Tag: The Artist’s Way: A Spiritual Path to Higher Creativity

Pink Rose Blushing

On By Anna EastlandIn Photos, Ponderings4 Comments

This Sunday I saw a rose so lovely one could get lost in it’s petals, contemplating beauty while the blossom blushes sweetly. It had the rich scent of a real rose, the kind you want to just drink in again and again…the kind that makes you think of romantic English gardens and quaint little thatched cottages.

Thinking back, it was a funny little gift to see it growing there, just outside the church, where moments before I had been talking with my friend Sherri, and joking that all the pretty women were wearing roses that day. She had a beautiful white dress covered in red roses, and I had a rose pattern white t-shirt. She told me she wanted to dress up extra today, on the feast of Pentecost, for the Holy Spirit, with whom she has such a love affair. “He just always takes such good care of me,” she smiled.

“Today is my 10 year anniversary of baptism,” I told her, “10 years since I joined the church.” For her it had been almost 16. I remembered rubbing my belly with childlike excitement in the days leading up to my baptism…God Himself was coming to dwell in my soul! We marvelled at how lucky we felt, knowing God’s love, His desire to be close to each and every person, to bring depth and meaning to our lives.

So who is this person Sherri and I are enamoured with, who inflames and guides our hearts? Isn’t going to church just for stodgy old ladies…people who recite pious prayers but aren’t really spiritual? As a convert, I haven’t found this old stereotype to hold water, nor have I found the supposed opposition between being religious and being spiritual.

For me, finding the faith helped me begin a very intimate and interior journey, one of growing closer to God while at the same time becoming more free to truly be myself…learning to trust the still, small voice of the Holy Spirit, the one who nudges me to grow, to give, to respond to His creative impulses, to be optimistic and ready to dream aloud. To trust in something bigger than myself. To be willing to take creative risks.

Growing in my spiritual life has been essential to my growth as a writer. I find there is such a direct link between prayer and creativity, because prayer helps me be aware of the beauty around me, and to be still enough to let it enter my heart. Then it’s just a matter of sharing what’s inside. I once compared writing poetry to sitting still enough for a butterfly to land on you, a matter of receiving an inspiration and sharing it, a little gift…

So if I haven’t been blogging much at times, you can guess I’ve been letting myself get too busy, and you can write me a comment and say, “Anna, stop running around… sit still and pray more; we want some poetry! ”

When I don’t take time to pray, to be still, to talk to God about my life and especially to listen, my creative well runs dry. I run like a little hamster in a wheel, very busy but very superficial. It is exhausting and empty, and I think our souls need to love deeper…ha, that was a typo but still true: we need to live deeper and to love deeper. This is what helps us see the beauty in life, despite suffering; this is what helps us live for something bigger than ourselves, and in the process become more the people we are meant to be.

Maybe I’ll write more about this soon, but as we’re all busy people I’ll let you go for now. I hope you’ll find a little time to seek out that special stillness in which God whispers to our hearts and inspires us to help Him create a more wonderful world.

Find Your Sparkle!

On By Anna EastlandIn Arts and Entertainment1 Comment

I haven’t posted in so long but I have so many things I want to write about! I’m jotting them down, even in bits, so I don’t forget ideas, but my list of drafts is becoming like a Christmas wish list…longer and longer…One of my dear friends has been gently nudging me to publish more of them. Of course, as soon as I start writing this, one of my little girls comes running out of the bathroom to tell me a big blue-eyed story and pee on my bedroom floor. Looks like I’ll need to make it sparkle before I can get on with my story about finding my sparkle…

Anyway, back to writing. I’m really loving having a blog. It is challenging to find the time for it, but it’s so good to have a creative outlet, and I think it’s important. Sometimes I need a CIA badge in covert operations to sneak the writing in between dishes and diapers, but it’s worth it. As my buddy said of herself, “I have things to say.” I think we all do, but sometimes we’re afraid to do it. What if I sound funny, vain, stupid, crazy, or even worse, boring?! Well, so what? We can hide in a shell of “at least I didn’t fail, because I never tried,” but it’s a miserable place to be. Better to go out on a limb and try, come what may.

So after many years as a closet writer, I’m trying this blog, and my Mum gave me the nicest compliment about it, “I’m so glad you’ve found your sparkle!” Thanks, Mum! I want to encourage everyone who reads this to find what it is that brings them joy, and to go for it. Don’t think you’re not worth it or don’t have time or are being silly. Every person is a unique and unrepeatable creation, so really the only unreasonable attitude is the one that we have nothing to offer the world, nothing new, nothing distinctly us. Pablo Picasso said, “Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once he grows up.”

I’m reading an amazing book by Julia Cameron called “The Artist’s Way: A Spiritual Path to Higher Creativity.” She writes about overcoming our fears to unleash our creativity, and fighting our inner censor who can be such a perfectionist: “Remember that in order to recover as an artist, you must be willing to be a bad artist. Give yourself permission to be a beginner.” Like any important journey, this one begins with humility and hope.

She continues, “By being willing to be a bad artist, you have a chance to be an artist, and perhaps, over time, a very good one.  When I make this point in teaching, I am met with an instant, defensive hostility: “But do you know how old I will be by the time I learn to really play the piano/act/paint/ write a decent play?”  Yes…the same age you will be if you don’t.  So let’s start.”

So whatever makes you sparkle, whether painting or music, making soufflés or repairing old cars, do it! Do it with joy and abandon, with the simplicity of a child who does it just because it makes her happy. Chances are no one else writes quite the way you do, and certainly no one else can tell your story. Chances are no one can make tiny steam trains that really chug along with your distinct artistry, so if you don’t do it, you will have missed your unique chance to make the world a little more beautiful. All of us want to do that; what we need to believe is that we CAN.