Introspection

Do you get messages from the universe?  Where everyone seems to be saying the same general idea and you decide you’d better listen and take it in?  Well, I do, once in a while, where everything converges and I hear a tune made out of the notes in the air, and I want to sing that tune, too, because it seems to be the Most Important Thing Happening.  The trouble is I am often in a scheduled situation with pressure to meet commitments and responsibilities and I have to put that floating musical temptress out of my mind until I get my chores done.  Whether that is nobility or avoidance, I do not know.  Discipline has always been a tough pill for me to swallow:  I want to fulfill my obligations but sometimes the cost seems so high.  Time management and dreaming seem at cross purposes….In any event, I can’t follow every fairy note I hear. So, much of these whisperings and want-to’s get put on the back burner.
I have many back burners, so many that I can’t remember them all until the familiar notes play again, or a picture or a color reminds me of what is under the lid on that saucepan on the back burner.  And sometimes I forget what was there and it just blows away in an unfulfilled state.
A few months ago I had one of these convergences.  Several people whom I admire for their creative pursuits mentioned the very same book for its helpfulness to them in understanding their creative drive.  In the space of a few days, at least 3 different people mentioned this book, The Artist’s Way, by Julia Cameron.  I know one of them was Sue at Mouse Notebook.  I believe one was Susan Branch who is always telling me (kindly) to get off my duff and do something creative.  And I can’t remember for sure but I think the other one was Stephanie Levy at Artists Who Blog.  I am mad at myself for forgetting what those harmonic chords were that led me to go out and buy the book.
But I did.  I acted on it and I paid money to make it a concrete plan, even though it had to go on the back burner until after camp. When everything was going to settle down.  So I have the book even though I’ve only read the Table of Contents.
It happened again.  Just this week.  A harmony of suggestions and possibilities that I heard, that got loud enough to attract my attention.  But I can’t remember what I was thinking or reading that made my mind turn the way it did.  I am so mad at myself for not being able to reconstruct the alleyway that brought me here.  Even last night at dinner I was able to tell Ron about what inspired me to sign up for an art course.
Maybe it was this from Ann Somerset Miles’ blog:

Searching for a change of vision

seeing with new eyes

adapting my usual way of working;

letting myself loose, and

not being afraid of failure.

That's what today gave me:

surprising the great leap forward -

- and I did no fall into the water,

did not drown in indecision.

Just those few short hours

with a masterful tutor

is all it has taken;

and I will never be the same again.

Such joy. A day of wonders."

http://annmiles.blogspot.com/2011/07/visual-ancestry.html

Or maybe it was Stephanie Levy saying this that made me so crazy jealous to create:
12 Countries in 12 Months.
For one In just a few days, I am beginning a new art + travel project called year, I will take a trip each month to a new city in Europe where I'll be making photos and sketches, collecting ephemera, and documenting my journey by creating mixed media artwork and illustrated journals. 
http://stephanielevy.blogspot.com/2011/07/12-countries-in-12-months-my-new-art.html

Or perhaps it was this course description in another blog from Stephanie that made my ears prick up and my heart beat faster:
“Topics will include:

• believing in your creative dreams
• pushing through your fears and developing your self-confidence
• celebrating prosperity and earning money with your artwork
• increasing your financial abundance by creating multiple income streams
• using the internet as a way to stretch and grow your career as an artist
• creating artwork without inhibition and how to avoid getting stuck
• ditching procrastination for more creative play and practice
• nurturing your body and soul to increase your creativity
• avoiding burnout and promoting balance in your life
• finding positive support for your work and building a network
• connecting and collaborating with others to energize your creative business
• creating daily adventure and making your life more interesting
• expanding your horizons and finding your unique role in the world
• developing practical strategies for time management for busy women
• and much more!  “

http://stephanielevy.blogspot.com/2011/07/introducing-my-new-e-course-creative.html
Or maybe it was just a composite of everything that has come my way from all the creative blogs I read, to my own yearning for expression. 
In any event, I have decided to take a sabbatical from my normal, helter-skelter life and look seriously into my creative life.  I don’t know what it means at the moment, exactly, or if I will in fact produce anything that brings me joy or money or brings anything of consequence to the world.  The sabbatical aspect means that
1) I am not going to fill all my time with other people’s agendas.  I will not be selfish, but I will be setting boundaries (I hope) on my time and energy.
2) I will set aside hours for the purpose of addressing back burner ideas and impulses.
3) We will not have international students living here this year, not so that I can be lazy but so I can give concentrated time to producing.
4)I will actually thoughtfully read The Artist’s Way and do the exercises it prescribes at the pace it recommends.  I will journal, sketch, and pay attention to this drive in me.
5) I will follow through on my ideas, even if they don’t work.  I hope I will keep following past the point of discouragement to the breakthrough of success.
6) I will take the e-course on Creative Courage and see where that leads me. 
7) I will address all the stockpiled back burner issues for which I have already purchased paints, fabrics, patterns, or taken up storage space in my basement or craft room.
8) I will find that listening to the music of my life will bring me a quietness and satisfaction that I am missing currently.
9) I will plan little field trips to enjoy nature and art forms which will refresh and energize me, even if it’s just down the road or to a garden or toward the beach.
10) I will not sacrifice other significant relationships for this cause, such as my husband or my children or my God.  I will also have time with them.
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I am very excited about this turning point.  Calling it a sabbatical gives me the sense of permission I need to do things a little differently.  I hope I am able to maintain my purpose; being in a class will help.
We are going camping this next week.  I am taking my camera and a sketch pad to be ready for what comes!