What are you reading? How are you feeling about it?
Just last week, I had conversations with a few different colleagues about how I work on many things at the same time, and so progress on each project is slower than if I were more singularly focused. My way keeps me engaged. I do the same with my reading. It reminds me of the adage, “How you do one thing is how you do everything,” which I’m not 100% behind, but probably live more than I care to admit.
I’m currently reading Between Two Kingdoms by Suleika Jaoaud, Sylvia Boorstein’s book, Happiness is an Inside Job: Practicing for a Joyful Life, and New Techniques of Grief Therapy by Robert Neimeyer. I just finished “reading” the audiobook, We Need Your Art: Stop Messing Around and Make Something, by Amie McNee. And, I’m listening to Big Magic (Elizabeth Gilbert) in the car. (Oh, plus a {small} section almost every day in Walking Each Other Home by Ram Dass and Mirabai Starr, and my ongoing work with A Year to Live by Stephen Levine).
Are you ready for a breath of fresh air?
Amie’s book, We Need Your Art is so fabulous! Her content is great—the message is clear, well-articulated, and insistent — she grabs your attention and doesn’t let go. Listening to her Aussie accent at 1.2 speed is completely charming! It made me want to get in the car and drive anywhere, just so I could listen to her reading.
My suggestion is, go to your local library or to Audible and listen to a free sample— just to hear her accent and get a flavor of her sassy attitude that is just so strong, so vulnerable, and so real. She speaks about the life of creatives. While she’s referring to artists of every kind—writers, actors, musicians, painters, and more—my personal belief is that we are all the artists of our lives, and in that context, this book is for everyone. Of course, you don’t have to agree with me or my premise that we are artists–though my definition is based on the realities of personal agency, living within constraints, creating successes, failing, and learning how to move forward—life is messy.
If you pick up her book or listen to it, please let me know what you think – good, bad, or ugly. I want to hear it because I don’t think there’s any neutrality when listening to it.
For something more personal, spiritual, perhaps philosophical..
Sylvia Boorstein’s book is a balm for the soul, and that doesn’t mean that it’s sweet or calming. It means that it’s real and about everyday challenges that we face in our lives. Her writing makes what can be a big, heavy topic—how do we show up in the world— accessible and practical. I love that!
Of course, Elizabeth Gilbert’s book is such fun, and listening to her is a delight! I have to pause the book often to jot a note… Of course that does interfere a wee bit with getting through the book efficiently, as I can’t drive and write… it’s worth it!
Bob’s book on grief therapy balances the aforementioned easily accessible books. It is a treasure chest of methods for working with loss and bereavement in death and non-death losses. The work is rich, and the reading is slow (for me). The contrast between the density of the various authors’ writing styles is stark, yet all offer engaging, thought-provoking, and life-changing ideas and practices.
My almost daily practice with Walking Each Other Home and more episodic reading of A Year to Live provide thought-provoking reminders of my mortality…
What do you want from the books you read? I’d love to know!
This past Sunday, I had an inkling that I needed to do something different—the psychic load of health issues and grief for me and many in my inner circle is quietly laying heavily on me—I whisked myself to a local state park and painted for an hour… though the experience felt outside of time. The absorption was complete and nourishing.
Early the other morning, I was working on the Methods and Materials course for my Art-Assisted Grief Therapy certificate. Generally, I don’t get involved in art early in the day because I never know how long it’s going to take, and I don’t want to have that time constraint unless I plan for it. But I knew the assignment was a timed experience: Use seven different types of media and seven different surfaces (one medium per surface), devoting only five minutes per piece … so this assignment should have taken 35-40 minutes. I was determined to get it done. Well, you can guess what happened… I ran over.
generally do it the way it’s designed. That experience becomes my baseline, and I experiment from there. My curious mind got the better of me, and I decided to use one surface for each different medium, which was quite readily accomplished in the 40 minutes, and yet was not the assignment! When teaching/training or facilitating, I feel frustrated when folks do not follow the instructions—I mean, they’re created for a reason! Well, I had just become the kind of student/participant that I shake my head about… and I couldn’t live with that. So I had to complete the assignment the way it was designed, which took another 30 minutes or so.
Truth be told, I totally loved all the time I devoted to this assignment (aside from running late and pushing my schedule around like putty)! It was a delight to see what worked—or didn’t—in which ways on the different surfaces.
If I were to encapsulate the past six months, I’d say that it was like a mountain range—full of peaks and valleys that were a combination of exciting, fun, challenging, heartwarming, and heartbreaking. At this moment in time, I feel ready to use my foundation, recent learning, and experiences to move in a few new directions.
Just the other week we went to the Joseph E. Yoakum exhibit at the Museum of Modern Art in NYC. I was mesmerized by his landscapes. The movement is palpable to me. His use of color is so different than mine—it’s arresting.
To be honest, right now I’m just sitting with wonder and delight. Perhaps that’s because I’m in the midst of playing with watercolors and Posca acrylic markers, inspired by Catherine Taylor‘s work. I am making my way through her online course. I am continually amazed by how easily I slip into flow… time has no meaning when I am painting.
Then yesterday, I received a visual created by Drawify’s founder, Axelle Vanquaillie, that combined some of my drawings in a way I had never imagined. I was gobsmacked! I had never thought of composing those drawings in that way to convey the essence of a session I will be co-hosting at the end of the month! I was inspired by Axelle’s collage of my own drawings—for me, the key is her vision of what is possible with the different elements. (If you don’t know of Drawify, check it out! While you can start with a free account, I’m happy to share a gift —a coupon code, Drawify2MonthHeroJill, for two months of free access to Drawify’s Hero level.)