I am here. Here I am. Today is a new day! Today I felt a bit scattered and like I was struggling for clarity on priorities. Right now, I just want to do what I am doing. Sitting in bed and writing. And thinking. And writing. Sometimes it feels like transcribing, which can be calming and interesting, or kind of boring and numbing.
I did not do any notecards tonight. Instead, I decided to read through several days of writing from February 2017. At the time, I was doing the Artist’s Way and I came upon some of the writing exercises I completed. Because I’m tired and feeling lazy about writing out notecards, I want to see what it feels like to re-read and type up some of those exercises. I’m often aware that I have no idea who I really am. Yet, I innately have a very clear sense of who I am. The breadth of this awareness really comes into view when I read my writing. Writing and reading are a multi-dimensional experience. It’s always fiction and non-fiction and now and then and maybe always.
Monday, February 6, 2017
The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron
Writing Exercise: Describe self @80 years old
I am now 80. It’s interesting to sit here on the same beach that I sat on 43 years ago when I was 37. When I was in my 30’s I really started to yearn for life. My own life. I started to understand my own nature and value. I started to enjoy myself. There was, in a sense, nothing and no one I needed to feel full. I became full of myself, and with that, the world became a different creation and experience. Life was no longer happening to or through me. Life came from me. I was life itself and I knew it. I could be anything I wanted and everything I tried.
One day, I remember sitting on this beach on the wet sand and feeling the movement and energy of the earth. As I sat there, the universal life force energy spiraled up through my root chakra and awakened me in a way that made me feel very calm and secure, and very alive and ready to love life again. This life I have is wonderful. I am ready to decorate and celebrate. All of the sounds of the ocean became one voice. The sounds layered and transformed and played tag like improv.
We mirror the earth. Ever moving. The sky skims slowly in one direction while the earth tremors and the waters undulate back and forth —pulling and surging up and over — crashing, then smoothing and spreading and washing and surrendering.
We can learn much from nature and from within, because we are mirrors with the earth. We are just as matter as earth and just as ignored and taken for granted as earth. Our beauty and reverence found in moments of stillness and awareness — observation from the heart space — the space of love, the space of light. We thrash and clench and break and boom as we stand through the weather, just like earth. We grow unexpectedly, secretly, unwatched and discovered by others first. Just like earth, we sink and float, we carry space and weight for others. We drop everything and we have our own sacred spaces just like earth, where our true nature exists in pureness and joy — whether anyone else knows it or not. Though hidden, and not easily accessible, we know these spaces to be.
I loved to write and I loved to be happy always in my life. I loved to find harmony and connection among thoughts things experiences and others (No commas because they felt too dividing and linear). These are all the things I’ve truly loved all my life. I loved discovery and re-discovery. I loved to be in my body and feel it move with freedom and by its own accord.
I learned to walk in the earth and in myself.
After I turned fifty, I lost my ability to hesitate, especially when it came to having fun. By that time, I had successfully tried many new things like ballroom dancing, tap dance, piano, voice lessons, yoga teacher training, painting, ceramics and lots of cooking classes and experimentation. I had also integrated many of the truest beads of alignment into my life, like exercising regularly, eating well, eating mindfully and dressing myself each day with love and the character or costume I wanted to embody, because that’s just fun.
I lost my hesitation, I’d just do what I felt moved to do or say in the moment and this made life very fun, because it freed up time and space for others. Suddenly, I could meet new people and welcome them into my life with ease. I could spend time giving my loved ones support and new experiences rather than worrying and planning or manipulating. I felt full of myself and my life and I could share all of that love with others. I became so patient and so pleased to see others fill up with themselves. I bought my beach house and started hosting more retreats and creating traveling retreats with real purpose. Being 50 was different and without doubt. I didn’t doubt that I was imperfect and I didn’t doubt that I wouldn’t make mistakes. Most importantly, I didn’t doubt that something could be fixed or changed even if it seemed detrimental or tragic or just plain terrible.
I lost a lot during my 50’s only to gain everything I had always wanted.
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Monday, February 6, 2017
The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron
Writing Exercise: Write a letter from 80 year old self to current age self
You with the beautiful face and strong and resilient body. You will never know all the beauties and graces of being your age right now. Just as I don’t know the full extent of my being at this age.
It makes me realize something about how the past, present and future are all happening simultaneously. While I don’t expect you to know, feel or take on more than you can, my hope is that you allow yourself to feel loved fully in moments / instances / glimpses each day. Where you are now is perfectly good.
Have fun and take the risks you feel as they arise. Sometimes failing or deep embarrassment are better than staying safe.
I can’t really give you any advice, but maybe I can give you a story. The story is of course, a love story. They all are in a sense tied to love. What love desires us to do or not do. This story is the story of my life. I wanted love all of my life. Not only did I want it for myself, I wanted it for others, too. It took me a long time to understand what my story is about. What I learned is that life comes from within. Because of you, I learned this and I’m writing now to thank you.
My life has been tremendous as a whole — past, present and future — because you did the work and stayed true to what was in you, love and the infinite possibilities.
It was you, 37 year old self, who filled the vessel and who understood that feeling your feelings all the way through is the key to the universe. And, that everything is one and everything is choice. It may or may not be “free will", but when the choices are limitless, I’m not sure the concept of free will poses such a conflict, issue or debate. I am in love. You wrote that and felt the true meaning of the statement.
My love story started with you. That’s what I’m saying here. That’s one of the magnificent adventures I am so grateful for always. I am sending you pure love because I received pure love from you, and I understand this to be what gratitude is. Gratitude is not found, it’s an energetic reaction to feeling fully.
I connected with the most beautiful man because I recognized love, I recognized myself and I recognized him. He was full and had more for me. It feels good to be in love with someone who is also in love, too.
Last night, as I drifted off to sleep, I realized that I’ve often positioned myself as needing love from someone else or that I’ve felt expectant. In a spur second, my body opened and felt the truth of something that has driven me outside of myself so often. Much of the time that you spent in the years before your mid-thirties, what drove you more than the desire to receive love, was the desire to give love. My body sensed and remembered that last night. I was overwhelmed by my own love and wanted to share it with someone else. I just wanted to give love. It’s a different thing, a different way of being, either way.
Eventually, do not be afraid to meet the people you wish to meet. There’s something good about releasing your psyche of daydreams and fantasies of other people, because if they are better in person then that is a gift and what you always wished for, but if they are not what you thought, now you can let them go. Make room for others or fill that space up with yourself again.
Continue on toward your natural inclination to express yourself and share your love. Continue to know who you are and that what you want can be real. Keep spending your time the way you want. You may not accomplish every desire that comes into the frame, but you will act on many and find more alignment. It is okay to be alone together the way you see that this is the truth and the way. The areas that are going to start flooding are going to be with personal connections, because the more you are in your true alignment, the more you will be positioned to connect with your people. These connections are easy, open and lasting. The worry you have about who you are amongst the people you know right now will change. Once you find true alignment and full expression streaming through you — eventually, you will see you for who you are, not who you think other people think you are. Imagine. Keep traveling. Keep writing. Be a better parent. Be audacious. Make money. Create. Love.
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Similar to yesterday’s post, there are some things I liked about reading through these writing exercises, even though they are not as well written or as complete as they could be. I tend to describe feelings and imagination versus spending time painting visual pictures. This is because I see and know things through sensing and feeling. In order to get better at writing and being a better human, I’ve got to take something like this and work at editing it; or, perhaps doing the exercise again to focus more on the earthly detail so the reader can have a clearer vision and connection to the story. I am also at a point where I need to share and listen to feedback to learn more about my blindspots and areas of opportunity. I’m curious to know what people feel when they read.