Little Voice

Photo by koster79.

My 14 year old cat, Migs, has a spectrum of voices - most of which we'll hear on any given day: beginning with her sweet little "I like it when you pet me there" mew. 2. her, "but I really want to be on your lap NOW" meoww. 3. her repititious, rather staccato "My bowl is empty & I won't stop meowing until it's full" m' Ow. 4. the "I just woke up from a bad dream & am not quite sure where I am," meOWWW. 5. her rather guteral, "I have a bug trapped in your shoe" meROW, and 6. the still guteral yet muffled Operatic "I've caught a mouse and am carrying around in my mouth" meRWOWuh.

It was the latter that woke me up at 2:46 this morning as she paraded into the bedroom mouse in hand (or mouth as it were).

Now, I'm not generally a squeamish person, yet when mice are involved I tend to mimick those Saturday morning cartoons, where the woman of the house, upon seeing the mouse, shrieks and hops up onto the kitchen chair. It's true. As Migs "played" with the poor creature, letting it go, then chasing and catching it again, I was playing "the floor is made of lava" game - hopping from one piece of furniture to the next.

Finally able to shoo her out onto the sun porch, and freezing my toes off, I (rather bravely, in my mind) picked her up by the scruff, opened the front door, and held her like that until she complained so loudly that she dropped the mouse into the yard where it scurried away (probably making its way back into the house at some weak point along the foundation).

Thus was my late night adventure. (I liked it better when the cats just chased leaves).

I would suggest that just as my cat has voice to match every mood, so do you. I challenge you to find these voices & become aware of them.

Challenge: Find Your Many Voices

If you're not aware of your many voices, ask friends and family. Do you have a sleepy voice? an angry voice? an "I just want to have fun" voice? a sexy voice? a singing in the car voice? how about an "I didn't think anyone was listening" voice? I think you get the idea.

As you're discovering them, write about them. How does your voice change? Write down how your friends or family describe them.... List key descriptive words.

and more fun than anything, Illustrate them! You can make fun of yourself or you can take it quite seriously. - Remember, no one but you has to see your sketchbook/journal, so don't be timid about it. This is an adventure in discovering more about yourself. Remember, the more we learn (even if it's about ourselves) the more neural connections we make & the better able we are to observe and understand our world.

And you may just want to try out some of those voices, when no one's listening, to hear for yourself how they sound and resonate in your body (how do they make you feel?).

(every once in a while, I'll get into my car, close the door, take a deep breath & just scream at the top of my lungs - for no other reason than to scream. My muscles tense, my breathing gets focused, and the sound vibrates through each cell of my body. When I'm through, I feel relaxed and awake. It's very cathartic, you should really try it.)

Dreaming in Lists

Image by Hugh Janus.

Last night I dreamt in lists. Each item was in the form of a colored rectangular box that I could lift from the page. I would pick a box, and as I removed it from the page it became three-dimensional - like a small memory card. I then placed the card to my temple and as if through osmosis, the dream was absorbed. Once finished, I replaced the rectangle to its rightful spot on the list where it became, once again, a two-dimensional incorporation of the page, and was checked off.

Strange dream, admittedly. Trying to piece it together, this morning I recorded it in my journal and just began writing.

In her book ArtLessons, Deborah Haynes states that, "writing helps you to understand who you are and what you believe.... You write to find out what you think." And writing will help you understand, if not the dream, then its underlying tenets.

You write to find out what you think.

Activity: Write about a Dream you've had

It doesn't have to be coherent (what dreams are?), it doesn't have to be in complete sentences, & it doesn't have to be a set length. Just write. If all you can remember is the feeling of the dream, start out with that, and go on to write about how it made you feel when you woke up... when you remembered it... right now as you look back on it... etc.

and if you find that you can't write about it, then illustrate it. Before human beings could read or write, they made marks, and those marks had associations known primarily to them. Your challenge here, is to make marks, whether written or drawn, with your dream/unconscious self in mind.

Activity: Illustrate a Dream

Illustrate the dream you had last night.

Most of us dream in incoherent images that make perfect sense at the time of the dreaming, but when we wake up we're left with a jumbled or perplexing set of images/events/feelings. Why not sit down and start drawing bits of images or events that you remember from your dreams?

Can't remember images? then draw feelings - was it a scary dream? what colors do you associate with that? What colors do you remember from your dream? Instead of images, make a page full of dream colors. label them with the associated feelings.

Be a Thingfinder

photo by m00nbugg.

When I was a kid, my mom's side of the family would, every summer, meet at our cousin Ethel's cabin in Sand Lake, Michigan. For two weeks all of the kids, grandkids, nieces, nephews, and cousins would gather - cram themselves into two cabins yelling, "I have dibs on the bed in the corner!" (as we all raced to that bed).

We would, of course, partake in all the activities that Sand Lake had to offer: sailboarding, water volleyball, swims across the lake, sun bathing, canoeing, and our daily ritual of walking around the lake.

This in particular was my, then 3 year old, cousin Matthew's favorite activity (other then, I seem to recall, eating candy). Matthew was our official "Thing Finder." And he was good at it. We'd walk around the lake, navigating marshes and wild blueberry patches, and Matthew would dart off in one direction or another, returning with a squirrel's skull, a buffalo nickel, neat looking rocks, worn bits of glass, etc. Of course, what he was really looking for were aluminum cans that he could trade in for candy at the local store, but he always came home with a bounty of "things" that we kids would always peruse and covet.

We always tried to be Thing Finders, but Matthew, since he was closer to the ground than we were, always seemed to find the best stuff.

Activity: Be a Thing Finder

On your walks or outings, as you're looking around, why not see what you can find?
Take a small bag with you, and collect objects from your walk. Bring them home and...

• Draw them
  
• Collage them into your journal
  
• write about them:
  
  • how did you found the "thing"?
    
  • What is the secret life of the thing found - where did it come from, how did it end up there...
  
  
• set up a mini-museum in which to display your best weekly finds
  
• Write descriptive tags for them & display them in your house somewhere
  
• Write descriptive or story tags for them, and leave them somewhere for someone else to find
  
  Along these same lines, there's a great movement | Web site that encourages you to leave your old books somewhere for someone else to find, adopt, read, and then leave somewhere for someone else to find, adopt, read, etc. You can go to the Web site and get a little ID code to put in your books, so that if someone else finds it, they can then go to the site, enter the ID code & you can track the journey of your released book. Kinda' fun, if you can get over the idea of letting go of your books.
  
  The Web site is Bookcrossing.com

Learning to be Creative

This morning I read an interesting interview entitled, "Can You Learn To Be Creative."

Some quotes from it:

Creativity for me, as it manifests itself in my poetry, is a process that's almost like a trance. I just sit down when I have that idea, and I begin to write. I've learned how to intellectualize it, to rationalize it, to speak about my poetry in an academic way. But the process itself--that first act--is just sitting down and letting myself go.

Rhoda Janzen, California Poet Laureate

What do you do when you're stuck, when the page is blank, when your creativity is cramped, when the ideas just aren't flowing?

I go for a walk, or I go for a swim. One thing I've learned is, don't make it hard. The surest way to block yourself is to make writing a disagreeable experience, so that your unconscious remembers next time that it doesn't want to go there.

Greg Benford, Physicist & Science Fiction Writer

If you have Real Player, you can view the Program (27:23) - It's pretty interesting to listen to people from such diverse backgrounds speak about what gets their creative juices flowing.

It's always good to look to other sources for ideas, inspiration, or even affirmation. What you'll find is there is no one right way to be creative - discover those things that work for you & then give yourself permission to do them.

SING!

Everyday around 3:30, I am graced with the most curious event: my very own wandering minstrel. He walks down our little dead end gravel road and cuts through the field to the set of houses just on the other side. I never recognize the song, and I've no idea what he is singing about, but I hear his marvelous crescendoes from a block away and I smile. Occasionally I stand out on my front porch and just wait for him - for my very own passing concert to arrive. He walks by, nodding his head in acknowledgment of my presence, never missing a note, never losing his concentration. As I am not invited to join him on the rest of his journey, I wave and go back inside.

I often wonder what his story is. In my mind I've decided that he lives with a secret band of musical gypsies, and both to announce his arrival and gain admittance he must sing. So everyday, when walking home, this is what he does. And I get to be a witness to this secretive and curious event.

Challenge: Be a Witness

Sometimes all it takes to discover these mystical, magical events is to be present and be aware. More than that, however, you need to acknowledge the wonderment of it - be a witness to the event - enjoy it, write it down, create a story or poem - or just tell someone else about the wonderfulness of it.

Avoid thoughts that lead to judgment or negativity, like: "Oh what a weirdo" - instead, find the grace and wonderment of the event.

Challenge: Live Out Loud

Do something akin to our wandering minstrel: Sing out loud, recite a poem to the clouds, skip down the street, write words of wisdom on the sidewalk with chalk.... don't be afraid to be seen or heard. Enjoy your own presence, your own voice- for whatever it contains, you can probably bet that someone else out there is enjoying it too.

Start Your Day with a Story

Brian Andreas, creator of Story People, can send one of his wonderfully quirky illustrated stories straight to your email box. Why not start your day off with a little of his inspiration?

Joy of Spring

The birds brought seed & flowers & bits of brightly colored string & placed them in her hair while she slept so that she would remember the wild joy of spring when she finally awoke.

To sign up, click here (it's free, and you can always unsubscribe if you don't like it).

Careful Creativity

I remember, while in art school, noticing how messy everyone's sketchbooks were - covers tattered, pages falling out, books so full that you couldn't close them without breaking the spine. When I looked at mine, even though thoroughly used, it was practically pristine. I felt utter horror at this realization, after all, I thought real artists have messy chaotic sketchbooks. It's a sign of their true genius!

Whether true or not, I set out to have a messy sketchbook, one that was bursting at the seams. One that when you opened it, spilled over into your lap - bridging the world of my imagination to the real world. I even went so far as to rip off the binding, so that when the book was full, I could rebind it in a more suitable fashion. I pulled out pages, ran them through my ink jet printer, then painted or drew on top of them. I threw out all the rules I had originally set for myself & gave my creativity free range to play.

The results were magical - it's not that my artwork or images were any better, but my world seemed to be more vibrant, and my powers of observation more keen. I wasn't a tortured artist, but an invigorated one!

Now, this isn't to say that you should run right out and buy a journal, and tear the binding off (although I'm not stoppin' ya' if you feel so compelled). Remember, we're talking about taking baby steps. And the first step in keeping a sketchbook or journal, is, well, keeping a sketchbook or journal. Seems silly to say, but you first need to actually own it (whether that means going out and buying one, digging up an old one, or making one - it doesn't matter).

It also doesn't have to be "the perfect journal" - all you need is something to write/draw on, something to write/draw with, and the intention to do so. The perfect journal (or sketchbook) will present itself in due time, until then, start practicing with something that will make due.

Activity: Keep a notebook | Journal

As you are walking, meditating, crying... resetting, carry with you the intention of being fully present & your sketchbook, journal, or notebook of somekind. Jot down your observations. If writing is intimidating to you & you're just not sure where to begin, try finishing some of these statements:

1. Today I saw...
   
2. Today I smelled...
   
3. Today I touched [blank], and it felt...
   
4. Today I felt (physically)...
   
5. Today I felt (emotionally)...
   
6. I remember a time when...
   
7. It really makes me want to...

Start with these, but by no means limit yourself. You can make up your own statements, or just free form it.

If you're not into writing, try your hand at sketching or doodling. You can even cut out images you like and paste 'em into your book - remember, no one has to see this but you, so let loose! Give yourself permission to play. Others will naturally be curious (primarily because they want to play too) - let them be curious.

Thanks for visiting, check out these wonderful sites:

Gardening:


P. Allen Smith's Garden Home

Cultivating Life

The Kitchen Gardener


Simple Living:


Simple Living

Simple Living America


Cooking:


Everyday Food


A Daily does of Creativity:


Story People

Leonardo da Vinci

Today's Poem

Your Daily Art

Quote of the Day

Planet Sark