I want to express my deep appreciation for all of the beautiful comments and connections from my ‘garage’ blog. For me, it’s always vulnerable to share some of the ‘wacky’ things my intuition encourages me to do. I have a warehouse full of them! LOL!
In the spirit of living fully expressed I wanted to share two pieces of creative expression with you. One is a collaboration between my treasured friend, Lorraine Weiss (lorraineweiss@earthlink.net) and Hakim Bellamy (beyondpoetryink.com). Hakim is the poet laureate of Albuquerque. Hakim also has videos on YouTube and many books available through Amazon.
In the collaborative music piece, Lorraine is playing while Hakim is speaking his words. It’s a poem he wrote using the words from the people around the table at an artist’s grant group.
The second piece is a film for the New Mexico Film Board with Hakim’s words. Mabel Dodge fans…..make sure you watch the film to the very end!
I wanted to share these pieces with you to encourage and inspire you to create. CREATE anything! When you allow yourself to create anything, anyway, any how, you are inviting your truest self to come forward into your current world. You will love the feeling this brings. You will love the feeling this brings, DOUBLE, when you don’t judge, critique or give yourself a report card on what you created. Don’t hold back. This is your time.
If you would like to launch or feed your creative process. Give me a shout or join one of the upcoming workshops, CherieRay.com.
Hello Friends! What’s new in your world? I hope you’re experiencing the freshness of fall with a big dose of inspiration.
Currently, I’m in a big wave of letting things GO!I have been riding this delicious wave of ease with a driving desire to purge the heck out of my life. It’s so interesting to me how you live amongst ‘stuff’ but never use it or notice it. Then one day, BAMM, it hits. I’ve removed shrubbery, clothes, the research documents for my graduate thesis (how did I let that sit in a box for so long?), loads of photos. So many photos of places with no people and duplicates and photos that don’t have any special meaning. Gone!
Except…. this photo. This is a very special remembrance of when I was introduced to Intuitive Painting. I don’t even remember taking this photo!
I don’t know if you can tell but this is the garage of the house I was living in when I first bumped into Intuitive Painting. I had wanted to explore something creative following the sale of my last business but hadn’t found the courage to walk into a class. I found a flier advertising a painting class where there were no comments or critiques. This intrigued me AND I didn’t believe you could have an art class without comments or critiques. I knew I had no painting skills, and I also knew I didn’t need to be reminded of my lack of skills by having my work compared to the others in a class.
Long story drastically shortened… I convince the Intuitive Painting facilitator to offer me a private class. It took her a while to consider offering it privately because it just wasn’t taught privately. Luckily, she did! In hindsight, I knew I was not willing to fail in front of a group.
During the 3-hour lesson she made a casual comment to me that “there are no mistakes in creativity.” Well, that comment irritated the dickens out of me and thoroughly ticked me off. It disturbed something very deep inside me. It felt blasphemous.
The weekend following the private Intuitive Painting lesson I was still stirred up. Fuming mad! So disturbed that I walked into my garage and saw some paint and foam brushes sitting on a shelf. My inner dialogue was ranting and raving, “if there’s no mistakes”, then I’m opening that gallon of paint and going for it. I shook the paint, grabbed those foam brushes, and started painting. I painted for 2 days only stopping for a few hours sleep. All the while daring the ‘powers that be’ that they were wrong.
Well, with all my temper tantrums, rebelling, and daring, I lost the argument! I still shake my head reflecting on how strongly my conditioned mind could not accept this TRUTH. By letting myself paint freely without a plan on my garage walls I discovered for myself that there are no mistakes in creativity. As TRUTH echoed through me, I discovered the reason for my mind’s stubborn argument. If there are no mistakes in creativity and I am a product of the highest intelligence of creativity, then I must not be a mistake. Up to that moment, my mind had convinced me that I was a mistake that couldn’t be fixed. My mind was so clever and quiet with its campaign that I didn’t realize how I lived under this lie.
Well, painting on those garage walls was over 20 years ago. In those 20 years the Intuitive Painting process has awakened me to so many untruths AND it continues to do so.
I’m very grateful for finding this photo which captures a pivotal moment in my life. I’m also grateful for the intelligence that offers up inspiration to let the old GO to allow the NEW in!
Are you feeling any new inspirations? I’d love to hear about them. Let’s connect!
A few weekends ago, I did a public yoga retreat at Moody Gardens in Galveston, Texas. It was so much fun to be in a room with lots of yoginis and yogis, live and in-person; in a spacious room with beautiful views.
I appreciated Doug’s teaching style and philosophy. A teacher who promotes there should never be injuries in yoga is my kind of teacher. Here’s a link to his website if you’re interested: https://www.doyoga.com/index.html
Recently I visited a Presidential library where I watched an autobiographical movie about this president’s life. It played for about 30 minutes in a cool comfortable theater with velvety seats. In the movie this president spoke in the first person sharing what were his life’s passions. He credited his love of contribution and service to his parents, who were both very strong people with high integrity. He presented his parents as people who lived true to what mattered to them and that he had done the same.
As I watched this video, it struck me how this president shared who he was, in his own words, and from his own perceptions, about his time on this earth.This video plays on a loop all day long in the museum, every day the museum is open. So, for everyday it’s played, for all time, he controls the narrative of who he was. This struck a chord in me.
In politics – and in everyday life – there are so many stories being produced and shared. Rarely, if ever, do two people see someone the same. People argue for their perceptions and especially in politics, try to persuade you to see the story through their eyes, hoping to convince you their story is the accurate one.
I noticed how many people were sitting in this theater and how each person in the audience had their own production of who this man was in their minds. This production could be influenced by whether they wore a red or blue tie, did they know this person, how they knew this person; was he a friend, politician, lover, employer, etc.?
What impacted me was the simple reality that each of us has the right and the option to produce our own story and live in it.
Often, I hear the stories my clients are living under. These self-told stories are mental disfigurements carried forward in the storage spaces of their minds.
I know for too many decades, I carried stories about myself as well. I lived under these stories that weren’t consciously created by me. I didn’t know that being human came with idiosyncrasies. We all have them, and they are not imperfections to overcome. They are just part of being human.
My story suggested I was inherently flawed, when in reality, I was inherently human.
I think part of ‘waking up’ in our spiritual lives is ‘waking up’ to the falsities we’ve innocently believed about ourselves. The freedom we seek is not from outside sources but from the mental bondage we’ve innocently put ourselves in.
My invitation to you is to consciously produce who you are and then live in it. You know your heart. Live in it. Rest in it. Love from it.
I love a good bottom line. So, what’s my point? Well, there’s a few:
The production you live in dictates your behaviors.
This production is between you and YOU.
The story we produce about ourselves, in our minds, is completely subjective.
Your story is up for grabs, if you don’t produce it, others will.
Live your story of choice. NOT what you were told or carried in your mind up to this point.
The past is past. Leave it there.
You were born whole and complete. Bring that version of you into today’s version of you, settle for nothing less.
I wish I had seen this TRUTH decades ago. I would have loved nothing more than to lighten my load of not-enoughness a long time ago. I lived way too long in a story I didn’t consciously create or produce. Guess what? Not any more!
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I hope you’re having a wonderful summer! It is plenty toasty in Houston, Texas these days. Could we share some of it with you? LOL! Stay cool out there. I have lots of fun things for you to enjoy from the comfort of your own air-conditioned home! I hope you’ll join in.
