Hand-built clay mask, Turtles of the Goddess, by Tammy Vitale of Tam’s Originals.

I am not sure how many postings I will get up before I run out of time or ideas.  My original plan was to forward post for this week away with Linda in California.  But that was before I got waylaid (and hospitalized) by a particularly horrendous bout with vertigo, which has pretty much left me alone the past year or so.  Even when it reared its head in the past, it certainly didn’t slap me down like this past event.  (More over at myspace if you’re interested).

I was rummaging around for something to write on today.  I have topsy-turveyed my office cleaning in anticipation of putting the house on the market.  This has its good points in that I keep unearthing things I have forgotten.  Bad points may be stress leading to vertigo, according to Husband, or maybe it was just time again (it seems to follow Solstices, but the ER doc couldn’t get his head around that very well).

This is an exercise from Julia Cameron’s The Vein of Gold.  Julia notes that many of us have been given a false ceiling for our talents by someone somewhere sometime in our life belittling or denigrating what we have done in moving toward our artistic bent.  For myself, it was a nun at Catholic school in Sophomore year.  My work was held up as exemplary as long as we were putting up anon works.  The minute my name went on my work, it was poor, did not follow directions, etc.  I have never known what set me on her bad side, but there I was.  And although I continued drawing I did not do so in high school.   It did not occur to me to think of art as a career. 

Later, older and still bent on art, I started Community College at 26 with art as my major.  Then-husband always and everyday informed me that I would never make a living and why was I wasting my time (nevermind he was a drunk and a drug addict – or maybe that was the point.  One of us had to make money!).  So I got side tracked into Business ADministration, even after I had left him.  And then into community-based organizing which has a lot of the same energy as art:  abstract energy wishes to become concrete…seeking conduit.  Finally, at age 54, one year before I promised myself, at 26, that I could at last be an artist, I claimed my space.  And here I am.

What is your story around your creative energy?

Here’s a fun way to release some of that energy.

In an April blog here (sorry I don’t have the date to pull up), I talked about soul cards:  naming all the people who are inside you (wise woman, abandoned child, edge walker, teacher, etc),  making collages from whatever you have at hand to represent one of those people, and then writing:  I am the One Who…..Free write.  Don’t think.

This exercise is much like that.  Pick one of the people who is a secret person – one you don’t let out much.  Are you quiet?  Let out the you who is the life of the party.  Are you always surrounded by people and talk?  Let out the one who wants to sit in the corner at the party and watch.  But for this self, you will be you, simply larger than life.  Be your Cinema Self.  "These questions are designed to let you think about what constitutes glamour and expansion to you.

1. What kind of car does Cinema Self drive? 
2. What is Cinema Self’s ‘signature’ article of clothing?
3. Where does Cinema Self live?
4. What is Cinema Self’s spiritual practice?
5. What three places has Cinema Self loved visiting that you haven’t been to yet?
6. What is the title of Cinema Self’s memoirs?
7. What is Cinema Self’s relationship to animals?
8. What three adjectives are usually used to describe Cinema Self?
9. What is Cinema Self’s relationshiop to friends?
10. Who play Cinema Self in the movie?"

These questions can be answered for any of the people who are part of you.  Try answering them – expand your awareness of who you are and who you can be.  Enjoy!

Thought for the day:  "All of us have a self that we live with as our normal, everyday self.  That self is probably bigger than it used to be and smaller than we wish it would be.  In other words, there are many days when we wish we could be larger than we currently are.  … It’s all relative we say.  On the days when we feel relatively large, we take risks to expand our lives.  On the days when we feel relatively small, we retreat to the safety of a smaller version of ourselves.  Like Walter Mitty, we daydream about what our lives would be like if only we were able to live as our larger, more cinematic selves."  Julia Cameron  The Vein of Gold:  A Journey to Your Creative Heart