Visioning the New Year Part III: The Goddess Lives...on Neon Pink Posterboard!

Continued from Part I: Mandala Misgivings, and Part II: The Jason Journal

...And then came Goddess Vision Board Day......

Not off to an easy start, I showed up at the First U chapel more than two hours late -- but enthusiastically loaded down with an overflowing box of markers, magazines, and all my old art supplies (I actually used to be pretty decent with a paint brush and was twice the Art Director of my HS literary magazine). 

The project was in full swing, with the group cheerily clipping, pasting, and chatting around a table at the center of the room.

And in the center of the table was the dreaded stack of periodicals -- to me a glossy-leafed impenetrable mess.

My head buzzed with an all too familiar leaden throb. There was just too much stuff!

I took a few calming breaths: "Follow your impulses. You'll find your way to the images you need. Clip out what moves you, leave the rest." To many in the room, I figure these were easy and obvious instructions... but to me the very notion was painfully difficult, almost petrifying. 

(I have a history of anxiety, by the way, and started furiously grinding my teeth in my sleep at age seven... but that is a matter for another day...)

Too daunted by the overflowing table, I circled the room, finding my way to some pretty neon colored posterboards that the facilitators had brought. I picked out a pink one. And I don't even like pink ... usually.

But I liked this one.

I set it down on the stage area at the head of the chapel and made my way to the Big Table o' Stuff.

But I wasn't ready to deal with it. 

I got my art box, which was bursting with so much stuff I needed a bungee cord to keep it together, and even then the pastels, pencils, acrylics, and brushes had collapsed into anarchy during the trip. So I organized the box -- even though I knew I probably wasn't going to use much of it, the simple act of going through this part of my own history, which had been left untouched for decades, grounded me enough to face the table.

And so I returned to the stack, following my improv teacher's advice:  When in doubt, breathe through your mouth, follow your impulses, and trust that whatever you do is The Right Thing.

Well, it's my freaking collage after all, I figured -- don't I get to say what's right or not???

Actually, I kind of don't -- that's the problem.

I've learned, when it comes to creativity, we can't just choose willy-nilly. There is a "right", but it must be found, not forced. 

A thing is "right" if it feels right, if it "pops". So I figured, if I choose by that guidance, then whatever I choose will be "right" enough to proceed.

I leafed through the nearest magazine and tore out any image that "popped" -- no matter how incongruous, absurd, or even clichéd it seemed. Stuff like "Do What's Good For You" jumped out, and "Pay It Forward", "INSPIRE!" (in bold italic capitals), a determined woman working out, an old typewriter, a big cat and a cobra, angels ... even Middle Eastern royalty ... and a figure of a blinded young man in the nurturing arms of his burqa'd mother ... all of it resonated. 

I brought my scraps to the posterboard and cut them carefully, cleanly and placed them around the board as though it were a jigsaw -- large images at the corner and along the bottom, giving the piece an "anchored" feel.

And then the smaller bits swirling around the an image of myself, clipped from a Blood on the Veil flyer, at the center. Topped off with swirls of glitter, stars and musical notes, the mandala completed itself.

And here it is!!

At first I thought I would do more work at home, that I should fill in the empty spaces .... but when I tacked it to my door ... I realized it was done. Wholly done.

Over the years I've gotten the same advice from spiritual, psychological, and creative teachers:  If you want to make a good choice, pay attention to how a thing feels, because it is through our feeling alone that we experience joy, satisfaction, contentment. If joy is what we want as the result, then the initial choices must have joy in them. Further, it is a sense that is entirely ours and not subject to the judgmental whims of others.

And it is through feeling that the "divine feminine" speaks to us, an inner wisdom that guides, calms, contains our varying states of life, that gives us an inner vision to complement and ground the outer Polaris spun by culture, media, friends, teachers.

Without the former, the latter can tear us up by the roots -- a hapless state in which I spent many years, and which left me unable to create anything at all, much less a physical manifestation of my own Inner Goddess.

Yet now -- plain and simple as neon pink Staples-bought posterboard -- there it was.

And every day, when I leave home, and return again, I see my Goddess Vision Board. And I ask myself, "Do I enjoy looking at this? Do I feel inspired, comforted, invigorated by it? Do I smile when I see it without looking to improve it?"

And every day, the answer is:  Yes.

The Jellybean Approach

This video floated past my Facebook feed today...

Now:  I am a big believer in "living life to the fullest" -- but I have great reservations about what it means to "get the most out of life," and how it can be accomplished.

I don't believe our days, hours, and minutes break down so easily into "time spent doing this and time spent doing that..." So when you say, "Well, I spend X amount of hours sleeping, eating, working" -- that is not necessarily time that is not a part of, or worse detracts from, living life to the fullest.

In my case, living life to the fullest means working on my show and all that goes along with it (i.e. taking workshops, classes, rehearsing, promoting, etc.). It's a lot of work, and some of it is enjoyable, and some of it makes blood want to pour out of my eyes. But it is what I want to do at the deepest levels of my being. And even in the moments where I seem to be procrastinating against doing the very work I want to do -- other processes are happening that contribute to it, and to the general feeling of fulfillment I have about my life.

While it's true that I have not had a "sitting on the beach" vacation in over a decade -- this is not because I am so driven to create this show, but more because I don't find that kind of vacation restful.  If I were to have a non-dance/theater vacation, then I'd rather swing on a vine in Costa Rica or scuba dive or sail in the Virgin Islands than sit on a beach reading 50 Shades of Grey. Because that is not my thing.

But for someone else, sitting on a beach is EXACTLY what would make their life more joyful. And for others, hammering out the wording of a legal agreement gives them enjoyment and satisfaction.

And so that is what they should do. It is not necessary to divide the time between "stuff you must do" and "stuff that gives life meaning." It can all be part of the same experience of living life to the fullest.

I've heard it said, I believe, by the Abraham-Hicks people, when addressing what it meant to "win" in life: "He [or she] who feels the most joy wins."

Now, at this point in my life, I am at my most joyful when I am doing my show -- sweating onstage in a whirlwind of word and movement for two hours in front of strangers.

That may not always be the case, but for now it is, and I'm mindful of it (and if I didn't have a pure, insane, unbridled passion for this work, I'd have to be crazy to put myself through the rigorous insanity that goes into doing it each week).

But that is me.

Joy may be something entirely different for you (and if you are sane, it probably is).

So if you are going to use the jellybean approach, I would say:  look to find joy in all the days, no matter what you are doing -- working, sleeping, eating, commuting -- and in directly pursuing those activities that are our passion.

That is what I do with my time, and it's worked out pretty well.  How about you?