Wednesday, March 12, 2008

Revelation

Whenever I have a problem that gnaws away at my mind 24/7, I turn to my "Tealeaves" program and ask for advice. This morning as I held my troubles in my hands (change/future/direction) I asked the Tealeaves for help. This is what I received.

Reading No. 16

Every man's life is a fairy tale, written by God's fingers.
~ Hans Christian Anderson

You are the hero of your own life, not a problem to be solved, but a mystery to be lived.

It's not the agony of the quest, but the rapture of the revelation.


Hero. Not a problem to be solved. Aha! There we have it. I have always considered my life to be a problem to be solved. If I can just fix this, then I will be happy. Don't we all fall into this trap? And we fix and fix and fix, or try to fix things and it's never enough to make anything really better. The new wall color, new sofa, new blue sweater, pretty shoes work for only so long and then it's back to "not so good" again. We lose weight and expect happiness to explode all around us. Same problems. Still here.

Yesterday I was thinking of attacking the problem (ahem) of my lack of creative energy in the same dogged way I lost weight. A creative diary where I would write down any creative endeavor I did during each 24 hour period. An exercise (like the 2 mile walk) that I must do everyday. Last night, while watching television with the dog, I clipped interesting pictures from a pile of decorator magazines. Chairs mostly. And then I trimmed the pictures of chairs to just the chairs. I sorted through the pictures, noticing any theme. I then piled the magazines up to be recycled. I felt much better.

So today I will choose a Creative Diary from the shelf of blank books I keep on hand and I will choose a daily exercise to do everyday. I never expect much from my daily walk other than the walk itself. I just put on my shoes, coat etc and go out and walk. That's what I will expect of my daily creative exercise. Just get out the paints, colored pencils, scissors, fabric, paper or glue stick and do it.

Today's task will be cleaning off my workspace table. If nothing else, I will push everything on it to the floor. What's one more pile in a pigsty? And I will choose one (or more) unfinished project to take to my quilt chapter UFO auction tomorrow evening. And give it away.

What's Good Today: Pizza dough thawing for dinner tonight. New baby blue cashmere sweater from the resale store (warm). The clean, empty space that my work table will be in the next hour or so.

What's Not: Snowing. Taxes. Waiting for furnace repair man.

2 comments:

Annie said...

Aaaah, the pic of the tulips put joy in my heart as I opened your blog.Tulips are so refreshing during these gloomy March days in Maine.I'm off to get some for myself.

I continue to enjoy your blog, my last comment didn't post, lets see if this works.

Annie
: )

Life Scraps and Patches said...

If you haven't already read it, take a look at Julia Cameron's The Artist's Way. She recommends morning pages (a journal), walks, and Artist Dates. Sounds like you're already on that path.

Connie