Walking My Way to Water: Week 6 – Abundance

Hey Gang

Yup – I survived the 3day Novel Contest yet again – HOORAH!  I shall write about the weekend soon, but first… I’m back with the continuing saga of my trip through The Artist’s Way.

Week 6 is about….  what kind of God we WISH we believed in and what kind of God we actually worship, our ideas around Luxury, and… MONEY – what beliefs we hold around it and how we actually spend it.

This was an interesting week for me.  Y’all know that I’ve recently accepted the fact that I’ve been wearing the crown of the Queen of Scarcity for some years now, and that I would very much like to relinquish this particular crown ASAP.

The crown is still here, but i do think the fact that I SEE it now means something.

Baby steps, my people.  Little tiny baby steps.

Let’s leap in.

~~o~~

The Quick Chicken…
(Cuz chickens are so much more fun that Check Ins)

Morning Pages: 13/13

Artist Date:

I’d say that the 3 Day Novel Contest was this “week’s” extended Artist Date.

And the time spent “recovering” as well.  I did need time to recover and it included reading and resting and watching some movies with the Raggedy Man.

Synchronicity:

Hmm…. so many instances in the writing of the 3day novel…things that fell out of me in the writing and then fell together throughout the piece that emerged.  One of my favourite things about writing is that the… metaphors or symbols or whatzits… seem to slip themselves in without my conscious knowledge, to be discovered and played with during the rewrites.

In the real world I found it telling in a lovely, if silly way, that as I finished the writing and was placing the printed pages of the novella I built over the weekend in order – the compass necklace I had worn around my neck all weekend broke and spilled black beads all down my boobage.

A few minutes later, I went outside — heading for the “back house” and… fell off the bottom step of our back deck. It is a very low step.  I fell straight down, like a tree going, “TiMBER!”   I wasn’t hurt at all.  I think I was so exhausted as to be entirely relaxed and boneless.  The two glasses of wine I’d drunk probably added to the bonelessness (and perhaps to the fall itself).  I found myself lying in the mud, giggling.

So… I finished the contest.  I created a brand new Tale — guided only by the pulling of runes and listening to what the Creator wanted me to write and then…

I lost my compass…No… it isn’t lost.  It just… fell apart and is in need of rebuilding.

and I fell flat on my face but was not hurt…

Isn’t that COOL?

I think so.

~~o~~

Tasks Done:

I gathered lovely stones and leaves from my daily walks.  To reinforce the reality of the abundance of beauty that surrounds us here.

I did the Money Madness Exercise – very insightful.  I’m really enjoying the questions Julia asks and answering them as fast and honestly as I can and seeing what falls out. Like the fact that

Being broke tells me... that I can survive anyhow and that I can find beauty in the surviving.

It’s true, but I’d never really acknowledged it.  When I saw that the 20th prompt to finish was “Being broke tells me…” I sort of assumed I would write something like… “I’m a total failure!”  But by the time I got to it…. this is what fell out.

Fantastic. Right?

There’s a song called “Money” that I love — written by Crooked Creek’s Donny Millikin (on the Lucky Stone CD). It’s become a bit of a theme song for me and the Raggedy Man.  I have searched and searched, but I can’t find a copy of it online.  I wish I could share it with you.  It’s lovely and just a lil bit heart-breaking.  He sings about how “There’s never enough, but we always make do…”  Make do, get through.  Yup.

I also meant to do the Counting Exercise but didn’t.  I actually didn’t spend much money this week.  Let’s see if I can trace it right now….

• Tuesday I bought postage (mailing my submission), beers (two to celebrate) oh and movies at the Bargain Store – we bought five new $2.99 movies  to chillax with.
• We also paid some bills (hydro and phone/internet).
• Yesterday I bought… cream for coffee, a pop at the Legion and went to the 2nd hand store and spent 9.00 on … 3 books, a sweater, a yoghurt maker and a bag to put it all in.

That’s where this week’s money went.

So it goes.

~~o~~

WHAT JUMPED OUT FOR ME…

… being quotes from the book and my own blatherings

Many of us equate difficulty with virtue—and art with fooling around….. On the one hand, we give lip service to the notion that God wants us to be happy, joyous and free.  On the other, we secretly think that God wants us to be broke if we are going to be so decadent as to want to be artists.

Boom!  Got me.

Making art begins with making hay while the sun shines.  It begins with getting into the now and enjoying your day.

Hmm… yes.  Of course I believe this.  But I also believe that I must work work work…work ever harder and longer hours and that it must be HARD WORK in order for it to be GOOD WORK.  And yet…
I also believe that if I was… one of the Truly Talented that this amazingly good work would simply flow from my fingertips and that the working would leave me… energized as opposed to drained and exhausted.
I’m complicated that way.

And then there is this….

What we really want to do is what we are really meant to do. When we do what we are meant to do, money comes to us, doors open for us, we feel useful and the work we do feels like play to us.

I read this over and over and over…. I see that I desire… more money.  There has been money.  There IS money. There is enough money — even though I still do not feel… safe… still do not trust that … things will show up as needed.  Money will show up as needed. I need to stop fretting about it and do the work and keep open to opportunities to earn some cash.  That is all.
OK BUT….

This working on Sanctuary (my novel in progress).  It doesn’t feel like play.  It feels like… a duty, a weight, a thing I must get through to reach the other side.  It feels like lessons learned each and every day.  It feels like WORK.  Hard SLOW work that has been going on for the longest time.
I do know that the days I feel… best…most useful in the world are the days that I get a good shift of work in on the revisions of the book.  Yes.  This is true.
But it still feels… hard.
And then I read this and think it is all supposed to be some kind of laugh riot or something.
Harumph.

She goes on to say….

[Lack of money] is never an authentic block.  The actual block is our feeling of constriction, our sense of powerlessness.  Art requires us to empower ourselves with choice.  At the most basic level, this means choosing to do self-care.

Man o man.  I have so much to learn about this self-care, self-compassion stuff.  Truly.

In order to thrive as artists—and, one could argue, as people—we need to be available to the Universal Flow (my caps). When we put a stopper on our capacity for joy by anorectically declining the small gifts of life, we turn aside the larger gifts as well.  Those of us… who are engaged in long creative works will find ourselves leaching our souls to find images, returning to past work, to tricks, practicing our craft more than enlarging our art.

 

Oooh boy.  I quote this entire passage as a lead in to that last sentence.  Because lordy lordy lordy that is the place I feel I am at right now with Sanctuary.

That I am practicing my craft… but … see… I also see my work on Sanctuary as a way to enlarge my art.  This novel is so different for me from… anything I have tackled before.

The fact that it is a big sprawling story told from multiple viewpoints is a huge challenge for me and it takes CRAFT and… yes… I pray also for ART along the way.  And I fret sometimes that the very fierceness with which I am going at this story is… draining it of magic.  I pray not.  But I fear it.
Some days, I am still astounded by new discoveries, but many days… I feel like I am simply… down in the trenches trying to hammer out a decent sentence.  Trying, always, to tell it clear and clean and true.

This is the only way I know how to write.  How to keep moving forward.  I must finish the telling of this tale.  I must do it as best I can, and I must do all I can to see it safely out into the world.  Then, I will be free to move on.  To whatever is next.

I want to draw special attention to the next few quotes from the book – they are so fricken important….

What gives us true joy?

I think we should all really think about this one.  Carry it around for a while.  It might just change our lives.
Such simple things come to mind…

• A walk
• A soaker with bubbles and nice smells
• A drop of perfume
• Incense
• Beeswax candles.
• Reading with popcorn
• Watching a movie with popcorn
• Fresh fruit
• A cup of herbal tea with honey in silence
• Sun on my skin

Things that I somehow begin to see as luxuries… but they really aren’t insanely expensive.  And the joy is… huge.

As are these two truths…

Creative living requires the luxury of time.
…
Creative living requires the luxury of a space for ourselves.

Yes.
This I have learned.  Well and truly, once and for all.
Thank Goddess for that, at least.

~~o~~

MY PERSONAL NUGGET…

The thing that sticks for me from this week is… that I’ve much to learn about abundance, but that the work I am doing on … being in the NOW, staying present and seeing the world as is truly is and not as i would like it to be… is helping me open my eyes to the abundance around me.

I have so many blessings.  Especially the time and space to do this work.  To finish this book and to do all these other things I am doing along with it.

Again, I have to say… fantastic.

~~o~~

On we go to week 7 – Recovering a Sense of Connection.

Wishing you… beauty abundant this week.  And time to enjoy it.

Go easy ~p