Weaving The Dream

Well, last Friday I received another rejection of my manuscript, The Shadow Weaver, blasting my hope of working with an agent who had generously offered to look at my first three chapters again if I made some revisions.

Unfortunately, it appears that the changes I made weren’t enough to “involve her emotionally.”

Sigh!  I went into a funk.  One of those maybe-I-shouldn’t-be writing-fiction-or-even-writing-at-all funks.  You know—the one where you want to go hide somewhere like a deep, dark closet or a deserted island somewhere and just bawl or throw a tantrum.

Well, I don’t have a deep, dark closet—I live in an 1840’s Greek Revival farmhouse.  They had wardrobes back then, not big closets.  And, since I live in the foothills of the Catskill Mountains, there are no islands close by.

So here is what I did instead.  Maybe these five tips will help you get through your next rejection, since we all get them, sooner or later.

1. Have a tantrum even if there is no island.  I shed some tears for a few minutes and then visualized throwing myself down on my studio floor and screaming and kicking.  While I may not have done it physically, the visualization seemed to help.  And that way, I didn’t scare our dog, Duncan, into searching for his own closet.
2. Seek comfort from a friend.  After my modified tantrum, I wondered, “Who could I tell that would understand and sympathize?”  First, I called my husband who is very understanding and supportive but isn’t a writer.  I needed the sympathy and empathy of writers.  After talking with one friend by phone, I then sent out emails to several other writer friends.  Over the next 24 hours they all either called or sent emails sympathizing and empathizing and generally reassuring me that I was a good writer and there was a home for my story out there somewhere.  Then I had some dark chocolate—it’s a good friend too!
3. Go for a walk, work in your garden, or indulge in a hot bath.  Releasing some of that disappointment and stress through physical activity and relaxation brings about a sense of calm, clarity, and perspective.  I took Duncan for a walk and recalled how many times J. K. Rowling was rejected before an agent took her manuscript for Harry Potter.  Was I going to quit now?
4. Get back on the horse.  I know the wisdom—getting back up on the horse keeps you from being afraid of the horse.  It also keeps you from becoming paralyzed, from not moving forward.  The friend I talked to on Friday, gave me some sympathy and then, even more important, some valuable information about some publishers.  So on Saturday, I sent out another query with a synopsis and the first three chapters according to the guidelines of the publisher.
5. Keep creating.  Now that you are back up and swinging again, don’t sit around waiting for the reply.  Eons could pass—and often do in this business.  Instead, move onto the next project.  Give yourself something to look forward to each morning other than the empty mailbox or the quiet phone.  Take a deep breath and write—or paint, or dance, or compose.

The bottom line is our art is more than what we do.  It is who we are.  I am a writer.  I can’t stop writing, whether I get to share that with the world the way I want to or not.

Tantrums are a good thing.  So is getting back on the horse.  Call your friends.  Keep writing, keep creating.  And go have some really good dark chocolate. 

In my dream, I am walking through my (waking reality) house to put something I am holding out back.  I come out of a front door but instead of walking around to the back yard, I open another door in the front onto a corridor that leads through the house to another door in the back.  As I step into the corridor and close the door behind me, I think “This is a shorter route.  Why do we get stuck traveling in the same patterns all the time?”

Then I notice that there is a door on my right that I remember leads to another part of the house.  I open the door on an unfinished bathroom.  The shower and sink are installed but not the toilet.  There is a large radiator-like fixture in there as well.  I come out and see another door on the same side.

I open it into a large room that, at first, looks like everyone’s ideal media room but the room appears unfinished, sculpted in what looks like Styrofoam. I think how big the space is and have an idea where everything goes.  Then I turn and look back in the direction of the door I came through and what has previous been black and white is now in full color. Somewhere in the back of my mind I have a sense this isn’t real, that this part of the house doesn’t exist.

I see a kitchen with a sink, open shelves above it and a large island/bar.  There is a woman standing there that resembles our mail deliverer who is there to help me.  And I say “I could give workshops here!”  She nods yes, says I could and because of her response, that she sees what I see, I think, oh it is real!  I am so excited about the possibilities, and when I turn back to the media area it is a finished, furnished, comfortable living room.

Now I see an open staircase going up to another floor and I investigate and discover another sitting/living area to the left and know that there are bedrooms beyond on the right – a place, I think, where people who come for my retreats and workshops could stay..  I am so excited by the possibilities.  I wake up.

The title of this dream is appropriate since I have had other dreams about this house having more space, more rooms, yet undiscovered, yet unfinished, and I am always happy about the extra space, regardless of its condition.

Two things strike me about this dream, however.  The first is the comment to myself at the beginning about moving out of old patterns and paths.  Doing this in our lives and our creativity, opens us up to both seeing things in a new way and to discovery.  I would not have found this space in the dream if I hadn’t taken a different path.

The second interesting thing is that in many of my previous dreams the extra space that is off the family room of our waking life house, has, to this point been in the raw or unfinished state.  In this dream, with the exception of the toilet and some paint in the bathroom, this space is finished.  In fact, I remember in the dream having the recollection that a couple and their small child had lived there for a year so the space was even previously inhabited.

This dream had me springing out of bed this morning, humming with the idea of news paths and hoping that the image of a space to teach – a finished space—implies that the I am moving closer to being able to do the kind of teaching and other work that I want to do.  That soon, I will be able to live in this new space, i.e. this new place in my life.  The space is comfortable with cheery colors, comfy furniture and natural materials.  Roomy but not overwhelming.  Intimate, actually, the way I like to work with people.

So what new paths do you need to take?  And what creative space or creative dream do you yet need to claim?

Potential and possibility shimmer in that space and that dream.  Maybe I should title the dream, Spirit House, instead.

Part of the joy of celebrating a new year is letting go of and saying goodbye to the old year, especially if that year has been particularly challenging.The year both my mother and grandfather died, and the year my husband’s father and then mother died were two years I remember being particularly glad to say good bye to, embracing the following New Years with a sense of hope and relief.

Just in time for Christmas…a winter wonderland!  The snow fell softly but steadily yesterday from late morning until early evening here in the foothills of New York’s Catskill Mountains—whisper-light snow, perfect for kicking with your feet or for diving into to make snow angels.

The steadily falling snow piled into billowy drifts.  Our six small pine trees that Bob draped with white bee lights two weekends ago, were now also frosted with soft white mounds, turning nature’s beauty into holiday magic.

In the dimly lit darkness, Bob used the snow blower to clear the driveway while our son, Jason, and I shoveled the walkways, the patio, the paths to the bird feeders and up the hill to the woods where the dog has his latrine.

I knew where to shovel because our dog, Duncan, had already plowed through, decking himself with snow on his back and snow balls on his legs in the process.  As I shoveled his path to make it easier for him and us, I thought about how winter forces us to define and recognize the paths we habitually travel—we most often use this door to go out, we walk this direction at this angle uphill, we go to this point and that place.

Winter snows discourage meandering outside—unless you have snowshoes or cross-country skis on.  So, we clear and shovel our habitual paths, and then follow them as long as the snow lasts.

Sort of like what we do with our lives—our creative lives especially.  Which is odd considering that our creative lives are where we should be meandering the most.

But having done the work to clear our creative paths by creating routines, connections, and habits, we can often fail to explore new opportunities, new relationships, new ideas because they require more work—in effect, more shoveling.  And heaven knows our muscles are still aching from the last effort at clearing paths.  And what is wrong with those old paths anyway?  After all, they are usually the shortest, fastest, and easiest ways to where we want to go.

Nothing, of course, is wrong with them, but what happens to some of the critical elements of creativity—discovery, growth and…well, fun—if we stay on the old paths?  We can’t kick up snow or throw ourselves into snow angels by staying on those paths.  Creativity demands exploration.  Life does too.

Maybe that is why Duncan politely sniffed the paths we carved for him and then loped off into the pristine snowscape of uncharted yard.
 

I belong to a group of five women writers who check in with each other once a week by email.  The check in provides a way to mark our progress on our journey to writing success – however each of us defines that.

Last week, one of the writers checked in and apologized for not accomplishing “more working writer stuff” after a holiday week that included a sick husband, sick child, and a baby only a few months old.  Not to mention the job she has…

While she was juggling all that, she also managed to make a visit to the yarn shop to supply one of her creative passions—knitting.  And, she looked at notes about her protagonist’s job choice.  And she thought about what her own ideal work situation might look like.  Whew!  Just reading that makes me tired.

I guess the only thing that qualifies as “working writer stuff” is actual pages written on paper or screen.  No written pages, ergo an unproductive writing week.

She is not the only one to apologize for unwritten pages.  The rest of us have apologized for the same thing because of work schedules, fatigue, depression, and just the general insanity of living.

I think it is funny, actually, that with her months-old baby in her arms she doesn’t realize that what she just went through is a perfect metaphor for this creative conundrum.

That baby of hers?  Well, before she held that “product” in her arms, she went through nine months of watching what she ate and taking vitamins to nurture what couldn’t be seen, especially those first three or four months.  After all, other than morning sickness, fatigue, and an occasional flutter, what did she have to show for all the eating and vitamins, exercise and sleeping she did those first few months?  Nothing.  For all she knew, she could have just been putting on weight.

And those last three months? Oh sure, she was definitely growing something, although by the last month she was probably convinced it was never going to show up.  And she probably got tired of people asking her, with a nervous eye on her now monstrous belly, when she was due (almost as bad as being asked if we have finished our manuscript—yet).

Many pregnant women in the ninth month wonder if we will ever have anything to show for all our months of conscious eating, exercise, and increased discomfort, yet do we called ourselves unproductive?  No way!  Fat, maybe.  Frustrated by the wait, yes.  Unproductive, no.

What we all forget and need to remember from time to time is that much of the creative process and therefore creative productivity is unseen.  Much of what nurtures and feeds into the final product— reading, listening to music, baking cookies, talking with a friend, hugging your child, having a good cry, falling into deep sleep—may look like it is accomplishing nothing, like it is falling into some black hole, making us feel unproductive. 

Yet, as long as we don’t allow those things to become distractions or excuses (a very fine line there sometimes, I admit) then we need to value them as the kind of productivity that can’t always be measured within a day or week or month.  By acknowledging the new experiences that provide new perspectives, the conversations that raise new questions, the imaginings and quiet, staring-into-space times as the nutrition and nurturing necessary for giving birth to our creative projects, we honor the process as well as the product.

Honor your unseen productivity

Okay, tomorrow is Thanksgiving and, since the origin of the holiday is our ancestors giving thanks centuries ago, numerous articles online and in print the last few weeks tout the importance and benefits of being grateful.

So, since everyone else is reminding you to be grateful, and some are sharing with you what they are grateful for, I won’t.  I know—you’re grateful, aren’t you!

Instead I want to stress the importance of accepting gratitude or receiving thanks.

I don’t know where we got into the habit of brushing off thanks, of discounting appreciation, of pooh-poohing gratitude but it seems that we are as bad at receiving thanks as we are at receiving compliments.  Maybe our parents were worried we would get a big head or something if we received too much gratitude.  Or maybe our therapists were concerned that we would only do good things in order to receive gratitude.  (And I have to wonder, how bad would that be? Think about how much nicer the world might be if we all got off on doing good things just to hear someone say thank you to us!)

How good did you feel the last time you gave someone a gift and received their thanks in the form of a hug, a kiss, a thank you or, one of the sure signs of gratitude, tears?  The thing is, discounting the gratitude in effect discounts our gift, whether that gift is of time, money, love, or other resource.  How many times have you expressed appreciation to someone only to hear them say, “Oh, it is nothing.”

What is nothing?  The act of giving?  The gift itself?  If that is true then where is the gift, where is the meaning and intent behind the gift?  So, what, you gave me something that is nothing, means nothing to you?  Then why bother?

I don’t know about you but when I say thank you to someone, I want them to fully accept and take in my gratitude and appreciation because that too is a gift. 

See, giving is a circular action of giving, receiving, and giving appreciation for the giving.  If we don’t fully receive the gratitude, we stop the circle of giving.  We halt that flow of life that creates abundance.

So much of the recent writing and teaching on abundance, like The Secret, stresses the importance of feeling and expressing gratitude to the Universe, God, Source in order to keep the flow of abundance going.  The implication, then, is that the Universe, God, Source happily and completely receives your gratitude.  So happily, in fact, that He/She/It gives to you more, and then happily again receives your thanks.  On and on.

Giving and gratitude are part of a whole.  “You can’t have one without the other,” as that old song says.

So don’t just give thanks, receive it.  Joyfully.  Completely.  It is NOT nothing.  It is something.

Happy Holiday!

You’re welcome! Truly!

Lingerie and Waiting Tables 

Lest there be misunderstanding and confusion regarding my remark about abandoning creativity for selling lingerie and waiting tables, I decided I better follow up with another post.

As a creativity coach, I believe creativity can be part of everything we do, whether it is playing piano, frosting a cake, or, yes, selling lingerie.  Each of us has our own, maybe not unique, but most authentic and natural way to express our creativity, and when we can happily engage in that form of creativity, then we find that it spills over into most if not all areas of our lives.

Some people bring amazing creativity to jobs like waiting tables and selling lingerie because they have a talent for connecting with people and being of service.  The thing is, people in positions like these are usually guaranteed a financial return on their investment of time and energy in salaries and tips.

However, singers, composers, actors, writers, painters, and others in the arts can put lots of time, energy, heart and soul into developing skills and creating work only to get absolutely no remuneration at all.  So, they turn to something that will pay—like waiting tables and selling retail—as a job, not as another form of creative expression.

As a mother whose sons have waited tables yet find primary creative expression and satisfaction in photography, music, writing, and networking, I don’t want to see them–or any of us–totally sacrifice creative expression on the altar of economic and societal demands.  I don’t want my youngest to become an accountant, for instance, when what he loves is composing music…

Oh sure, there may be times in our lives where we put our creativity on hold for weeks, months, or (shudder) years while we pay bills, raise children, etc.  But not give it up altogether! 

I don’t know about you but I would be one unhappy person.  When I am too long away from the loom or writing, I get cranky.  Things in my life don’t flow as smoothly.  I lose some sense of who I am.  Actually, if I gave up writing and weaving, I wouldn’t be who I am.  I don’t know who I would be…

 I don’t want anyone, because of economic demands and social expectations, to surrender their creativity, to let go of the immense joy and satisfaction that comes with expressing themselves through whatever medium calls to them.  Who knows what would we lose individually and as a society?

I recently returned from a trip with my husband and our friends, Bill and Patty, to Orlando, Florida and—you guessed it—Disney World. 

I was overwhelmed by the magnitude of commercial success that arose from one creative idea – Mickey Mouse.

If I could, I’d ask Uncle Walt if, when he created Mickey, he had in mind such megalithic entertainment success.  At the original point of creation, how did he define success?  One cartoon completed?  Fame and recognition? Making hundreds if not thousands of people smile at his mouse? A significant deposit in his bank account?

That last question is the challenge and why I’m not sure how I define success anymore.

For creatives, success so often isn’t about the money we make.  It is about expression, completion, appreciation, and recognition (a big one, that).  Yet, we live in a culture that most often defines success by position and financial achievement, which can leave us feeling creatively devalued and powerless.

This can be really hard on creative males who don’t follow the tried and true path of business career and advancement (and I know this from friends and our sons), but I think it is even more challenging for women who spend much of their creative time and energy raising children before finally being able to move fully into other creative expressions.

We become accustomed to not being valued for our creativity because no one pays us to be mothers—absolutely one of the most creatively challenging professions (yes, a profession if done with passion and commitment) out there.  So when we turn to writing, painting, dancing, etc. we are not surprised when we aren’t paid well if at all.  We are used to doing the things we love, to gestating and giving birth to our creative children without pay or recognition.

I used to define my weaving success as selling a throw or shawl or scarf to someone who was excited to have it and appreciated the rich colors and seductive textures.  Once achieved, success became selling my work to a reputable gallery that recognized the quality of my work.  I achieved that.  Still, I had business debt and sons in college so success eventually became selling a certain dollar amount at a show, at which point it lost some of its joy because of the pressure to make enough and to sell enough.

I used to define my writing success as having a good magazine or site buy my work so others could read it, thereby gaining recognition.  After that, success was getting my manuscript taken on by an agent, which did happen.  The next step to success was getting the book taken on by reputable publisher, which didn’t happen.  So, because I believed in the book, I published it myself (I can hear you groan…).  Weaving a Woman’s Life: Spiritual Lessons from the Loom is, I believe, already a success since, besides winning national awards, many women have shared with me their appreciation for the insights and help gained from the book.  Still, in others’ eyes, in the eyes of the publishing world and beyond, the book is not a success because I haven’t sold enough, i.e. made enough money from it.

So am I a success?  Today, I don’t know.  If I died tomorrow, I’d believe that I was a terrific success at creating and raising, with my husband, three intelligent, compassionate, and multi-talented sons.  I’d know that I successfully created a national reputation as a weaver of beautiful garments and throws.  I’d know that I wrote and published an award-winning book that has helped women of all ages and is a legacy of sorts for my sons. 

Still, if I died tomorrow and you looked at how many weavings or books I sold, and then you looked at the money in my business accounts—well, I guess I would be a failure…

On some days, I absolutely believe I am a success. On others, like today, that position is hard to maintain.  No wonder that so many of us experience creative blocks, or create something without passion or meaning, or give up our creative passions to wait tables or sell lingerie instead.

So, today, are you a success? 

“Change can come on tiptoe, Love is where it starts…”

Barbara Streisand sang Marvin Hamlisch’s tune from the DJ’s speakers as my oldest son, Stephen held me and moved me around the dance floor.

Finally, I thought, I get to dance with my son, even though I had to wait until he was 30 and at his wedding reception to get to do it.

But as he twirled me and spun me, and as I sang the words of the song to him, I realized we had danced together before. Only I did the twirling, holding his small body in my arms, his pajama-clad feet barely reaching my waist, as I sang nursery rhymes to him to ease him into sleep.

“Ordinary miracles, Happen all around, Just by giving and receiving, Comes belonging and believing…”

Where did the time go?  Now, here he was, spinning me, amidst a circle of friends and family, each group marking a stage of Stephen’s life.  His childhood friend, Jesse, who spent so much time in our house each summer he was like an adopted fourth son.  Stephen’s friends from college, with whom he became more steadily himself.  His colleagues at work, a couple of who were the matchmakers for he and his new wife, Mindy.  And, finally, the new circle of friends and family that Mindy brings into his life.

“Every sun that rises, Never rose before, Each new day leads the way, Through a different door…”

And as we sat an hour earlier in the melting Virginia sun, watching Stephen and Mindy say their vows, I wondered, when did Bob and I move through this door?  And where did the days go that led us to be celebrating not only Stephen and Mindy’s wedding that day but Bob’s and my 34th wedding anniversary as well?  How did we get from three small pajama-clad boys who needed singing to sleep to three tall young men in tuxes?  Wow!

And yet, here we were.  Stephen, standing before us holding Mindy’s hands, promising to love her, just as Bob had promised to love me, while his two brothers along with two other friends stood as groomsmen.

Ordinary miracles.  Often our children may seem more ordinary than miraculous but then there are the moments, like the sudden slumping of an infant’s body against my shoulder into sleep, or like that Saturday evening, when I was held by my now-adult son, that we know…

“No lightning bolt or clap of thunder, Only joy and quiet wonder, Endless possibilities, Right before our eyes, Oh, see the way a miracle multiplies…”

Who would have thought that a wedding 34 years ago would lead to this?  A wedding anniversary, three grown handsome, healthy sons, and the wedding of our oldest to a lovely young woman who loves and supports our son.   We could only imagine.  And when by cooperation of the Fates, it happens? 

Ordinary miracles!

The Sirens and the Muses are duking it out in my studio again. 

You know the Sirens—those luscious, lovely, hypnotic singers said to lure unwitting sailors to their destruction on the rocks—and artists from their studios.

Supposedly, the Sirens once had wings but were stripped of them when they challenged their sisters, the Muses, to a singing contest and lost.  But they just don’t know when to give up.

I’m sure you’ve heard them in your creative space as I have in mine—singing of fun and pleasure, of abundance and reward.  Saying, “C’mon!  Let’s party!”

What’s confusing, for me at least, is that the Muses sing about all those tempting things too.  Well, okay, they sing about hard work, commitment, discipline, and solitude as well.  But those other things…I swear I can hear them sing about fun and pleasure and reward…Right?

After all, when we are in the flow of our creativity, doesn’t it feel like play, like fun, like whooping up and down in the roller coaster, with our hair blown back in our faces, and our breath caught in our lungs?  And when we move out of that place, when we come to the end of that ride, don’t we feel a sense of accomplishment and reward?  A “Whew! I made it!” feeling that is so powerful that when you get out of the coaster you feel like your feet barely touch the earth?

And we all want to feel that again—over and over.  The problem, the challenge, of course, is that sometimes it is hard to hear the Muse’s voice over the Siren’s.

One of the Siren’s, the one who keeps batting her eyelashes, will start in her loveliest voice, lilting and soft, “Oh why don’t you read that new book you just bought.  That guy’s chest on the cover is enough to make even a Si-i-ren droo-ool.”

Or another Siren, the one who dresses and sings like a deep-voiced mezzosoprano, “The garden is growing, the temperature warming.  Summer will soon be gone…”

Then that sad looking Siren with her hair hanging in her face, “Woe, oh woe!  What kind of friend are you who hasn’t called Marsha (sob) in more than a month?”

Painfully, they aren’t even singing in harmony–and then they try to outdo each other, getting louder and louder like some awful nightmare of American Idol!  How is a person to hear the Muse’s voice in all that?

Well, I find that creating a ritual to silence the Sirens and to invite the Muse into my creative space is one good way to win the battle.  Putting on special music, lighting incense, and saying a special prayer or blessing are ways I signal to myself that it is time to listen to the Muse and ignore the Sirens.

Too, it helps if I promise the Sirens beforehand that they will have their turn, that I will come out and play periodically—you know, have a piece of chocolate, call that friend, read the next chapter in that new book—then they are more likely to stay silent or least sing softly while my Muse and I go for that wild roller coaster ride together again.

But that is just one way.  There are others.  What is yours?

Well, I just wrote this piece, so right now the score here in my studio is: Muse 1, Sirens 0.  But the day is young yet…