doing nothing

There are days, like today, when being an artist and choosing to live the life of an artist completely overwhelms me. In my head, there is a swirling list of projects I want to finish, there are characters who want to talk and there are questions that need to be answered. On my desk, there are very real bills that need to be paid, there are email messages to be returned and there is a blinking red light on my answering machine that means someone somewhere needs something from me. And then, there is the clock that reminds me - I only have this day, this one day, to be.


Meditation. Yes, everyone says I must meditate and somedays, I remember to and somedays, it helps. Exercise. Yes, everyone says I must exercise and somedays, I get off my ass and somedays, it helps. Gratitude lists. Yes, yes, yes, I make lists and lists and I am grateful, truly I am and do I have to keep announcing that over and over to the Universe????

What about those days when it just feels TOO BIG TO CONQUER? When you're too pissed to meditate and too depressed to exercise and just too childishly grumpy to be grateful? Where do you stand on those days? What do you do?

It is in this moment when emotions can only create reactivity within me that I choose to do nothing. Nothing at all. I shut my mouth. I don't reply to emails. I don't pick up the phone. I don't call a friend to vent. I choose nothing because it is the only safe choice.

Why do nothing?

I have always been a super-pro-active person. I always fix and cajole and massage and try to improve the situations that arise around me. I used to believe that my emotions had to be acted upon - that I needed to be instantly responsive to life, to my career, to my work, to my business of being an artist. I functioned as any artist would within a nurturing, creative setting. I listened and I acted upon those emotions. Then I realized, I wasn't dealing with other artists. I was dealing with business people and that meant, I needed to learn an entirely different language. The first step to speaking a new language is to listen and listening, to me, feels like doing nothing. So, today, I am doing nothing.

How to do nothing?

Aye, there's the rub. Even this post is an action, isn't it? If I were Buddhist, I might have a set of tools to accomplish nothingness. I might have a mountain on which to sit or a monk to act as mentor but I am not Buddhist, I am a writer and when pushed, I turn to words to save me. I ask the blank page to act as confidante. I put pen to blue line and ask for guidance. Please, take me from line to line and show me, show me the happy ending.

Is it nothing? Writing? Somedays, it feels like it and today, is one of those days.

the art of ritual

For the past two weeks, I've been a writing monster. I have churned out pages and I have worked non-stop for hours. It's been a long, long time since I've had such an uber-productive run and I was completely enjoying the flow until yesterday, suddenly, it all stopped. I got not one word on the page. Barely even opened up my laptop except to check Facebook. My agitation was palpable. I was easily irritated, grumpy and tired. I knew my emotions were a result of not being creative but I didn't know what had happened to stop the momentum.

I wanted to know why.

So this morning, I'm taking a look at my ritual. I'm asking myself, "What are the actions I take from the moment I wake up until the moment I sit down to work?"

In the past two weeks, I started my mornings with breakfast then a meditation that calmed me. I also announced out loud to the Universe or whoever else may be listening, my creative intentions for the day such as, "Today, I will write 5,000 new words." or "Today, I will revise the first 30 pages." My mornings were quiet, disconnected and completely focused on creation. There were no phone calls. There was some email checking and Facebook posting but mostly, there was the wonderful nothingness of being. I fed myself and I had a deadline: at 3:30 pm, my fiance would return from his rehearsals and my writing day would end.

So, my effective ritual had been...

Get Up Quietly
Tend the Body -- Clean & Eat
Social Stuff on Computer
Meditation -- Announcing Daily Creative Intention Aloud
Writing Until Imposed Deadline

That had worked.  How did it get stopped yesterday? Yesterday, I woke up and immediately returned a phone call while I was still in bed. I didn't eat or shower first thing. My fiance had the day off so I didn't meditate or announce my intentions and there was no deadline so the day seemed entirely free for my use. How did I use it? Cleaning and piddling about and "computerizing" which is being on a computer with no results to show for it.

Then I got angry at myself for not writing and that turned into aggravation and grumpiness and snapping and the anxiety that comes when you feel like you should be doing something other than what you are doing at that exact moment in time.

Sound familiar?

TODAY'S CREATIVITY EXERCISE

What is your most effective ritual? Do you have one? Do you need one? Take a moment today to analyze the ways in which you support your creative work. On a good day, what did you do? On a bad day, what did you do? How did they differ? What aspects or actions are helpful to your creative process and which are damaging?

It can be as simple as looking at what you are eating or drinking. Is coffee necessary for your wake up? Does sugar give you a lift and then drop you like a hot potato halfway through the work? Are you hung-over and slow to start? Are you treating your body like an extension of your creativity or is your intellect/talent dragging that body around with you? Can the two learn to work together?

Just take the next few days and pay attention to the way you work. In what ways can your creative process be enhanced, further supported? Do you need noise? Do you need quiet? Do you need more light?

When you spot a problem, fix it. If something works, keep it.

And please, feel free to share your helpful suggestions through the comments section below.

A meditation for creativity

Find a place where and a position in which you can sit comfortably for fifteen minutes.

Stretch your arms in front of you, palms together, elbows straight, arms parallel to the floor.

As you inhale through your nose, open your arms completely as if creating giant wings and say to yourself:

"I open myself fully to receiving creative inspiration."

As you exhale through your nose or mouth, bring your palms back together again.

Repeat in sets of ten, three times for thirty mantras. Take your time, no rush.

timothy karpinski

Thanks to Lauren Graham, I have recently been introduced to the work of Timothy Karpinski and have just fallen in love with the quiet, peaceful meditative qualities of his images. Perhaps it's my childhood in WV, but his paintings conjure those nights under the handmade quilts in your Grandma's guest bedroom. The nights when you slept peacefully and dreamt of snapping green beans, woke to the smell of pancakes and bacon.

Want to bring your attention to his website, paintings and installation work.

From his site, Timothy says:

From a young age ive always been making things. Building forts turned into building skate ramps which lead to building art installations. I love the art making process, from the initial spark of the "idea", the creation to the finished product. Art for me is very personal and everything i make is a direct reflection on my feelings about this world and my struggle and fascination with trying to understand it and find my purpose within it.

His artwork is available at:

Los Angles - Thinkspace Gallery: http://www.thinkspacegallery.com/

Portland - Together Gallery: http://www.togethergallery.com/

Or check out his website: http://www.timothykarpinski.com/

end of year personal inventory

Artists -

For each month of 2008, place the events in your life, the pieces you created, the work you did, the people, places, parties, etc - that correspond to these aspects of your development:

PERSONAL
- Emotional
- Mental
- Spiritual
- Physical

CAREER
- Creative
- Business
- Finances
- Production

Here's an example of how a finished one might look:

JANUARY 2008

PERSONAL: Turned 52

Emotional: Got enganged
Mental: Registered for Spanish class
Spiritual: Began meditating 10 minutes a day
Physical: Lost 5 pounds

CAREER: Got an agent

Creative: Joined a writer's group
Business: Did agent mailing, secured an agent
Finances: Was behind on rent
Production: Auditioned actors for play production

Please do this for every month of 2008 including December - based on your current plans. You may not be able to fill out every slot, or some slots may be really full while others are completely empty.

As you write, notice any patterns. Are you neglecting your spiritual self? Are you all work and no play? Are you in production mode all the time and not sewing the seeds of creativity?

No judgement, just notice - make the list, like a shopkeeper takes inventory.

poetry for character development 7

Your characters have suffered loss at some point in their lives. They've lost a parent, they've lost a love affair, they've lost a job, they've lost a loved pet.

Maybe they are currently in the process of deciding to break up. Maybe they were just dumped. Maybe they have not yet made any decisions and are weighing all the risks.

Whatever the circumstances, have your lead character speak to you in an Elegy to fill you in on the details of that particular loss. If your lead character is untouched by loss, then explore a supporting character to find out how a specific loss has informed their current pattern of behavior.

DAILY CREATIVE EXERCISE:

Poetic Form: Elegy

Elegy mirrors three stages of loss. First, there is a lament, where the speaker expresses grief and sorrow, then praise and admiration, and finally consolation and solace.

Elegy on Toy Piano
by Dean Young

For Kenneth Koch

You don't need a pony
to connect you to the unseeable
or an airplane to connect you to the sky.

Necessary it is to love to live
and there are many manuals
but in all important ways
one is on one's own.

You need not cut off your hand.
No need to eat a bouquet.
Your head becomes a peach pit.
Your tongue a honeycomb.

Necessary it is to live to love,
to charge into the burning tower
then charge back out
and necessary it is to die.
Even for the trees, even for the pony
connecting you to what can't be grasped.

The injured gazelle falls behind the
herd. One last wild enjambment.

Because of the sores in his mouth,
the great poet struggles with a dumpling.
His work has enlarged the world
but the world is about to stop including him.
He is the tower the world runs out of.

When something becomes ash,
there's nothing you can do to turn it back.
About this, even diamonds do not lie.

poetry for character development 3

Your characters have a way that they do things that may be a very different approach than you would take as a person yourself or as a writer trying to fix script issues. Sometimes, it's best to get out of the way and let them fix the problems themselves.

DAILY CREATIVE EXERCISE

WRITE A "HOW TO" POEM
In the voice of your lead character, address an obstacle blocking your lead from getting what they want. Maybe your lead wants to seduce his/her lover. Write a "how to seduce" poem in their voice. Maybe your lead wants to kill his/her enemy. Write a "how to get rid of so-and-so" poem.

Use the form and structure of the below poem as your guide.

How to See Deer
by Philip Booth

Forget roadside crossings.
Go nowhere with guns.
Go elsewhere your own way,

lonely and wanting. Or
stay and be early:
next to deep woods

Inhabit old orchards.
All clearings promise.
Sunrise is good,

and fog before sun.
Expect nothing always;
find your luck slowly.

Wait out the windfall.
Take your good time
to learn to read ferns;

make like a turtle:
downhill toward slow water.
Instructed by heron,

drink the pure silence.
Be compassed by wind.
If you quiver like aspen

trust your quick nature:
let your ear teach you
which way to listen.

You've come to assume
protective color; now
colors reform to

new shapes in your eye.
You've learned by now
to wait without waiting;

as if it were dusk
look into light falling:
in deep relief

things even out. Be
careless of nothing. See
what you see.

a thought about not thinking

THANKS TO DAILY CREATOR L.P. WHO SENDS US THIS REMINDER:

A . . . great distraction at times are so-called "running commentary" thoughts such as, "Now I am not thinking of anything," "Things are going very well now," "This is dreadful; my mind just won't stay still" and the like . . . . All such thoughts should simply be noted as "Thinking," and, as Huang Po says, just "dropped like a piece of rotten wood." "Dropped," notice, not thrown down.

A piece of rotten wood is not doing anything to irritate you, but is just of no use, so there is no point in hanging on to it. . . . Nor is there any need to try to retrace the links in a chain of associated thoughts, nor to try to ascertain what it was that first started the chain. Any such impulse should itself be noted simply as "Thinking," and the mind should revert to the breathing. However badly things have just been going, one should take up again at the only place one can--where one is--and go on from there.

- Bhikkhu Mangalo, The Practice of Recollection from Everyday Mind, edited by Jean Smith

check out the mantra trailer

The Mantra Trailer

Created out of a 1950’s camper, the Mantra Trailer invites people to chant, their mantras, prayers, creeds, aspirations and petitions for the transformation of self and society.

The interior of the trailer is a traveling meditation space and recording studio. It is a trance inducing, contemplative space, oriented toward the internal. The exterior serves as a vehicle for mysterious aural broadcast and visual presentation of the people’s mantras. The sides of the trailer host a changeable marquis, reminiscent of the church signboard. Mundane, playful and even bizarre personal mantras may take on unforeseen spiritual, cultural or political content to those who witness them. The exterior is equipped with a holosonic speaker that continuously broadcasts a mix of recorded mantras, which can only be heard within the focused range of the speaker’s path.

By-passers drawn to the Mantra Trailer are invited inside one at a time to voice and record their mantras in privacy. Meanwhile face-to-face dialogue occurs outside the trailer as people wait their turn.

What is a mantra?

The Sanskrit word mantra consists of the root man, “to think" (also in manas "mind") and the suffix -tra meaning, "tool", hence a literal translation would be "instrument of thought" or “mind tool”.

In eastern spiritual traditions a mantra is a sacred word, chant or sound that is repeated during mediation to facilitate the transformation of consciousness. In mass media a mantra is an expression or idea that is repeated, often without thinking about it, as a way of defining, simplifying and controlling complex realities. Consider how the Bush administration’s three word mantra, WAR ON TERROR, has undermined America. In pop culture the role of the personal mantra has gained significantly as an effective tool for centering, managing and self-actualization in a perpetually transitional world.

Record a mantra for this project.

At the intersection of imagination, evangelism and propaganda...

Walter Brueggemann, a contemporary Christian theologian describes evangelism as “an activity of transformed consciousness that results in an altered perception of world, neighbor and self, and an authorization to live differently in that world.” In his book The Prophetic Imagination he postulates, "The task of the prophetic ministry is to nurture, nourish and evoke a consciousness and perception alternative to the consciousness and perception of the dominant culture around us."

This is also the task of community engagement projects such as Learning-To-Love-You-More. Likewise, the Mantra Trailer provides an interface for the human voice within the enculturation of consumerism and globalization. It achieves this through an indigenous path, rooted in southern, American, bible-belt culture and the “new age.” Peddling a homeopathic remedy for the mass media slogans of the day, the Mantra Trailer focuses attention on the personal and spiritual mantras people live by, one neighborhood and voice at a time.

The Mantra Trailer deals with the terrain of landscape, globalization and isolation through the scale of the body. The physical trailer mirrors the body’s process of manifestation. It has an interior space for recording, meditation and authorship and an exterior place of broadcast, presentation, and dialogue. As voice and language pass through the operation of the trailer, the private monologue surprisingly reveals itself as social discourse.

Sherri's Bio

Sherri Lynn Wood is an improvisational quilt maker with a Master of Fine Art in Sculpture from Bard College and a Master of Theological Studies from Emory University. Most of her creative projects spring from her daily life experiences and quest for personal growth. She often invites others into the art making process as a way of sharing interior realities and exploring civic relationships that can lead to personal and social change. She has a private practice working with people in her studio, who are grieving or in transition, to make functional improvisational quilts from the clothing of the deceased and the intimate materials of life. She is based in Durham, North Carolina.

VISIT THE WEBSITE: http://www.mantratrailer.com/

A MEDITATION FOR PEACE

Wherever you are, join me in a visualization to bring the troops home safely. From noon to 12:30 on Sunday. The focus of meditation will also be to bring peace to everyone's environment and to everyone's heart.

Thanks, Louise

learn to fly

“Only dreamers can teach us to soar.”
Anne Marie Pierce

And only in dreams can we actually soar like a bird! There’s nothing more liberating than waking from a dream where you have flown through the air, unencumbered and free.

Is it possible to trigger a flying dream? Most people believe that flying dreams represent a release of tension or that they only appear when we have come out of a dark, worrisome period of our lives.

But what if we could will ourselves to fly?

TODAY’S CREATIVITY CHALLENGE:

Pay attention to birds and airplanes today. Or make a paper airplane and throw it through the air. Tell yourself that tonight you will fly in the exact same way in your dreams.

Before bed, take a BATH – yes, a BATH! Lock the door and listen to some soothing, uplifting music. In the bathtub, practice your flying stroke. Imagine yourself swimming through the air. Tell yourself that tonight you will fly in your dreams and it will feel very similar to this.

Tonight, go to bed 10 or 15 minutes earlier than usual. Dim the lights, maybe listen to some soft music or remember the feelings you had today while you were watching the birds or in the bath. When you are ready to sleep, say softly to yourself: TONIGHT, I WILL FLY IN MY DREAMS.

Sleep well.

create your own dreams

“Our truest life is when we are in our dreams awake.”
- Henry David Thoreau

We have summoned our unconscious, opened our Third Eye and learned to pay attention to the colors and sounds of our dreams. We have changed little things about our bedrooms, our routines to make room for dreaming and let our subconscious know that we are listening. We have been very good little observers but what if we could be more than observers…we could be creators?

This week, let’s focus on strengthening our powers of visualization, on developing strong dreaming skills so that we become more than a passive observer in our own inner movies; we become the makers of those movies!

TODAY’S CREATIVITY CHALLENGE:

Find a piece of fruit in your house…an orange. Sit and stare at it for a moment and then close your eyes, keeping its image in your mind. Mentally change the color of the orange to red then blue then pink then back to orange. Open your eyes and look at the actual color.

Now close your eyes and visualize the orange being peeled, split apart into slices. Imagine that all of those slices dry up and shrivel then imagine the process reversing until the orange is whole again. Open your eyes and look at the actual orange.

Now close your eyes and imagine that the orange has turned into a baseball, a tennis ball, a bowling ball, a crystal ball, a beach ball, the sun. Take it back through all the transformations until it is an orange again. Open your eyes.

Tonight, go to bed 10 or 15 minutes earlier than usual. Dim the lights, maybe listen to some soft music or use this “Fruit Morphing” meditation to relax. When you are ready to sleep, say softly to yourself: TONIGHT, I CAN CONTROL AND TRANSFORM WHAT I SEE IN MY DREAMS.

Sleep well.

meditation and creativity

Thank you to Daily Creator L.P. who reminds us to slow down and listen as artists. She wrote:

Many paths lead from the foot of the mountain
But at the peak we all gaze at the single bright moon.
Just awaken to the truth; how and where do not matter.
--- Ikkyu

Senior Priest Jean Seiryu Wilkins spoke about the confluence of meditation and creativity. Drawing from the teachings of Roshi John Daido Loori (abbot of Zen Mountain Monastery in Mt. Tremper, NY and author of "The Zen of Creativity"), Jean showed how the qualities of deep concentration, alertness and openness that we strive to cultivate in our meditative practice can also be the foundation of artistic creation.

In this vein, the photographer does not impose the camera upon the landscape, but instead waits for the photograph to arise from the landscape. The writer does not "write" the novel so much as act as a witness and medium, allowing the novel to write itself through the writer.

dreaming part two

The CA sun is often relentless and last year, our front yard turned brown so my landlord installed a sprinkler system during the “winter” months and suddenly, we have green grass and our orange tree is producing oranges.

But more amazing to me was our back yard. I call it the “Garden of Last Hope” because anything that was dying under the brutality of the front yard sun, we moved to the back yard and gave it one last chance to live.

When the sprinklers were installed, suddenly the back yard came to life. Everything that had been under that barren earth began to grow. Things we had not planted pushed out the things we had tried to save. I had assumed, wrongly, that the back yard was just dirt but underneath, there was a whole world of beauty waiting to show itself. And we never even knew it existed!

It just needed water.

TODAY’S CREATIVITY CHALLENGE:

Tonight, give yourself 10 or 15 minutes in bed, alone, to meditate. Dim the lights and if you want, listen to some music.

Imagine yourself standing where two landscapes meet. To your left is the reality of your life – your apartment or house, your yard or your front stoop. Abutting your reality is the barren dirt of your subconscious.

Imagine that you have a large hose of water or an endless watering can or a bucket that never runs dry. Water that dry land. Watch your garden grow. Allow the vegetation of your new garden to take over your real world. Let the vines tangle and weave over your apartment, your car, your porch, your computer until both of these worlds are a jungle of exotic flowers, fruits, vegetables. Walk through your garden and see what has sprouted.

When you’re ready to sleep, say softly to yourself: I KNOW TOMORROW I WILL WAKE TO REALITY BUT TONIGHT, I ALLOW MY UNCONSCIOUS TO RUN RAMPANT THROUGH MY DREAMS.

the self

This quote sent by Daily Creator L.P. who always sends me just the right thing at the right moment:

The way we define and delimit the self is arbitrary. We can place it between our ears and have it looking out from our eyes, or we can widen it to include the air we breathe, or at other moments we can cast its boundaries farther to include the oxygen-giving trees and plankton, our external lungs, and beyond them the web of life in which they are sustained.

--Joanna Macy, World As Lover, World As Self from Everyday Mind, edited by Jean Smith, a Tricycle book

blessings

Yesterday we opened presents, gave presents, ate a big dinner, gathered family or friends or both around us - it was a day of abundance in our own homes. I hope that you had a happy, relaxing day that included our three "goals" for the month: play, love, let go.

Today, I'm asking that we send those three thoughts out into the world.

TODAY'S CREATIVITY CHALLENGE:

Whether you create a small ritual to pass those blessings across the continents or you just keep them in mind today, focus your attention on sending the love, closeness and charity that you experienced yesterday out into the world.

Play:

May the children of the world live in safety and may they always have a playful spirit. May the children of this world be allowed to be children and not have to worry about adult things.

Love:

May the people of this world strive to love one another. May love open all of our hearts to a deeper understanding, connection and tolerance of differences.

Let Go:

May the governments of our world let go of their agendas and their egos and focus instead on creating peace. May the long-standing animosity between peoples dissolve into forgiveness. May we let go of the past and face the future as one.