The Artist's Way - Weeks 3 and 4

Up to date, I'm not. The good news is that I'm busy doing the stuff, so I don't have time to blog about it. And to be fair, week four was media deprivation week, so technically I wasn't allowed to blog about it.

Take that, Bembridge scholars.

Week Three was all about recovering a sense of power. How one recovers something one has never had is a conundrum I could not solve, but whatevs. Most of the tasks involved remembering favorite things from childhood - toys, games, friends, etc., and remembering things you liked about yourself as a child. I was ridiculously curious about things and I had an active imagination. I liked to read Greek mythology and play pretend Olympus, watch the Wild Wild West on tv and play that with my friend Ian in the wilds of our California neighborhood. Another task was to list 3 subtle foes of my creativity and how I sabotage myself by allowing them to control my time. This is where I discovered the Seat of Sloth that calls my name every night after dinner and, truthfully, sometimes before. I tend to gravitate towards it after the day's work and open a book. Sometimes I read it, sometimes I look at the back of my eyelids. So, that's a place to beware. Nothing wrong with sitting, reading OR napping, but it's hard to be creative there. I do assume some unusual positions when I nap, so there's my creative expression.

Week Four was designed to recover a sense of integrity. What this has to do with reading/media deprivation, I do not know, but I am proud to say that I did not read a book, magazine, newspaper or pamphlet for the entire week. I also severely limited my internet usage. Only work sites allowed! No Facebook! No Elvis! No soccer news! I did allow myself to check email on two different occasions just to see if anybody missed me (and damn your hides, NONE of you did!). I allowed myself to watch tv and dvds also. If I lived alone, I would have chucked that, but it's hard to NOT watch tv at our house. I would have been spending all my evenings in my room. Alone. This does not sound bad, come to think of it. Maybe next time. Again, most of the tasks involved visualizing - ideal environment, what my 80 year old self might say to my present day self, what my 8 year old self would say to her as well - and being good to myself with an extended Artist Date (did not manage) and a ceremonial tossing of some ragged low self-esteem article of clothing. That would be my entire underwear drawer!

Just kidding.

Sort of. Note to self: bras! buy new ones!

I don't recall experiencing any synchronicity during these two weeks, but I have observed that I am not very observant and I'm trying to pay more attention and not just skim through the experience.

Just to define it once and for all, integrity to me is a synonym for authentic. And I want to be my (eeep!) authentic self.

With power. :)