At the height of laughter,
the universe is flung
into a kaleidoscope
of new possibilities.
- Jean Houston
I make it a point
to laugh every day.
To laugh out loud.
You?
If Morning Pages are assigned work,
Artist Dates are assigned play.
In The Artist’s Way, Julia Cameron asks us to think of this combination of tools in terms of a radio transmitter and receiver.
It is a two-step, two-directional process: out, and then in.
When you do your Morning Pages, you are transmitting: notifying yourself and the universe of your dissatisfactions, your dreams, your hopes.
When you do your Artist Date, you are receiving: opening yourself to insight, inspiration, and guidance.
Here’s more from Julia’s book:
An artist date is a block of time, perhaps two hours weekly, especially set aside and committed to nurturing your creative consciousness, your inner artist.
In its most primary form, the Artist Date is an excursion, a play date that you preplan and defend against all interlopers. You do not take anyone on this artist date but you and your inner artist, a.k.a. your creative child. That means no lovers, friends, spouses, children — no taggers-on of any stripe.
If you think this sounds stupid or that you will never be able to afford the time, identify that reaction as resistance. You cannot afford not to find time for Artist Dates.
Your artist needs to be taken out, pampered, and listened to. There are as many ways to evade this commitment as there are days of your life. “I’m too broke” is the favored one, although no one said the date need involve elaborate expenses.
Your artist is a child. Time with a parent matters more than monies spent. A visit to a great junk store, a solo trip to the beach, an old movie seen alone together, a visit to an aquarium or an art gallery — those cost time, not money. Remember, it is the time commitment that is sacred.
Commit yourself to a weekly Artist Date and learn to listen to what your artist child has to say on, and about, these joint expeditions. For example, “Oh, I hate this serious stuff,” your artist may exclaim if you persist in taking it only to grown-up places that are culturally edifying and good for it.
Listen to that! It is telling you your art needs more playful inflow. A little fun can go a long way toward making your work feel more like play.
The creation of something new
is not accomplished by the intellect
but by the play instinct acting from inner necessity.
The creative mind plays with the objects it loves.
C.G. Jung
The magical thing about Artist Dates and Morning Pages is that they perform what Julia calls “major adjustments in spiritual chiropractic.” As they become a regular part of our lives, they quickly align us with a flow of what we normally call luck, or coincidence. In other words, they create synchronicity.
All of a sudden, we’re in the right place at the right time.
We encounter not only support, but also opportunity.
Magical, I tell you.
Now… time to schedule my next Artist Date.
Though I’m in the habit of going out on my own to explore dollar stores, flea markets, and art supply stores, such outings have become kind of boring. I need to treat myself to something special for a change.
And wouldn’t you know it (synchronicity?), The Montreal Museum of Fine Arts is hosting WARHOL LIVE - Music And Dance in Andy Warhol’s Work.
I’m going to see it this week.
It’s a date!
P.S.: Do you experience the magic of synchronicity on a regular basis?
Like Philomena, I’m flying away.
For how long? — I can’t say.
Blame it on the computer!
My two-year-old PC has been freezing and crashing and losing its mind for a great deal of time. Minor problems started as early as last year, but recently they’ve grown bigger and more annoying; they’ve joined forces and have become a HUGE pain in my peace & love derrière.
So off it goes to the repair shop, today.
The computer, not the derrière.
Following the tech guy’s report on the condition my computer’s in, I will take a long look at the big picture; and when I say “big picture,” I mean the not too distant future.
I want to get into podcasting — eventually have my very own online radio show — so I need to VISUALIZE + ATTRACT + MANIFEST an iMac. I want a mean machine equipped with all the cool tools so I can record and mix and even conduct interviews.
And in order to get the ball rolling…to ease myself into podcasting…I’ve been working on a new website — MUDDINYOURFACE — that will somehow compliment this Oza blog as it will give the Mudd in me a chance to express herself more freely…in English only.
It’s going to be in blog format, exclusively dedicated to short audio messages. Funny ones, deep ones, silly ones, whatever.
Daily blurts of the subconscious mind.
So off I go into the great blue yonder.
Flying over the rainbow…where dreams
really do come true.
I LOVE YOU!
As I was saying in a previous post, I did a lot
of sitting in the first year and a half of my life,
which explains why I started to get bored at a
very young age.
It’s a good thing I had Kitty.
Kitty was a bull terrier.
Maybe not bull terrier through and through — you can tell she probably had some other breed in her — but whatever pedigree or lack thereof, she was my very first friend.
I remember my mom telling me, when I was about seven or eight, how Kitty helped me learn how to walk. She said I would grab onto Kitty’s short coat of hair and follow her as she slowly dragged me through the house or around the balcony.
Hearing this story for the first time, at seven or eight, I found it quite funny and cute. But once I dove into depression, at thirty and forty and fifty, the anecdote turned into a sad, gloomy, soul crippling tragedy. It meant that my mom had been SO busy that she hadn’t even bothered to guide me as I took my first steps on this planet. The word abandonment was a popular one when discussing my early childhood with my therapist.
Now that I’m healed (stand up and shout HALLELUJAH!)
I’ve gone back to finding the story funny and cute.
I can finally appreciate how patient Kitty was with me,
and how much she must have loved me. It fills me with
joy each time I think of her…my very first friend.
Question du jour:
Did you have a special friend when you were a toddler?
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