getting outta my own way.

wanting to write on a weekly basis, but not believing in myself enough to do so.

holding myself back from writing because i have not been doing it since the beginning, a beginning which does not have a footing in any time space continuum of my life. where do i start? what do i say? who i am writing to? for?

all of these reasons and the dogs. those are my excuses. and any others i conjure while doing EVERY DAMN thing except sitting down to write. i am unravelling my resistance to writing regularly, consistently.

so i am collecting the pictures i take of my surroundings. as i walk around the yard, i dream in lines of poetry that never make it to the page. hoping something will catch my attention long enough to make it to the keyboard.

we got a frost this week. the apple blossoms turned brown and now the lilacs are falling from branches in the wind. i picked them up this morning and filled my empty tea cup. i sat on the porch and picked each individual flower off its stem and dropped it into a teal green bowl.

below are ways i am going to support my desire to write more consistently.

schedule time on calendar. no clients, no dogs, no errands. just writing time.

read more poetry. it inspires me.

listen to less stories. the audio file has been the death of my creativity lately.

stay hydrated. its helps lubricate the brain and body.

drink my herbs. they support my nervous system.

communicate with friends. they are endless sources of joy and love.

create projects that have accountability built in. daily practices etc.

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being in relationship with space, noticing my surroundings. leaving room in silence, finding release in my creativity. trusting myself. these are the strategies, i hope to cultivate in this iteration of existence shelley and i are carving.

putting down roots to support what we want in the future. a home of our own, an art practice that i share with you and a career that excites my brain and returns thanks to earth. my practice is where this dream first took flight and i’d like to revive it, dedicate myself to its vessel. accepting where it has delivered me today and where it will take me in my future.

with love cathlinstar

to begin again and again = showing up

to be humbled by the fear of having to start over. as if the maintaining is the prize. the repeated practice. tending the creative void. the practice is the vessel that the creative magic is drawn to because we all know that magic loves a void!!!

my life has changed drastically and not at all.

my wife retired, i shut down my coaching practice, we sold our house and moved to my childhood home in the middle of the southern vermont forest.

writing is one of the ways that i have been able to ground myself in this process of moving home. writing is always the thing i have time for and crave as a way to process what is happening around me. most of it is an exercise in taking the clutter from my brain.

occasionally i learn something about myself. something interesting that stops me in my tracks and floats through the rest of my wake hours. fretting my imagination as i cook dinner, or troubling my focus as i practice asana.

since i have left my coaching practice i feel more free to express my creative experiences. {i haven’t completely unpacked this strange permission granting thing that happened but hey} this process of showing up, of creating a ritual practice is what i am the most interested in. i want to share the process here and hope it leads me to what is the next step in my own evolution.

to begin again and again. to be the beaver rebuilding her dam, the caterpillar within their cocoon.

i am in constant awe of the minute world around me: the lichen, the mushrooms, the red efts, the dew drops on blades of grass all catch my attention and take hold of my imagination. writing after my imagination has been lit by a walk, or quiet sit on a rock allows me to recognize myself amidst change, recognizing the change as part of who i am. not as an experience that takes me away from myself. and from a more practical perspective a life built around being outside, tending the natural world seems to be tantamount.

i am cataloguing these moments of self aware insights so i may realize a life from this transition that brings me great joy and creative abundance.