So, I did two things.

I collected some quotes about packages and looked to my left, where I saw a box I painted for the play, Beyond Therapy.  It was a word box. I think I am going to change it from a Word Prop Box into a Word Prompt box. Perfect! Love THAT packaging! (I may keep Snoopy with it, too, as homage to playing one of my favorite roles, ever.)

And I love these quotes, too.

“Comics as art. I do comics as comics, and my opportunity to tell stories. Simple. Basic. Let the characters have the excitement, not the package. That's where I come from.”

Jaime Hernandez

 

"We do not fall in love with the package of the person, we fall in love with the inside of a person."

Anne Heche

 

"When a man is wrapped up in himself, he makes a pretty small package."

John Ruskin

 

"Women do feel like they're in a box. Society, Hollywood, some men-they want to wrap women up in a neat little package."

Sherilyn Fenn

 You know what else I love?

The idea of recycling my Word Prop Box (which was a part of the Art Every Day Month Challenge last month) fits into Leah Piken Kolidas theme of RECYCLING for December in the Creative Every Day Challenge. Look at me fulfilling on so much with so little.

Love it when it works like that....

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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Bliss, Please: Writing the Sunset - #Best09

  

I am blogging daily responses to a series of questions and prompts created by Gwen Bell and today’s question revolved around “the best rush” which I translate into “excited or transcendent bliss”….

My practice is to start my writing for the challenge the day before – so I knew yesterday, immediately what my best rush was – my best poetry performance ever - and had a vague idea of how to tackle the moment with words. I knew I had written about it as it happened, so the plan was to return to that moment and re-immerse myself into the rush and hopefully come out with something inspiring to share with the world.

I was a little troubled, though, because that “rush” experience for me came alongside an incident that continues to nag at me: one friend purposefully shaming and humiliating another friend, publicly – and on purpose. Well, one of them is still my friend. The other, I haven’t heard from since that day.

It WAS such a rush, though – I mean, how often does a young, way-more-cool-than-me guy proclaim to his buddies, “Man, that lady in the blue dress *expletive* kicked it in there….”

Last night after my best performance yet in the current production I am in,
As Is at Bakersfield Community Theater, I drove home as the sun was beginning its descent. Something in the way the light hit my windshield connected with something in my heart which was having a tough time negotiating the “back to Mommy” process awaiting me after that high level of a soul performance on stage… so I went straight rather than turning left toward home and found myself at one of my favorite close-to-home, hang out in the great outdoors places.

 

I grabbed my notebook and my camera and found a place to sit, to write, to witness.

I heard the leaves behind me surrender to footsteps and the snapping of a piece of wood and I startled, turning from my writing post. Something told me I could continue trusting the moment and allow this probably vagrant man who introduces himself as David to take photos for me as I wrote.

What came next became my rush of the year.

 

He said he is incognito in his helping me, as my “photographer for this moment”…

 

He says, “Look up” and I keep writing, with the sunset.

 

Fading it is and it burns my eye so I look away.

 

He admires the light, I admire his admiration. “Just keep snapping” I tell him.

 

He does.

 

I am writing the sunset.

 

The clouds, thick grey. Eyes, hurt, the sun disappearing, surrendering to time. My new friend, loudly, leaves. “If you want me to,” after the “I’ll leave you alone…”

 

With the sunset there is no wanting to, there just is… I hear the raindrops join me but I can’t see them. David comes back, starts telling me a story. A wise ass girl carrying cameras around her neck walks by with her admiring young beau.

 

Oh, very funny.

 

Raindrops. Keep. Coming. Splatter. My Pages. Harder.

 

 

The sun knows it is time to go. It leaves its reflection in a whispered, “Remember me” the glow speaks, “I am 93,000,000 miles close.”

 

Do you see the rain drops close? I see them close. The light. All the time. Reflected here and in the moon’s face. In my face. I wonder how David’s photos turned out but I keep looking at the sunset, keep my pencil moving.

 

We leave. We come back. We’re magnets to one another. Our hearts send pulsing invitations others push against to resist or open to in order to say yes. Some go, some leave, for good. “Leave before dark,” he says. The leaves, turning back into soil to feed the tree they sprang from – they smell like home.

 

I need to be in a place that smells like this more often. I need to be in a place where it rains more than here.

 

“Maybe I’ll be in your book,” he says with light hope filling his breath.

 

“Maybe you will,” I tell him, “You just never know…. Drives my family crazy that I do that…” I see the last tiny meringue top of the sun, fading from view. My nose sniffles. Think of a better metaphor for the next draft.

 

I’m not hearing any God sounds, which is ok, which is cool. The very moisture which feeds me may quiet those sounds.

 

A man in a cowboy hat is across the way, looking for something.

 

I notice there, on the horizon, is the back of Memorial Hospital. I didn’t know I could see it from here.

 

“Your face was different today,” Billie Joe said as I reached for his hand for curtain call. “There was a different quality to your expression,” he said.

 

I feel like I am getting closer.

 

Sometimes re-entry takes time.

 

Bliss happens. And it feels so good when it does.

 

It was December 13 all over again. I was so glad I took a rather small, savoring slice of my life on that day to notice, to celebrate, to write the sunset.

 

 

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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#Best09 Blog Challenge, Day 13: Best Change to My Home

December 13 What's the best change you made to the place you live?

(Yes, another question from Gwen Bells Best 09 Blog Challenge.)

My daughter Katherine and I created a gallery in my “purple room”… I am in the midst of a re-hang, so I hung several different artist's work and took photos so you would get a feeling for it. I think I will add more art at different levels now, in order to accomodate more. I have so much great art by local artists, I want to get it up and perhaps, expand my gallery into my living room. I love the idea of highlighting lots of local (and perhaps not-so-local) artists in my Bakersfield home.

My hallway is a bit of a mini-gallery, but only my art is there right now. I want to hang more photos there, in my hall gallery, but I kept taking them down to put them into art shows and galleries it started to look ridiculous.

Perhaps 2010 is the year to treat my home galleries like “real” galleries and have themed “art shows” right here. Hmmm. Not a bad idea. I hear they do it in large cities, why not here? I live in a cool neighborhood with a lot of arty people. It might work.

(This blog challenge does this to me over and over and over again – inspires me beyond what I was expecting! Thank you, Gwen!)

 

Celebrating Artful A-Ha's

Yesterday I uncovered and recovered and rediscovered a lot.

 

It was quite an a-ha fest, one I will rest in today.

 

A part of me says “Dig deeper” but the wiser part of me says “Explore what is, quietly, mindfully, rejoicingly.”

 

Yesterday was Passion Activator Friday – a power house experience in Time Consciousness and Productivity (even if that means stillness) Consciousness for people who participate though getting together on a telephone bridge line to check in and applaud one another. It is as simple and as profound as that.

 

My task yesterday was to create space for a new project that has been tapping my shoulder and my gut, asking to be born.

 

I started with creating art around it and cleaning out a drawer in my filing cabinet to be home to many of the papers, the art, the “containers of idea” I was creating.

 

I didn’t realize when I cleared out that filing cabinet drawer I would be tapping into so much more. I found some paper that had been printed up to ten years ago, when I was first starting on this adventure called “Julie-the-life-coach” and “Julie-the-writer”. The idea of being artful in any other way hadn’t occurred to me yet and wouldn’t for several more years.

 

Since my life-implosion started three years ago, I had become unconscious to a lot of what I know, those things which brought me success early on, those actions and ways of being I covered in life process. This was necessary, but I don’t know if the amount of time I have stayed in process has been necessary.

 

The important part of this story is simply: “I accepted the nudge from my soul to work on this ‘New Idea Project’. I honored the nudge through art and getting rid of ‘old stuff’ metaphorically and physically. I remembered. Today, I celebrate.”

 

Here is a photo of some of the art:

 

And here is a photo of some of the “old stuff”:

 

 

I feel such a profound sense of peace today.

 

Had to Think for a while for this #Best09 from @gwenbell - Best Food is from a Crockpot? Really?

From Gwen Bell’s Best 09 Blog Challenge – a group of almost 600 bold bloggers from across the blog reviewing the BESTS in our lives from 2009. Fabulous connections are being made, daily. I highly recommend it…

And now – for

December 12 New food. You're now in love with Lebanese food and you didn't even know what it was in January of this year.

A group of friends and I started a Crock Pot challenge on Flickr, which meant we were all searching for and sharing new recipes weekly and taking photos. Don’t you do anything to combine friendship with creativity of any sort?

I never expected to fall in love with any of the recipes but figured it would give me new things to try – and I stumbled across a recipe for Chicken Marsala that I fell in love with so much I would, sometimes, like to drink the sauce out of the crock pot.

I know, scary visual.

I even have the recipe and some photos for you and yes… a link to a brilliant, creative crock pot cook in case you read this and say “WOW! I need to slow cook something!” My Crock Pot Chili has become famous.. and oft requested pot luck dish but I still say Chicken Marsala rules.

Delectable Chicken Marsala

Ingredients:

4 chicken breasts

1 stick butter  8 oz cream cheese

2/3 c. Marsala wine

2 10¾-oz cans mushroom soup

¾ c. water

¼ tsp oregano

¼ tsp basil

½ tsp garlic salt

Salt and pepper

Directions:

Cube chicken breast. Place chicken, butter and spices in the slow cooker. Mix cream cheese, wine and mushroom soup. Pour over chicken. Cover; cook 4-8 hours on High.

Inspired? How about a Crock Pot 365 Blog who inspired me.

I also learned from this challenge that my younger friends had much cooler looking crock pots than my throw back country style crock pot. :)

Passion Activator Friday 2010: Dance through Your To-Do List while having a great time - EVERY Friday in 1/2010

What do you want to create, consciously, in a full day of intentional action?

Join us after New Year's each week in January -  Start your New Year with Joyful Productivity.

Simply call this number: 1(218) 486-1600 with the pin 355994 at 45 minutes after the hour starting at 6:45 AM Pacific time until 2:45 PM Pacific time join us at any time... and be connected with people who are getting stuff done, with grace, passion and a lot of laughter.

Here is the start of what happened for me last week and may be exactly what you need today, too.

My favorite part of the day came early today.

Fridays have become a sacred day to me, although polar opposites in the way I approach them than the classical sacred-sabbath-sit-quietly-in-contemplation-sort of day.

Fridays are my “embrace what it is I’ve got going on and zap it with passionate action and conscious movement forward… woot woot woot!” The woot woots may be optional, but I simply enjoy them writing and saying them so I do.

 (See a product of my early morning - some art to stir up my creativity for My New Idea).

 

I have been looking forward to this Friday all week. I have felt an Idea percolating and had set aside Friday to make conscious, forward progress. I wanted to become intimate with this Idea and sometimes in my day-to-day to-do list, intimacy is a floating thing, a nebulous concept without tangibles to connect with or know beyond airyness as I shake my head and say, “yes, and what the heck does that really mean?”

My biggest aim of this day was to “Create Space” for my idea to come into being. I realized at some point mid-week that my filing cabinet is so full of old papers there isn’t space for My Idea to be born. No wonder I had hit brick walls in the past with "just thinking about" My Idea.

Passion Activator Friday works like this: a group of like-minded, like-hearted, creative people gather on a bridge line hourly and share “this is what I am intending to do” and then later, “this is what I have done.”

In the first hour I stated I was going to get the kiddos off to school and then, begin making space for my New Idea to begin coming to life.

In that first hour I got Samuel and Katherine off to school, sat down at the keyboard and found myself in my email and twittering and clicking on links and following my fascinations just like I always do before my New Idea tapped me on the shoulder and said, “Hey hey hey! Unconscious actions are happening! This day is about ME and about US so what do you think you are doing, clicking on that very attractive link in some friend’s twitter post?”

My hands flew up from the keyboard, awakened mortification flitting through my fingers. I made a choice, right then, right there – which shifted the mortification into a sort of glittering gold dust a la Catherine Ponder, who once affirmed, “There is gold dust in the air for me!”

My New Idea! Yes, today is My New Idea Day. I grabbed a bag and started putting old worn out files into the bag. I shook my head and lovingly tsk tsked myself for keeping all this out of date stuff and giggled at myself for this faux pas.

I felt so grateful I hadn’t let it continue. By declaring today “New Idea Day!” it gave space for it to flow onto the nudge on my shoulder. Twitter and links and posts and even most emails can wait.

That is what Passion Activator Friday is all about: consciously creating a day to get the significant stuff done because we give it and ourselves the space and permission to do it.

I looked up from my writing and saw it was almost time to check in. Another hour, blissfully and productively spent.

My New Idea and I are both so happy.

Speaking of which – you are welcome to join us, if it is Friday and it is before 2:45 PM Pacific time, we would love to hear you. Or next Friday, we will be doing the same thing all over again. Different areas of conscious creation, perhaps, but same theme with same heightened awareness and energy.

 

Simply call this number: 1(218) 486-1600 with the pin 355994 at 45 minutes after the hour starting at 6:45 AM Pacific time until 2:45 PM Pacific time.. and be connected with people who are getting stuff done, with grace, passion and a lot of laughter.

Your New Idea and You will be so happy, too.

Survey of #Best09 Place for me to be...Blog Says...@DagnysCoffeeCo!

Today, December 11, 2009 – The Inquiring Mind of Gwen Bell in Best 09 Blog Challenge is this:

The best place. A coffee shop? A pub? A retreat center? A cubicle? A nook?

It says “Any stage where I am performing” “Jennie’s house” or “With…. (insert friends’ names here)” “Remington” “Dagny’s” “My porch”...

I have read some of the blogs from other participants and I adore their words. I am even starting a list now of places to go in 2010. (May I hear a collective ‘Woo hoo’ about lists of new places to go?)

I keep a printed list of all the Best09 Blog Challenge questions in my journal and this is one I have had open for several days, thinking about favorite places of mine. They all have question marks after them. Even as I begin to write my response seriously I am not exactly sure where I will go with it.

My favorite place of 2009 is familiar, though. It is comfortable, it is a place I sometimes call “my office” it is a place where I can sit and write and photograph and ponder and it seems like a never ending stream of interesting people, many of whom I am blessed to know already, stream through the doors – ready to give hugs and laughter and new creative and soulful thoughts.

Maybe some Bakersfieldiens recognize this place before I even say the name.

It is Downtown, close to two theatres where I have done shows. It is close to several galleries as well the salon where Jolie, my hairstylist works and a bar which used to play host to my favorite poetry open mic.

I am talking about Dagny’s. It is by far the first place I think of to meet people. My porch is my second favorite place and one of my friends said to me recently (when I commented on redecorating it a bit) “You are making your own personal Dagny’s on your front porch!”

Yes. I am working on it. But for now, Dagny’s does great, with the art on the walls and the Zambien Zing – a favored Green Tea for the unindoctrinated – and delectable varieties of beer for when I go there to hear bands play, I am content.

Dagny’s reinforces a sense of community and gives permission for those quirky among us to revel in being quirky. I have written countless poems there just watching people come and go and had some deep, powerful conversations with almost complete strangers while sitting at one of the outdoor tables.

On one of my recent marathons there I brought water color paper and pencils and invited people to draw and some actually did. It is a splendid place.

I love it. I am grateful we have a space like this in Bakersfield.  

Which Way Did the Words Go?

© 2009

Julie Jordan Scott

 

I am avoiding, once again, writing what I set out to write about here.

 

 

I wanted to write about my fixation this week on Umbrellas. I chose them as a metaphor for a poem I was working on and in a quick matter of course, became more curious than I would ever imagine about Umbrellas.

 

I found myself wandering down a 300+ word journey that was valuable, but wasn’t at all what I wanted to say in the first place. It was a ruse, a detour designed by the side of me that only wanted to ice skate along the surface.

 

So, with that – I will pick up where I was about to leave off and if you are intrigued and curious about what I was about to say, I will put a link at the end of this journey to the alternative journey.

 

Did you know, for example, that the word "umbrella" has as its root word in the Latin "umbra", meaning shade or shadow? My umbrella metaphor was about accepting protection and believing the umbrella was going to be a shield from the elements. “How interesting!”, the now aware me exclaims.

 

In my collage work, though, I had written “Don’t hide” repeatedly along the edges of the umbrella I created from a feathery magazine advertisement.

 

I didn’t know about the shadow aspect of umbrella at this point. Carl Jung would have been delighted to watch my endeavoring in the murky grey. When I started using “umbrella” as a metaphor and visual counterpoint to my poetry writing, I had no idea why it flooded my brain so insistently.  If I had known the “real meaning” I may have taken it into an entirely different direction with a spiral leading me more purposefully into a darker space.

 

It is interesting, too, because I was using the Umbrella metaphor primarily as a shield and a way to hide. I was using it as a “less than” metaphor.

 

I asked Cameron to sketch me some umbrellas. We talked about the wacky umbrella’s that were the rage for the tweens of 1970’s Glen Ridge, New Jersey. It was an umbrella that was usually clear with a rim of color and deep, like a bell, so much so that a young girl could either cover herself up to her shoulders with it or do like I would do. I used it as a scoop, to collect water from large puddles and then let the water flow over my head, drenching myself on purpose in the middle of huge rainstorms as I walked home from school.

 

Somehow, my mother never got mad at me for doing this.

 

The adult me thought, “Wow, my Mom didn’t care about me. She let me drench rather than protect myself” but Cameron had a different take. “Creativity gets squelched when we take away a child’s desire to experiment and experience moments like those.”

 

Perspective instantly shifted.

 

Mom wasn’t neglecting my health, she was allowing my creativity to soar.

 

Umbrellas may be shady and dark, or they may be conduits to creativity.

 

Interesting. All of it. And being interested in all of this is what keeps a passionate life style invigorated and alive.

 

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If you want to see a photo of an umbrella similar to the one I played with in those days, visit here.

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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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Tracks of Authenticity - #Best09

Today’s question for the Blog Challenge was one I sat with for a while, not sure how it fit me. It starts like this: December 10 Album of the year. What's rocking your world?

Gather here, let’s start with a story. This story may upset some of my friends who would rather not hear me talk about this subject. These people who won’t see the current play that I am in nor will they go to see the AIDS Quilt on display today at an Art Gallery downtown.

 

It is sadly natural they don’t want to hear about the Album that is rocking my world. I am over it, for the most part. I love them despite their shallow, unfortunate misgivings. I wish they would learn the power of love rather than rest in the densely, overpopulated world of hate.

 

Oodles of the Best 09 Blog Challenge blogs are ripe with stories of authenticity, of coming into one’s own, of questing and following dreams… of living the now with complete concentration.

Talk about inspired!

 

 “I haven’t even bought an album this year…” but then I thought, “I have been rocked and moved and touched by an artist who has an album out… one which I have thought of buying… a rarity right there… so I will call THAT my Best09.

When 2009 was a newborn, I was also a newborn activist. Well, not exactly newborn because I have been an activist on a number of issues – but this one was close to my heart for so many reasons. In November – on the night Barack Obama broke through barriers to become our president, many of my closest friends here in California took a debilitating hit when their rights to be married were stripped from them.

I couldn’t even celebrate Barack’s victory as I was so bereft for my friends. I never had to question such a basic right and it literally caused me pain to think my friends did.

I thought things had changed. I thought the world was more open to different lifestyles. I would watch my children “get it” with my friends who were gay or lesbian. They, like me, never questioned their life style choices. “It is like having brown eyes,” I would tell them. That was how we treated it.

I don’t see brown-eyed people being hated for having brown eyes, do you?

So fast forward to January and the return of one of my favorite television shows. I am always slightly embarrassed to admit I love this show – and this year, after all that has been said and done, I am even more slightly embarrassed.

Adam Lambert took the American Idol stage by storm. He rocked it. Completely. I watched “Tracks of My Tears” on YouTube over and over and over – watch his face when he sings this song. Even Smokey Robinson gave him kudos… it is like he revised the song back to its true meaning. In this YouTube clip, listen for Adam Lambert’s question and the breath he takes when listening to Smokey’s response.

It is the breath of authenticity, the breath of “I hear you”, the breath of “I will create with that response, the breath of gratitude.

Now, when the “Idol” results came in it felt like it wasn’t about who was better, Kris or Adam. This is about the weirdness in our country that took Adam’s identity as a gay person as a reason to not vote for him. His not winning astounded me. Kris was (and is) a talent and with any other pools of singers, he might win but next to Adam, he just didn’t add up.

When I heard his song on the radio recently, "For Your Entertainment" I was dancing in the seat of my car wondering who it was who was singing. Imagine my delight to hear… Adam Lambert had a hit record. The #2 man, the shunned because he is openly gay, the way-out-there-theatrical-rocker-pop-what-will-he-do-this-week? Man, Adam Lambert, had a big hit on his hands.

I was never so happy to hear a pop song in recent history.

I may even buy several copies of his album.

Why does my heart always race the night before Samuel's IEP?

I visited Samuel's Gen Ed class room today
as a part of the IEP prep and was delighted
to find the teacher manages the classroom
quite ably and Samuel fit in very well.
 
I spoke with his Special Ed teacher who
said the plan (from the BCSD perspective)
is to send Samuel into the Gen Ed classroom
full time now, since he is doing well and
"that is what the mother wants."
 
Yes. I do want that AND I want to be
sure there are supports in place. The
failures from the past ring strongly
in my ears and I am all too familiar with
the district non-strategy of failing first,
serving second. With Samuel,

remember.....

it was more like failing, failing, failing,
failing still failing wait, are we failing,
ohhhh yeah, no it is the parent who
is failing.... oh yes. She failed. Wait.
We failed.... the fear still sits inside my
bones and I have tried and tried to let
it go. I know I must, at some point,
let it go - but the absence of trust
is so darned deep.

I can feel my woo woo friends tsk tsking....

Sorry, beloveds, this is what it is in this moment.

Need to express it.
 
My heart feels like this leaf tonight. Scared, cold, alone.