words and pictures

People have told me about The Artist’s Way (by Julia Cameron), and particularly about the “Morning Pages” for years. I’d never felt inspired to actually read it until a good friend recommended it last fall, so I picked up a copy. I set out to follow the directions and began writing my three pages diligently every single morning. It was a disaster. I was already in the midst of making major changes (quitting my job, leaving a beloved apartment, and making a cross country move) and on the verge of exhaustion. The last thing I needed to do was spend the first 45 minutes of my day dwelling on my many anxieties. My nerves were frayed and I was already well on my way down the road of making many necessary changes. I didn’t need to identify them and make them happen – I just needed to survive them.

Also, while I found the chapters interesting, I would quickly become overwhelmed with the suggested activities and questions. After spending years in my prolonged career crisis situation, I’d already done similar exercises ad nauseum (lists ofwhat you liked as a child, what people have told you you’re good at, or what your ideal this or that would be, or what are obstacles in your path… etc.) and wasn’t finding anything new. Again, it was only adding to the burden of feeling frustrated and running in place. I’m insightful and reflective to a fault, and rather than providing a helpful path to insight, it just bogged me down further in my own introspective ruts.  Wheels spinning, mud flying, just getting deeper and deeper. That’s what it felt like.

Over the past few weeks I have (for whatever reason) picked up the book again. A friend told me about the 750words.com site, which is based on the morning pages idea. I have been looking for ways to bring (VERY) gentle discipline to the process of finding what I’m drawn to creatively and engaging in those things. I am experimenting with doing something EVERY DAY, without having expectations about what the outcome or product of that may be.

I’ve always been drawn to (and fairly adept in handling) words and writing. It’s something I’ve always enjoyed and always been good at. I’ve written in journals more or less regularly since college. It’s a very natural form of expression for me. The problem is that it’s easy for regular writing practice (either in the morning pages or the 750words) to devolve into journally introspection, which isn’t necessarily the most helpful and certainly not the most stretching thing I could be doing. I can see how for others with less of an inclination to words, it could be revelatory, but for me, there’s not much new in the experience itself. So it makes sense that I struggle with the fact that this recommendation for creative practice is so densely wordy. Writing here is the same way – though it’s something new and different, it feels sometimes that it’s feeding an oversized part of myself that doesn’t need any more calories and smushing other parts that might need room to grow out of the way.

Another friend began making mandalas a few years ago. I’d seen a couple of them and talked with her at length about how they’d opened the door to an interesting process and journey for her, especially around some potent emotions related to family. I’ve been coming across mandalas lately as I’ve been poking around books and websites related to Carl Jung. Of course a lot of this is a departure from, say, the traditional Tibetan mandalas – this is a much more touchy-feely Western version, more of a psychological tool, representative of an inner journey and less connected to a religious meaning or structure.

Occasionally over the past several years, I’ve been inclined to pick up paper and crayons/pencils/pastels/whatever. The outcome has been some evocative drawings. They’re not at all good in a technical/representational sense. But as a form of expression and emotional outlet, it’s been interesting. So this week I found some suggestions for mandala-making and have been experimenting. I’ve been trying 15 minutes of “mindfulness” meditation – i.e. sitting still, focusing on my own breathing, and trying to let thoughts that come into my mind flow past rather than dwelling on them. Then I take a piece of paper, draw a circle on it, and start to draw. (p.s. I am not a regular meditator – the closest I get is a few minutes at a time during yoga classes.)

There are definitely symbolic elements that take shape on the page, but the most interesting (to me) part is that at certain points my relationship to what I am doing changes. I stop thinking about what I am putting on the page, without consciously choosing or crafting either the look of it or the symbolic content. I literally just go with the flow. And it feels great.

That also reminds me of the book, Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain – another classic in the creative instruction field. The whole point of that is to get out of Left-Brain (judging, evaluating, controlling) mode and into Right-Brain (flowing, perceiving, expressive).

Sometimes that right-brain “flow” happens. I’ve felt it in writing, in running, in speaking another language, while driving, and at other different and unpredictable times (even at work or just moving through tasks I need to do in a day). Too much reflection kills it, just like too much inattention will. I think part of tapping into creativity means finding where that flow can happen and then opening the way for more of it. Right now these very simple, unconstrained structures (writing 750 words, drawing in a circle) are giving me just the right amount of shape to feel a sense of accomplishment without the stress of producing something “good.”

On some level it’s pure expression – raw and uncrafted. On another, it’s discovering a vocabulary of images and experiences that are meaningful. It’s practice in being impartial with myself and observing without judgment and without expectation. Judging and crafting come later. For now, I’m just exploring what’s possible.

to sleep, to dream

i have been paying attention to my dreams for some time now and find them an endless source of curiosity. a friend gave me a dream journal several years back (or i seem to remember that she did – perhaps she only suggested the idea to me) and since then i have been recording my dreams. lately, that’s about all i have been writing in my journals, come to think of it.

when i began taking note of my dreams, i had a concept of dream analysis as something that had a set lexicon of signs and symbols. wishful thinking, i suppose, that i could find some kind of clear interpretation that would give me magical insight into my life. even before that, though, i had encountered jung by way of a mythology course. i read chunks of his book memories, dreams, and reflections and was introduced to the idea of dreams holding archetypal symbols, serving as a gateway to both the personal and universal/collective unconscious.

even if dreams are physiological, that is, random neuronal firings that generate images that carry no intrinsic meaning, dream images fundamentally have or suggest meaning to us. when an image is presented to the mind, the mind’s response is to try to interpret it. how that happens and what meaning becomes attached to the image, or what meanings the image draws to itself, depends on the mind in question. considering that when we dream, we experience emotions and thoughts in response to those images, as well as having a sense of actually experiencing events one is dreaming, i think it’s fair to propose that a dream cannot ever be completely void of meaning,  even if it is not a meaning created with external intent but rather through the internal interpretation of the dreamer, or even if it is simply an experience of naming the dream images that arise without making sense of them.

sidenote: interesting, isn’t it, that in common parlance if something is “dreamy” or “a dream” it’s meant to be beautiful and easy, a pleasurable fantasy. however, the actual experience of dreaming is often fraught with dark and difficult emotions and confusing experiences and associations. i think of dreams as being much more linked to shadows. but i digress.

so to return to the argument, let’s say one possibility is that the images are randomly generated, then we attach meaning based on our interpretations and responses. that seems already pretty substantive without anything deeper going on, thanks to the human capacity for and propensity to meaning-making.

next: dream as divine guidance or communication. god giving people messages via dreams. this happens in many religious texts and traditions. of course this depends on one’s perception of and relationship to either a personified god or something more diffuse (the ever-popular universe).

next: dream as subconscious meeting conscious. this is where i find the most resonance. and actually there is some easy potential overlap with the previous two. if the divine is considered to be operating somewhere outside the realm of usual awareness – or shall we say on a different plane or through some different medium than typical human communication– or even as something that is non-personal and subsumed into the collective unconscious, it’s easy to see it presenting itself through the unconscious. and the previous point could represent god/the divine working via biology.

regardless of where it comes from, how do i find the meaning in my dreams? i notice if there’s something very obvious or clear that seems to be literally about an experience, situation, or relationship in my conscious life. i pay attention to anything that arouses very strong emotions. i take note if there seems to be a symbolic relationship e.g. a journey or going from place to place in a dream that seems linked to a transition, whether literal or figurative, in my current conscious life. i think about the people, known and unknown, who appear in my dreams and consider what they might be representing or suggesting, or think about what aspect of my own consciousness those people might embody. sometimes as i re-read a dream after writing it down, or after some time has passed, a much clearer meaning will emerge than i initially saw in it.

one thing is certain – that dreams make up an experiential category that is common to all humans. science says we all dream, whether or not we remember our dreams. (yet another layer in the conscious-unconscious continuum – where does the dream that is dreamt and forgotten reside? has it left the unconscious without entering the conscious – does is simply subside into the unconscious again, or is it lost to both?)

aside from their universality, i think part of what i find most compelling about dreams is that so much of their content remains inscrutable, mysterious, and open to interpretation. they are pure subjectivity – limber, chameleonic. and they are intensely personal – no matter where they originate, my dreams feel as if they belong to me, as if they come from within myself. and dreams, once dreamt, become individual memories just as strong as those of waking experiences.