The Wilder Gifts of the Spirit

So I made it through to the end of the Artist's Way for the first time. It took two months longer than it should have done, and I am not sure I put as much into it as I should have done post-heartbreak. Perhaps I picked the wrong or the right time to start, it is hard to tell. I was more focused on being in love and then being heartbroken than planning great creative enterprise. Maybe now I am in a more neutral place, I can focus a little more on my creative self-development. I need to get back to doing my artist's dates and morning pages, though I never feel like I have enough time, or is it hard to allow my creative inner child to play? Hard to tell. I reflected on my writing from the beginning of the course, and I have achieved some of what I wanted to achieve at that point in time. I wanted to move out of London and improve my living situation, so this is good news. Not sure I have radically transformed artistically, though I did undergo massive upheaval and change i...

The rain is pelting it down outside, and yet the lads are still out playing football. I am inside still trying to defy medical science and not have a virus of some weird description. The rain and wind are fierce, and I would tell the boys to stop their play and go home and stay warm. Here in my little room, I am trying to stay warm and trying to get some writing and reading done. There is so much I want to read, and so much I want to do. There is a really cool looking Celtic fire ritual going on in Brighton, but I am not going to make it, not with weather like this. Seeing that event has made me realise I want to go further with Celtic spirituality. This is alongside wanting to learn about the Orisha's, having been impressed at an African science fiction film screening. It has taken me a long time to admit that I am interested in African spirituality, mainly out of fear of taking from another culture not my own, and causing offence. I have asked permission from people with a l...

I don't want my life to start sounding too much like a Victorian novel (at least not these days...) when I say that a character in fiction fell in love again, despite feeling for a long time they could never love like they had previously again. Fiction is not just fantasy, but the internal world of others, and we get to find out that we are not as alone as we first imagined. 

Perhaps it’s not about not loving other people but rather not needing others to be whole. There was a character in a programme I watched who said they couldn’t love again after they lost that person, and then they did love again, so maybe there is hope for me romantically to. Anything is possible. 

So I survived my night of deep spiritual thinking, insomnia and a day at work. I figured if I had a big and tender and warm heart which could love so many different places and people fall in love over and over, then perhaps there had to be a little love in my heart for me for when a person had turned me away and not given me what I most needed. I think it probably is true that all the love we ever need is inside ourselves, but I don't think it stops us needing to be loved by others entirely. It would seem like a cold world if we all became islands and stopped giving and receiving love. I always thought that self love sounded a bit selfish in the context that if I no longer needed someone, somehow I was isolating myself. But that is not really how it works. I am not sure how so many things work, like how could I at once fall in love with the place I am currently in, and at the same time be crushed romantically. Perhaps it is a bit of a mystery, or it is at the moment, but this ...

Longing carries us to belonging, or so it seems sometimes. If my shattered heart can muster up enough courage to open up even in the darknesg night, then maybe all the love I ever needed was inside of me after all. 

https://www.tarabrach.com/desire-a-current-of-homecoming/

So it is two in the morning and I can not sleep. I have just had a fredo after being chased by another cat wanting to be friends. I sort of realised I was in love today, or at least I think I am. I was surprised that my heart could open so quickly after losing someone, especially someone I really cared for. I know it is common to feel you will never love again, but I really couldn’t imagine it. And thereby I was loving, desiring, feeling. One half shut out from life’s feast and the other taken in. I think I jus fell in love with this place I am living in, and perhaps the people in it. It’s hard thinking about leaving in five months, not sure I am ready to. And my heart is still in shock, I still can’t listen to certain songs, hardly any music. It is so weird this being in pain and being content. And I don’t know how to sleep at all, or where I go from here in life. I try and let it unfold in front of me. And yet here I am not knowing how to sleep. 

Don't hold back! 'Cuz you woke up in the mornin' with initiative to move So I'll make it harder Don't hold back! 'Cuz you think about it, so many people do Be cool, man, look smarter Don't hold back! And you shouldn't even care about those losers in the air And the crooked stares Don't hold back! 'Cuz there's a party over here, so you might as well be here Where the people care Don't hold back! The world (they're holding back) the time has come to ... (you're holding back) the time has come to ... The world... (it's holding back) the time has come to To galvanize! Come on, come on, come on! ... Don't hold back! If you think about it too much you might stumble, trip up Fall on your face Don't hold back! Don't you think it's time you get up, crunch time like a sit up The monkey pace Don't hold back! Put apprehension on the back burner, let it sit Don't even get it lit Don't hold back! Ge...

Who Is It" His embrace, a fortress It fuels me And places A skeleton of trust Right beneath us Bone by bone Stone by stone If you ask yourself patiently and carefully: Who is it ? Who is it that never lets you down ? Who is it that gave you back your crown ? And the ornaments are going around Now they're handing it over Handing it over He demands a closeness We all have earned a lightness Carry my joy on the left Carry my pain on the right If you ask yourself patiently and carefully: Who is it ? Who is it that never lets you down ? Who is it that gave you back your crown ? And the ornaments are going around Now they're handing it over Handing it over

Today I forced myself back into the last two chapters of the Artists' Way, and I realised after my move I had the space to do some of the things the book suggested. I could make an artist's corner if I wanted to, but I am not sure if I will. My walks out in the downs count as feeding my artistic soul, so at least that is one thing after all the traumas and upheavals of leaving London. I must admit that when I have walked through several fields and watched the sun rise above the hills, I find sitting down to work a lot easier. However, being saved from marching in the cold by my generous colleagues stopping to give me a lift also makes sitting down to work easier (and probably stops me  freezing in my little walking boots). I had this strange moment today when I seem to just give up on my other blog for a period. I think I am going through some sort of creative reinvention/transformation. I am going through a phase.