On, In, and Around Mondays: The Red, The Rose, The Coat
She concluded on a beach, noting that growth is a spiral process: what we don't manage today, we'll manage tomorrow, coming around again, if we are willing.
It was my third time going through The Artist's Way. A dear friend recommended this book long before I ever read it. I have her to thank, for being part of the spiral process that led me, over time, to a first, then a second, then a third reading.
Every reading has presented something new. I love that. This morning going back over the quotes I've copied, this stands out like it never has before...
To be an artist is to acknowledge the astonishing. It is to allow the wrong piece in a room if we like it. It is to hang on to a weird coat that makes us happy. It is to not keep trying to be something we aren't.
Maybe that is why I bought a red coat last year, its smooth outer finish sewn with subtle designs of roses. Maybe that is why I planted red begonias in the garden this year, when I usually plant pink.
These turning-points, where we stop trying to be things we aren't, do they not come with physical markers? The red, the rose, the garden growing something new?
I wonder, today, if there is some way you've been trying to be something you aren't. It's just a curiosity. And along with it, I wonder what that might mean for your coat, the beach treasures you might bring home and put in the "wrong" place in your house, your open books and your closed ones.
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On, In and Around Mondays (which partly means you can post any day and still add a link) is an invitation to write from where you are. Tell us what is on, in, around (over, under, near, by...) you. Feel free to write any which way... compose a tight poem or just ramble for a few paragraphs. But we should feel a sense of place. Would you like to try? Write something 'in place' and add your link below.
If you could kindly link back here when you post, it will create a central meeting place. :)
This post is also shared with Laura Boggess, for...
posted by L.L. Barkat at 9:50 AM
7 Comments:
Yes LL, so true! As much as I would like to think I am salt, uniquely defined, and not a follower of status attention, I can always find a vanity that needs to be purged so I can rest being the artist I am and was created to be. Great share.
Be who you are and say what you feel because those who mind
don’t matter and those who matter don’t mind. ~ Dr. Seuss
That’s pretty much always been my philosophy.
Wear the red coat with joy.
I’ll wear the amethyst sweater until it’s threadbare ;-)
I've been struggling with this issue to a degree, but not completely in the way you're speaking. I have these really bold thoughts, trying to address sin or error when I see it. But I often fear the repercussions or decide that the time is not right, so I keep my silence. I think there's something to your point here. I do need to be okay with being myself and sharing my thoughts in certain situations, but not exactly sure when to keep my mouth shut and when to let God speak instead! That may not be the way you intended this, but that's where my mind went. :)
The Artist's Way has been sitting on my bookshelf for years. I have not gone past her advice to write pages and pages first thing in the morning! Because first thing in the morning, i read scripture and pray! Maybe I'll just get past that and start again!
Art- not trying to be something I am not. Oh, my, that sets me free! Thanks for the gift today!
I have been really battling my worst critic today -- you know, the one in the mirror -- and this is so freeing.
I was created by the One who makes no mistakes . . . and I will let myself go to the crazy creative. Without shame and without censor. I'll be the best ME I can be.
Thanks ever so much.
In my experience, "true" artists do not indulge in too much self-examination. They are self-absorbed to be sure. But, they are not prone to foibles over their art. In H.R. Rookmaker's parlance, they need no justification.
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