Monday 25 May 2015

Dwelling in possibility...

As I work through Week 5 of The Artist's Way, the number of synchronicities increases. The title for this week is 'Recovering a Sense of Possibility'.

Last week, I bought this book...



It is THE perfect marriage of words and images!


I dwell in Possibility –
A fairer House than Prose –
More numerous of Windows –
Superior – for Doors –

Of Chambers as the Cedars –
Impregnable of eye –
And for an everlasting Roof
The Gambrels of the Sky –

Of Visitors – the fairest –
For Occupation – This –
The spreading wide my narrow Hands
To gather Paradise –


I wonder if Emily Dickinson ever actually jumped for joy like this! She certainly did in her poetry :)

Then, I did the exercise from pages 102-3 in The Artist's Way, and free-wrote a list of 20 'I wish...' statements, without thinking, bypassing my Inner Naysayer.



Number 4 on the list was 'I wish to paint/draw more', and when I read the list back, I thought, 'Well, why don't I?' 
So I hunted out my watercolours, took down from the shelf a gorgeous journal made by Nellie Wortman, I've been saving for a rainy day, and as it is raining today (typical Bank Holiday weather!), I painted in it...



Now, it's a pretty terrible picture (I was imagining a bluebell wood!), and part of me is thinking, 'I've ruined a truly beautiful journal', but part of me is thinking, 'Well done you, you fulfilled a wish right here, right now!'

Clearly, something's shifting... in my thoughts, in my responses, in my Self-talk... I'm learning that to dwell in possibility means to just do it, to try it, to see what happens... to forget the outcome (good, bad, indifferent), to suspend judgement, to just enjoy the doing...


3 comments:

  1. Hi Claire, lovely post, you are very inspired, wow!

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  2. So true. I've also been reflecting on recently the desire to share things v doing something just for myself. Lots of different aspects to this, including how this dictates how I judge what I have done.

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  3. How I love Emily Dickinson, she was one of the first poets in my youth I bought the complete works of. It's a lovely drawing of her, jumping.

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