Getting back on the Horse -Week 11- part II

So you're just to get back on...Well being able to believe that you can is a good place to start.  A little help from a friend always helps too and then it seems that another one is there to still guide you and support you.

When artists and I'll add any human being sends up a prayer, the Great Creator does hear and answer it.
As artists, when human power fail us, we must turn to the Great Creator for help. We must "surrender" our sense of isolation and despair and open ourselves to the spiritual help we frequently experience as an unexpected inner strength. Julia would like to be clear about this..Artists at all levels experience adversity-some of us quiet publicly, some of us in painful privacy. One way or another -bad colleagues, bad reviews we fall off the horse.  I think this goes to say pretty much all human being experience this tool not just artists.

It is a spiritual law that no loss is with out meaning in all of creation.  Yes the shove hurts-and the treachery and the disillusionment. but we more often than not land in a pile of straw. We find our fall mysteriously cushioned, "Angels" appear. Sometimes, we sense them internally as inspiration, the minute we ask"What's next?" and not "Why me?"

Funny how we go to the why me thinking so quickly...instead of OK What's next with this?  For myself just saying the word Why me sends a garage door shutting down on me verses What's next to the patio doors being slide open.

Because creativity is a spiritual issue, injuries to that creativity are spiritual wounds. In my experience, an artists anguished prayers are always answered by the Great Creator. Even as we sob to the fates, and rightly, " I cannot go on," we are going on, and we are going on with spiritual assistance. Something is stirring that means we are already going on. We are gaining ground, first as awareness, and next as action.. I've heard of the three A's...Awareness, Acceptance and Action..as steps that follow one another.  Creativity is a spiritual practice, and like all spiritual practices, i contains the tool of self-inventory.

What if you try this? a friend may ask...Instantly, we see a path-or, at least, a next right step-if only we will take it. for myself I seem to hear the next right step most of the time when I'm walking in the woods...I bring what ever is going on in my life and walk with it and what happens is small simple sparks of words emerge and guide me on that Next right thing...now it's not always but pretty much of the time..even on things that I wasn't even thinking about out of the blue or from the path to the right answer will come to a situation that was shelved..

What is often more painful is seeing  our participation; usually the spot where we shrank back from trusting ourselves is the very point that turned the tide against us. with a little self inventory as was brought up early..I find when I can look at the spot and see thought it is painful but I've learned when looking at things this way you are facing it and then you can grow instead of walking away and never giving it a second chances...everyone needs a second chance don' t they what about the way you can move through some of the painful spot where you fell off...What's the next right thing here?  This does not make other people's foul play our fault. It does not mean they shouldn't have acted differently and better-what is does mean is that we will act differently and better in the future. Changing what we can...

But the way to change this is not through berating ourselves for our stupidity. It is by treating ourselves kindly, listening to ourselves gently. It is by telling compassionate people and forces exactly how hurt we are and admitting we need help that we heal.  Call a really good friend or write a letter.

Call yourself home to that part of you that is strong enough to continue. that is when the help comes-it bubbles up with in us and it enters a lightly as wind stirring a curtain. There will always be help. What we are changed within "making something of ourselves" is making ourselves swilling to listen for the help and to accept it in forms we don't expect. Then act we must.

As artists, it is important to remember that all breaks are lucky because bones are often strongest at the broken places. Art is healing, and artist heal.
As artists, the Great Creator will help us if we help ourselves. How do we find this creative help? We find the creator by creating. 

As artists, we do not control our creative world, but we knowing how much we do control because it is more comfortable and comforting to coast on the spit of our career resentments then to experience the terrifying vulnerability of  trying  yet again to bring our work in to the world.. this is where in our home the saying is take the hard way first and it will be easier later-verses..the easy way and skirt along in the resentment and make it hard on yourself.

We refuse to be vulnerable again...or hurt...I see this in the young adults in my home sometimes..."Oh no I'm not ever doing that again...and we as the supporter or parent have to coach them along to give it another try...Who wants to get hurt again? no one really but how are you going to know if you could make it in what every it is your trying if you don't get back on..or write more or make a new pot of chili but try something a little different or paint again..

Julia shares...We "know how it worked before. We fear how it may work out again, and so we do not even make a coffee date with our creative dream to see if this time might be different.

I said it was a long section and glad I did it in parts..

As artists, we are dreamers, and what we fear is the nightmare of our work being shunned, mishandled or ill perceived. Fearing this, we allow our discouragement to globalize from one person to "they" from a single tough review to "always" from a stinging rejection to "they'll never." We elect a defensive cerebral cynicism.

We begin talking about how "they" will never appreciate our work. We feel alone and abandoned, and we are- not because "they" have abandoned us but because we have.  We have given up not only on ourselves but also on God...good orderly direction. We have said, "what's the use? Instead of "What's next?" Rather than risk the vulnerability of moving out again on faith, we have hidden our dreams and our hopes under what we call "realism about the market" We have said "oh, they're all like that" rather than allow ourselves the terror of discovering they might not be.

Artists, like a gifted horse injured at the fence, may shy away from trying the fence again. And yet a gifted horse can and must be rehabilitated. as Artist, we are both the horse and rider of our talent. when we are thrown, we cannot let that throw us.  It's party of the territory. Get back on the horse..

I like to think it's is our territory and our war stories of the experience of life or shall I change that to survival stories cause if we get back on we are survival fall and ready to go again and with help find out we can change just a little bit ourselves first and make the difference on the out come..

Unmourned creative injuries create scar tissue. We "toughen up" but the wound festers underneath.
"I'm just not interested," we say, when we ar very interested indeed- just injured.

Coax you artist out to play, then put your artist straight back to work.

Well speaking of work I need to get my class stuff going and head out a bit early..as we have the most beautiful snow fall going on out side and I need to leave early and take my time to get there  as traffic has a way of changing..

I'll be heading out road trip to Lake Zurich, IL not that far from the homestead but I'm making it a nice little get away instead of driving back and forth..I'd be spending the $ in gas or I say put and have a mini get away. Vote came in pretty quick like and I'll be staying..