Entries from: August 2009

Creative Every Day Challenge Check-In: August 10 – 16

August 10th, 2009, Comments (25)

Ced2009Welcome, Creative Every Day Challenge participants! 

This weekly post is a place for CED participants to share their creative activities.

Ways to share: Leave a comment on this post and/or use the "Mr. Linky" widget below to link to a post (or posts) about your creative activities during the days of 8/10/09 - 8/16/09.

The widget below is an optional method of sharing your creativity that makes it easier for others to check out what you're up to. You can use it to link to a blog post (or posts) during the week listed. Or if you have a bunch of posts and don't want to link to all of them, you can link to your main blog page once. Do it in a way that makes sense and is fun for you! (If you're reading this in a RSS reader or email subscription, you will not see the "Mr. Linky widget", so click on over to the blog to use it.)

You can also take advantage of the great CED flickr group to post your images and see what others are up to.

Join in the Challenge: To find out more about the Creative Every Day Challenge check out the details here.

If you want to sign up to be a part of the challenge, leave a comment on this post or email me to let me know. When you contact me, please let me know how you'd like to be listed in the list of participants, which resides in the right sidebar (I can list you as your name or as a link to a blog if you have one. A blog is not required to participate!) Please email or comment to let me know you're participating before you start posting links in the comments or on the "Mr. Linky" widget.

Theme: The (totally optional) theme for August is move. I'll be posting about the theme throughout the month. You can find out more about how you can use the theme here.

Happy Creating!


The creative is the place where no one else has ever been. You have to leave the city of your comfort and go into the wilderness of your intuition. What you’ll discover will be wonderful. What you’ll discover is yourself. — Alan Alda

Moving with the Full Sturgeon Moon

August 6th, 2009, Comments (11)

fullsturgeonmoon
full sturgeon moon

Last night and tonight are the evenings of the Full Sturgeon Moon. I've come to enjoy making mixed-media vision boards to celebrate along with Jamie Ridler's Full Moon Dreamboard group. For this one, I drew a sturgeon fish, with four moon-like bubbles coming off it. Within the circles, I pasted small circle cut-outs that represent elements I want to bring into my life.

I love that this moon was named for a fish. The other day, Havi posted an exercise from Barbar Sher's Wishcraft in which you choose a favorite color and then list your qualities, speaking as that color. I chose the color blue (go figure, right?) and I wrote:

I am blue.
I am fluid, flowing, calm, yet strong.
I am life. And I am full of life.
I am clear, not just transparent, but clear as in clarity.
I am intuitive. I know things. I trust what I know.
I am gentle, soft, mothering.
But I am also a powerful force. Don't forget it.
I am healing, I hold space, I hold others with love
.

Among the qualities I listed was fluidity. I realized that I had a strong desire to bring a deeper sense of effortless flow and ease into my life. When I saw that the full moon this month was named after a fish, I knew I had to make a dreamboard around it, something with flowing water to represent the fluid motion that fish, water, and the color blue has; the same fluidity I want to call forth.

I'm also loving how the fluid fish and water fit in with the move theme for the Creative Every Day Challenge this month. (I'm really vibing with this theme!) I'm having little a-ha moments all over the place. I'm noticing the way I'm moving energetically in my life and realizing where I can make adjustments. It's exciting.

How are you moving energetically in your life right now? Is your energy more anxious and frenetic? Does it move in waves like the ocean? Is it more like a still lake?

How would you like to moving through the world? Perhaps you could make a piece of art or write about what energy you'd like to embody more of. Or perhaps you could practice one small movement in the style of energy you want to live in.

Just noticing how you move through your day might be a place to start. In this moment, take a breath and check-in. What's your energy like right now?

Movin’ and Shakin’

August 5th, 2009, Comments (15)

tiptoe
tiptoe, mixed-media on watercolor paper

Yesterday, I made three phone calls that I was dreading. Actually, I dread making most phone calls. It's not my favorite means of communication. It feels awkward and uncomfortable to me and when you're calling places like your health insurance company, you tend to speak with people who are a little edgy (not that I can blame them!)

I thought I'd feel relieved once I'd made the calls, but I didn't. My shoulders were still up around my ears, my chest was still tight, my head hurt a little bit. I tried taking a deep breath and congratulating myself for making the calls, but still felt about the same. And then I realized what I needed to do. I needed to embrace the "move" theme for the Creative Every Day Challenge this month and shake!

Do you know that expression, "shake it off!"? Well, I think there's something to it. In a variety of classes, books, and products, I've been taught to shake my body to release tension. But it's also a great energy shifter. I'm imagining the tension in my body like this shell of meringue. It's light and airy, but slightly crusted over. And if I just shake, it will all dissolve into dust.

So I shook. I started with my hands and arms, then my legs, my torso and my head. I also used the tool I learned from Gretchen's MuseCubes and combined sound with my shaking. I chose a sound that was appealing to me and sighed deeply as I shook and danced around my studio for a few minutes. The movement certainly changed my energy, got my blood moving, shifted my perspective, and made me smile. My cats gave me funny looks, but that's fairly normal. Hehe.

Oh, that reminds me of a game and song I used to enjoy as a kid. You'd usually sing it with a group and silliness would ensue. You'd sing, "Father Abraham, seven sons, seven sons, seven sons had Father Abraham. And he couldn't dance. And he couldn't sing. All he did was go like this..." And then you'd stick your left arm in and out and sing the song again, this time adding your right arm. The song continues and with each verse you're adding one more move (each leg, a wiggle, and a turn) until you're all laughing and exhausted. Good stuff.

You could also try the shaking technique next time you're stuck with a piece of artwork. When you're feeling unsure of what to do next, try stepping back from your art and shaking your body for a few minutes. See if it helps shift things for you.

I think I'll be doing a lot of body-shaking this month as prepare to move. As you can see from the art above, I've got moving on the brain!

Have you tried shaking to shift your perspective before? How has it worked for you?

 

CED Challenge Check-In: August 3rd – 9th

August 3rd, 2009, Comments (14)

Ced2009Welcome, Creative Every Day Challenge participants! 

This weekly post is a place for CED participants to share their creative activities.

Ways to share: Leave a comment on this post and/or use the "Mr. Linky" widget below to link to a post (or posts) about your creative activities during the days of 8/3/09 - 8/9/09.

The widget below is an optional method of sharing your creativity that makes it easier for others to check out what you're up to. You can use it to link to a blog post (or posts) during the week listed. Or if you have a bunch of posts and don't want to link to all of them, you can link to your main blog page once. Do it in a way that makes sense and is fun for you! (If you're reading this in a RSS reader or email subscription, you will not see the "Mr. Linky widget", so click on over to the blog to use it.)

You can also take advantage of the great CED flickr group to post your images and see what others are up to.

Join in the Challenge: To find out more about the Creative Every Day Challenge check out the details here.

If you want to sign up to be a part of the challenge, leave a comment on this post or email me to let me know. When you contact me, please let me know how you'd like to be listed in the list of participants, which resides in the right sidebar (I can list you as your name or as a link to a blog if you have one. A blog is not required to participate!) Please email or comment to let me know you're participating before you start posting links in the comments or on the "Mr. Linky" widget.

Theme: The (totally optional) theme for August is move. I'll be posting about the theme throughout the month. You can find out more about how you can use the theme here.

Happy Creating!


Creativity is inventing, experimenting, growing, taking risks, breaking rules, making mistakes, and having fun. ~Mary Lou Cook