Lovin' those pages

Man! I look forward to the pages every morning. I don't know that they've facillitated any creative miracles as such just yet, but as a practice they provide palpable comfort. When I feel a twinge of anxiety or other unpleasant emotion during the day, I think of the time when I will write the pages and I wish it was right then. I realize that I could do more journaling if I chose to at those times, but somehow I just don't want to mess with a good thing: I wake up and have my little brain-drain of whatever pointless crap happens to be bothering me, I usually have room after that to noodle about in other sometimes helpful ways, and when I'm done I feel clearer, calmer and happier. Now I'm probably jinxing myself. Well, for now I do them and they help so I love them.

I do think creative energy is percolating. Yesterday while listening to music I colored a mandala by my friend and mentor Clare Goodwin - just coloring! with markers! - and it came out so glorious and intricate and, well, colorful, that I decided I should laminate it and give it to a friend. Clare does posit the idea that there is something about working with mandalas that lends a particularly spiritual aspect of self-expression, even if on another level you're just coloring in a pattern. I did note the sense of freedom in deciding which colors to use where, and I worked around the black lines of the pattern to make it even more my own. Anyhow, it was a lovely, low-pressure and fun excursion into creative pursuits, with nary a whiff of angst.

Hey! There it is - my inner critic! It's saying that coloring can't possibly be creative. Well, I just gave my inner critic an inner rasberry. Oh, dear. I hope that through the AW I'll find more sophisticated weapons to fight the real battles that I know must be coming. And I hope doing the pages helps me find the willingness to use them.

Or maybe heavy mental artillery is just what is not needed. Maybe doing the pages and the other tools will help me really get that instead of further arming and armoring me. Which brings me to the following quote, which I found at the above link to Clare's mandala page:

"Forget the resolutions. Forget control and discipline...too much work. Instead try experimenting. Go in search of something to fall in love with...something about yourself, your career, your spouse."~ Dale Dauten ~