I couldn’t decide which one of these I liked better ~ but I have the liberty to pursue happiness, and it makes me happy not to have to choose.
Wishing everyone in the U.S. a safe and happy Fourth of July holiday, honoring our amazing nation, its great natural beauty and wealth of courageous and freedom-loving souls…. and some pretty awesome firework displays too. : )
They happen when we’re looking the other way. They happen when we’re at the end of our proverbial rope. They happen when we’re sleeping. They happen when we’re on a roll. They happen when we’re at the gym or out to dinner or listening to conversation or reading a book or contemplating a blade of grass. There’s no single formula for achieving a breakthrough – whether it’s personal or professional, they almost seem to have a mind of their own. It’s as though everything in your energy field lines up and you’re open and – “wham!” – you’ve made a leap.
The one key requirement is that we have to participate in our own process.
I made such a leap many years ago ~ not the only one, but a memorable one. At the time, in my early twenties, I’d been drawing for, well, pretty much forever. For a while I drew anything that caught my eye ~ faces, hands, gardens, animals, old mills, tools, you name it ~ honing my skills, mastering my craft. Practice was my classroom, and it paid off. But I didn’t feel very “creative”.
Then one day I thought I’d do a self-portrait. All artists have one, right? So I got my art stuff ready, figuring I’d probably do a realistic pencil rendering, like I did with other portraits. But something entirely different came out.
I remember a sense of being in another zone ~ I’d suddenly switched tracks, landed in a different groove ~ and I went with it. And I loved what happened. It wasn’t another well-executed drawing, it was a true expression! I had no trouble understanding what it was about, and it gave me a real high ~ experiencing that leap and knowing I’d unlocked a door that for some reason I’d previously thought inaccessible. This was huge, and what had been “trapped”, all that color and passion, was oozing out, freed from its imagined confines.
As an aside, I also remember that my family never liked this piece. They see their daughter or little sister looking “odd” with paint dripping all over her face, instead of the sweet chocolate-loving swim-team captain they knew who drew pretty pictures of roses and barns. I can understand that too. But for me, it was an intensely marvelous breakthrough that really opened up my creative faucets and if I’d had any doubt about my path, it was diminished right then and there by a few marker lines and watercolor streams. My muses had decided it was time.
Like I said, this wasn’t the only breakthrough moment, but it makes my point well. We all have breakthroughs, in different forms and guises, and I hope when they happen for you, that you participate, listen and let them flow.
Self-portrait © Patricia Saxton. All rights reserved.
A modest and unassuming tool, the pencil has witnessed global events, mapped grand expeditions, documented scientific discoveries; it has chronicled famous lifetimes and private journeys; it is an artist’s companion, and is ever patient in the hands of a child learning to write or a poet listening for illumination.
The pencil quietly observes, renders, and calculates, and from the slightest stroke to the boldest pressure, its touch can bring the magnificent and fantastical to life, leaping from a blank white page in great passionate detail.
With pencil in hand, stories are written, stars dreamed upon, ideas and equations scribbled ~ and its only vulnerability ~ revealing the pencil’s tender heart, and reminding us that it comes from Mother Earth ~ are the charcoal smudges made by the smear of a hand, or how cleverly it can disappear with a simple eraser.
A more loyal, trusting tool I’ve never known. Even if you break it in two, it still works! And, ah, what imaginative beginnings can be stirred by the humble pencil… a marvelous instrument indeed. : )
From Patricia Saxton’s “Pencil Point Series”, a long-runnng self-promotional campaign based on her logo and favorite tool, the #2 pencil.
That’s an important sounding title, eh. If I think of a better one I’ll change it, but right now I just want to get on with it… which is, that certain ideas take hold in the mind, get tossed around and shared and pretty soon become part of a mass consciousness. Hearing, speaking or seeing something with enough repetition often becomes “truth” to a great many people. Kind of like how advertising works (well, a LOT like how advertising works), and politics (but I won’t, WILL NOT, go there…) ~ both are selling concepts, often cloaked in a happy disguise, to as broad a base as possible, hoping for buy in.
It doesn’t mean that these concepts are necessarily dark and evil ~ it just means that the thought form that’s being repeatedly projected has the opportunity to “stick” in our minds and become a “belief”. Once that happens, it can be hard to shake without something dramatic flaring up in our face, affecting us in a personal way. (The same goes for things we learn at home and in school, whether positive or negative, and while usually even more influential, it’s on a smaller scale, not a “mass consciousness” level.) And you know all this, but I’m on a roll, so …
Some people are content to go with the consensus, to follow popular thought processes. Fortunately or unfortunately, I’m not one of them. It’s fortunate, because it gives me the sense that I have control of my thoughts. It’s unfortunate because it can lead to too much “thinking”, which, trust me, isn’t the easy way to skip down the road of life. I can probably blame my parents, for the genetics as well as the lessons, because while I don’t remember them specifically saying “always question authority”, we were taught to “think for ourselves”. I’ve been a good girl in that regard.
Which leads to my positive dissent. Catch-phrases, meant to explain or alleviate our troubles or help us navigate to a more fulfilling life, can be powerful if they’ve withstood the test of time ~ but some, if not tested, can lead us astray. Like armchair psychology. It gets in the air, we start spouting off without having truly considered them. Again it’s not necessarily bad, it’s just that it can lead us on a much twistier path. Of course, we all follow our own path, and I make no judgment. Just my viewpoint.
So, there are two of these phrases that recently prompted this whole rambling essay I’ve embarked on. 1.) “There is only one thing that makes a dream impossible to achieve: the fear of failure.” ― Paulo Coelho, The Alchemist, and 2.) The idea that you have to be out of your comfort zone to experience magic.
First one. A friend posed this Coelho quote as a true-or-not-true question, and everyone was commenting with “oh yes, most definitely!” Then I chimed in as a dissenter. (And let me also add that Paulo Coelho’s The Alchemist is one of my favorite books of all time. But the notion that fear of failure is the sole reason for unrealized dreams just rubs me all the wrong ways). I don’t believe this is true!
There are many inhibiting factors, all kinds of blocks – intellectual, emotional, spiritual, physical – real or nurtured – that can inhibit actualization of dreams, and fear of failure is a big one, but, in my opinion, certainly not the only. There are also lots of dreams that may even not be associated with fear or failure, just as there are those that actually have fear or failure at its core. Too many variables to chalk it up to this very common, and I think, easy, reasoning. I don’t buy it.
Second one. Yes, it’s great to venture out of one’s comfort zone. It leads to breakthroughs of all kinds, personal growth, opportunities you’d not have crossed, new doors opening, wonderful people and experiences you might not otherwise have known, and perhaps even magic and miracles. But do you have to go >>> over there to experience magic? I say no.
One of the most incredibly powerful actions we can take is to shift our thoughts. “Yea, yea, right”, some say – “that’s too simplified, it doesn’t take into account my circumstances and struggles and strifes; it’s not that easy. That’s a bunch of pie in the sky mumbo-jumbo, you don’t really understand how it is for me.”
Well, yes, it IS simplified ~ and that’s part of the beauty!
For the naysayers, I suggest trying it. Realllly try it. Miracles, magic, or wonderful changes (to keep it sounding real), can occur from where you sit. From a place where you DO feel comfortable, at ease and strong. You don’t have to go out on a limb and dangle with trepidation. You can do that too, and still get awesome results, but my point is that you don’t have to. You DO, however, have to change how and what you think. Thoughts, as I’m apt to say a lot, so forgive my chant, are very powerful. And just like collective, or “mass” consciousness, the more umph and energy and clarity and conviction ~ and the more repetition ~ behind a thought, the more power it holds. There is magic there.
And now I’ll get off my soapbox, but leave you with this, which I do believe to be true.
Choose your words carefully and think well! ~ Patricia
proactively punctuating life with the plausible, powerful possibilities of positive thought presented through a plethora of “P’s”.
I’ve posted this before … wait, this is really crazy, I literally just noticed that I posted it on exactly the same day last time – June 6. WOW. Just wow. Whew! Okay, clearly I’m feeling the same as I did then, and the need to re-post this message. And maybe this time I’ll learn! I’ve also been hearing an awful lot of grumblings “out there” of a similar kind of discontent, a desire to pull in some reins. So maybe this will hit home with some of you. Here is P#24, once more:
So much to do. So many things to check off the list, people to see, plans to make, meetings to attend, bills to pay, rooms to clean, cars to fix; on and on and on it goes.
So, after we pause, and become present, and before we decide to persevere, it’s a great idea to welcome in the wonderfully practical notion of prioritizing. To take a moment of clarity and think: really, and truly, what’s worth our time. To consider what we “have to do” vs. what we “want to do” ~ and within those needs and wants, what will give us the most peace, the most value, the most satisfaction. Today, tomorrow, at the end of the road.
I’m talking both about the daily priorities ~ those that help us be productive and get us through the day without everything a.) colliding, or b.) wasting our time, or c.) back-firing ~ and “life” priorities. At the end of the day, what will give you a sense of accomplishment and satisfaction?
Sometimes, for both the daily and the bigger-picture-of-life viewpoints, less really is more. Quality beats quantity. The world is moving so fast … so fast. It doesn’t have to make us crazy in the process. Much more than we may acknowledge simply depends on our priorities.
What are you going to choose to give your attention to?
“I would not want to live in a world without dragons, as I would not want to live in a world without magic, for that is a world without mystery, and that is a world without faith.”
― R.A. Salvatore, Streams of Silver
Aging Dragon / @Patricia Saxton, Book of Dragons
Chris Staley, early work
In his typically wise yet humble way, Chris covers another of my favorite subjects in this last video of the series ~ unobtrusively reminding us that the world could use quite a bit more good listening.
Hope you’ve enjoyed the series as much as I have. It’s been a pleasure filling our Tuesdays with the creative insights from a great teacher, a great person, a wonderful artist and an old friend. Thank you Chris, for the opportunity for more of us to listen to you.
(If you missed my introduction about Chris Staley, master potter, educator and Penn State Laureate 2012-2013, you can read that here.) Enjoy!
As “Tuesdays with Chris” nears its inevitable end (sadly, all things must pass…), we’re given a glimpse of how these videos have been made. You’re going to like this a lot! It’s just as inspiring and well-done as all the rest, with a good measure of “informative” tossed in. For anyone thinking they’d like to whip up a quick 3-minute video, take note of the time and care involved. Kudos to Producer Cody Goddard (and his awesome mittens).
(If you missed my introduction about Chris Staley, master potter, educator and Penn State Laureate 2012-2013, you can read that here.)
Next week will be the last in the series. Enjoy!
A wonderful examination of the concept of cave paintings and their possible purpose, intertwined with thought-provoking questions about our modern experience with the environment, our surroundings and asking ourselves what’s of real value.
(If you missed my introduction about Chris Staley, master potter, educator and Penn State Laureate 2012-2013, you can read that here.) Enjoy!
Our hearts are with you ♥
