To love is to admire with the heart; to admire is to love with the mind. — Theophile Gautier Today we finish our exercises for the third stage of The Artist’s Way. Then, for the next few days, we will pause to observe the great Sabbat of Beltane, one of the two most magical times … Read more
It is never too late to have a happy childhood.— Attributed to Tom Robbins, Wayne Dyer, Berke Breathed and probably more As we wind down the third step of our journey of artistic recovery, the emphasis is on being especially kind to ourselves while we continue to gently uncover our past memories. One of the … Read more
More homework for this weekend as we approach the end of the third step on our road to recovering our Inner Artist self. Yesterday, we worked through the first ten. Today, spend some time completing, in whatever way you wish, the following: 11. I am afraid that if I start dreaming …12. I secretly enjoy … Read more
Receptivity © Daniel Mirante Don’t mind criticism. If it is untrue, disregard it; if unfair, keep from irritation; if it is ignorant, smile; if it is justified, it is not criticism, learn from it. — Anonymous As we develop our inner artist, regaining a sense of our power, it is important to understand the long-term … Read more
To know what you prefer instead of humbly saying Amen to what the world tells you you ought to prefer, is to have kept your soul alive.— Robert Louis Stevenson As we are discovering, many of us carry hidden grief, where our fragile young creative self was shamed and wounded. When this happens enough, we … Read more
The Frustrated Artist – © 2007 Bill Shain He has a right to criticize, who has a heart to help.— Abraham Lincoln We’ve been exploring the wounds of shaming that may have shut down or hampered our inner artist for many years. This is hard to look at sometimes, and if anger, grief, and fear … Read more
We but half express ourselves, and are ashamed of that divine idea which each of us represents. — Ralph Waldo Emerson In discussing the ways that we make known to the Goddess our secretly whispered heart’s desires, we have to also look at the shadow that is (at least until we have done a lot … Read more
When a man takes one step toward God, God takes more steps toward that man than there are sands in the worlds of time. — Work of the Chariot, mentored by Daniel E. Bloxsom No doubt about it – the anger that flares up when our artist self first re-awakens can be scary. To see … Read more
© Osho Zen TarotI merely took the energy it takes to pout and wrote some blues.— Duke Ellington In the Osho Zen Tarot, there is a very instructive card called “Suppression,” or the Ten of Fire. In the more traditional Rider-Waite-Smith Ten of Wands, the card shows a heavily burdened man who is soldiering on, … Read more
Blue Anger ©1998, Jamie Alaine HulleyAnger is a great force. If you control it, it can be transmuted into a power which can move the whole world. — William Shenstone (1714-1763) This week, we begin the third step of our twelve-step recovery, healing the artist within us. This step focuses on “Recovering a Sense of … Read more