Today's 7 Bits of Grace

I've fallen off the grace wagon and I've missed it. Again today I was reminded to look for the good stuff among the not so great, so here goes:

1. Though it was cold this morning the sun popped out this afternoon.

2. The scallops I made for dinner came out decently.

3. I started another blog! Wait, is that a good thing?

4. I got in some reading time today.

5. I also got a little cleaning done. A very little, but some.

6. I got in some journal writing time, some really productive journal writing time.

7. Last week the Newberry Library granted me an internship.

Whew, I made it through. It's a tough time of life but there are a few good things.

I truly haven't forgotten this blog...

Though it seems that way. I've been blaring all over the net how busy I am at the end of the semester, but I haven't told readers of this blog. Until now.

Here's a thought to help improve your karma:

"Give away what you want most (love, money, gratitude)."

Because what you give away comes back to you 10 foldish.

From: The Places that Scare You: A Guide to Fearlessness in Difficult Times by Pema Chodron

" A fresh attitude starts to happen when we look to see that yesterday was yesterday, and now it is gone; today is today and now it is new. It is like that - every hour, every minute is changing. If we stop to observe change, then we stop seeing everything as new. "

- Dzigar Kongtrul Rinpoche

The spirituality of creativity

Of all my latest obsessions, this is one of the top three. Having finally gotten around to keeping a journal, as of July of last year, I'm coming to terms with a lot of things about myself and my mania to create. I also see now how that can be a sort of spiritual experience, a soul-purging kind of cleansing that leads to an number of epiphanies.

At UUC services yesterday creativity was the topic. We're in week 8 of the 10 week "Finding Your Unitarian Spirituality" course, and this is the week I've been waiting for with great anticipation. So, of course, as it turns out the service yesterday was interrupted by a man having what was possibly a heart attack. Talk about the jolt of mortality in the middle of a fascinating sermon...

Hopefully he'll be okay. After the ambulance left the sermon went on, as was the popular consensus. Creativity, the Rev. Dan said, is a sign of life. When creativity ends, you die.

And of course, that lead me to quip about the guy taken off in the ambulance, "I hope he hadn't stopped being creative..." And no, I didn't say that IN the church.

Intriguing thought. I know I'd die, a spiritual if not a mortal death, without creativity. I was never so depressed as the dark time when creativity was eclipsed by the exhaustion of motherhood. They both went hand in hand, feeding off each other leaving me miserable.

But now I write every day. I create constantly. And I'm if not blissful, at least content knowing I have that outlet. Bliss isn't an easy concept for me. I may have my moments, but they're not a constant. Maybe as I'm working through my various issues I'll find bliss more frequently. I expect it'll be in the pages of a book, a manuscript, or as soon as I get my butt in gear, a drawing or painting.

Wherever it is, I know it's in reach.

Reading back through Louise DeSalvo's 'Writing as a Way of Healing: How Telling Our Stories Transforms Our Lives'

If you're a creative sort of person with a horrific past I can't tell you how helpful DeSalvo's book truly is. It's so helpful I could imagine designing a workshop around it, though it would produce work of such a sensitive, personal nature I think one would have to be really careful about it.

The book is very introspective, naturally, and just so, so wise. Here's one of the zillion or so quotes I highlighted:

" ... we possess an emotional self-righting mechanism, akin to our body's innate ability to heal wounds. This is our creative imagination ..."

Apparently DeSalvo read several works on the subject of traumatized children. It seems these little ones tend to engage in imaginative play more often and for much longer than children who've enjoyed pleasant childhoods. And this is what spurs so many creative people to continue making use of creativity in adulthood.

Really a fascinating glimpse inside the creative mind, and a very inspiring program for using one's creativity as an emotional outlet. I'll refer back to this book for a very long time.