inner wild therapy

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Archives (page 5 of 15)

30/09/2010 / 4 Comments

Let’s spin the bottle, why not?

So I’ve been a little neglectful of my darling online journal recently. {AND THAT’S OK! I add later} My creative spirit has needed a fix of Etsy-ness and I’ve been spending lost hours in the Etsy Treasury and convo-ing lovely people and caressing my new Inner Wild Etsy shop. [Um, my third … fourth?]

Cycling in and out of different creative phases easily and without guilt is a bit like an adulthood game of spin the bottle. I remember being made to feel bad as a child about my love of novelty and the potentiality of the new so that I’ve spent years attempting to go against my nature; forcing myself to labor a thing beyond the time I had lost interest.

Oh the damage people can do to us when we are little; moving us away from our own truths to fit their truths of how we ‘should’ be! I have eventually shaken off this feeling of guilt and now feel good about my natural skills in the realms of the nascent and the new inspiration rather that beating myself up for a perceived lack of follow-through.

it is glorious – and incredibly productive in the most fulfilling of ways – to honor your personal creative spirit and the cycles of how it wants to manifest at any given time. Feel like gardening? Do it. Feel like cleaning? Do it. Quick change to feeling like taking a walk? Do it. Your creative instinct knows what’s best for you. And you’re being mindful in a different way in the moment – mindful of your own inner world.

It’s when we apply life’s schedule of work times and pre-planned events that we begin to feel depleted and weary – we are not flowing with our inner creative biorhythms and natural peaks and troughs.

I’ve always cycled my passions so that with the return of a particular true love came a patina of it being a new love, sandwiched and contrasted as it was by others in-between – and always now there are the unbreakable steel cords of constants: motherhood, (child and animals) and writing. This works with my desire for novelty and also lets creative activities contrast and give to one another in a limitless universe of possibilities.

So in honor of flights of surprising whimsy this blog post is a kind of a little game of spin the bottle wherein I have three more breathy topics: one for the boys and one for the girls and one unisex.

The first spin (girls): I have *decided* I am vehemently anti-fashion and opposed to the out-moded circus of commercial nonsense that is fashion editors and media people – dictating what we “should” be wearing each season in an attempt to make us feel insecure enough to BUY more clothes we don’t need to the extent so that we are ‘acceptable’.

Screw that. Wear what you like. I was thinking of devoting a whole blog post to this idea when – wouldn’t you know it! – I discover the blistering irony that I am visionary and MAINLINING global fashion trends in my Etsy shop! LOL

Damn them. It’s just too freaky. Check this out:

– A department store (House of Fraser) in the UK has “Wild Things” as a ‘womenswear autumn 2010 trend’

– The Guardian Weekend says CABLE KNITS are IT for Autumn 2010

– I thought I was very alternative using Isle of Harris Tweed yarn but blooming Laura Ashley is now yabbering on about its “Isle of Harris” knitwear range.

– And, and, AND the Paris Fashion Report – from PARIS – tells us, “After many years of high-tech and structured fashion, the inevitable consequence of our sophisticated, modern lives, we’re going back to the wild. Let’s rebound to our primal state and reconnect with our inner beast!”

Are they copying me? Or am I inadvertently the butt of a cosmic joke wherein I am channeling the world of seasonal “fashion” I loathe; mainlining global fashion trends, editors of Vogue Italia et al via the collective consciousness while I sleep? I laugh. Ha. Ha. Ha. *Nervous titter*.

But easing my sense of all-being-right with the world is the second bottle spin (unisex):

I happened upon an extraordinary psychological exploration of The Wild Wood from The Wind In The Willows (the film and its adaptations) as a metaphor for primal fears, depression and our collective unconscious fears and how we react to them as humans. This is a beautiful examination of the human psyche using archetypal themes by MovieMan0283. Please have a look. It is amazing, profound, thoughtful and I think you’ll like it very much.

If, like me, you have ever been depressed, this will remind you of how brave you were in the Wild Woods and how much you learned in there and how fearless you are compared to others who’ve never ventured in there and how much you appreciate not being in the Wild Woods now.

And if you are in the Wild Woods at the minute, this will help you remember you are surviving in a very scary place, that you not alone in there after all – and, I hope, you’ll feel supported in finding your way out, following us who have left you a path if you can see it shining thinly |(we were weak when we left it) so that with every step you take away from the dark Wild Woods you are moving into a safer place, here, outside the Wild Wood looking at it over your shoulder as it gets smaller behind you.

Third spin (for the boys): an equally insightful and exactingly useful exploration of the nature of the Inner Wild Man in relation to the movie American Beauty by Eivind Figenschau Skjellum (how great is that writer’s name!).

Man, you must read this!  I especially loved Eivind’s brilliant concluding bullet-points of magnificence that offer practical advice on how men can liberate their inner wild man to create a happier life: “Powerful ideas from American Beauty“.

So I leave you with these errant bottle spinning surprises. Enjoy spinning your bottle of creativity today.


Image “Never Let It End” borrowed from Photographer Michael Garbutt. You can see more of Michael’s stunning work and even buy prints at Elgarboart and Elgarbo shops on Etsy.com.

27/09/2010 / 1 Comment

In your own hand

Handwritten notes are exceptionally powerful. Do you write notes? Letters?

I received a Feng Shui card and tucked inside, a handwritten letter – the writing tiny, squeezed into tight lines on the page. I had to put my glasses on to read what it said. It was like secret script.

Handwriting and its language of cursive or plain letters, height of characters and slope of words were the foundation on which typography was based, of course.

And so now we speak in the language of typography and understand that capitals are boldness and italics being sloped give emphasis. And so we use curves and straight lines to indicate what comes from our heart and minds.

I haven’t received a handwritten letter for months and months and this one, (actual letter pictured above) from the mother of one of my dearest friends felt so loving and made me feel profoundly nurtured and supported.

There is an earnest civility in the handwritten letter. It was as though the ink was her life-force capturing her thoughts on paper through the lines and curves she made.

Writing by hand, perhaps with a favourite pen, is an act of simple bliss. And this simple bliss is shared since it’s also experienced by the recipient of our handwritten note.

Beautiful.

I must write more by hand. It is an absolute expression of individuality and creativity in one of its purest forms.  I must write letters in my hand, in my handwriting. For years I practised my handwriting so it was elegant and tall and I suppose I attempted to reflect in my handwriting the person I aspired to be. And so it has always been for people.

Let’s write more handwritten notes and letters and rejoice in the individuality that our writing demonstrates and the tiny things we give away about ourselves in the way we write, the whorls we add to consonants or the loops we like on ‘l’s” (do you know that smiley faces in ‘Y’ tails can indicate duplicity?).

Remember when you first learned your letters? The mastery of it all. I remember thinking it was utterly magical that lines and curves could be so very powerful in so many ways.

Look how beautifully Leah Dieterich uses her handwriting to create immediacy in her blog thx thx thx: a thank you note a day.

Image of Vintage French ephemera; newspapers, music sheets and postcards which are available from laPomme on Etsy.

03/09/2010 / 1 Comment

Being what you believe

You know how you can just be mooching about a website, aimless, (which is very nice) and something piques your interest and you have a closer look and next thing your mouth opens, you take a sharp intake of breath and suddenly the whole world is a more magnificent place?

This exquisite short film gorgeously directed by Pascal Perich with ‘Whispering Trees’ music composition by Marcy Hokama follows the beautiful gentle soul that is painter and sculptor, Jason Tennant who is such an inspirational example of being what you believe and aligning your life with your values that I wanted to share him with you.

Jason gathers vintage, sinewy remains of American Chestnut trees, cut in the 1930’s in an attempt to save the forest from blight, carries them in his arms back to his workshop cabin in the woods and then he honors these natural masterpieces with his potent artistic spirit, sculpting them into wildly majestic art.

“I look for really deep forests that look like they haven’t been tampered with for at least 50 years” says Jason. “I try to tell a story;  nature vignettes ….. I want to maintain a sense of wildness in my work.”

In this beautiful film, created for Etsy as part of its This Handmade Life series, Jason talks quietly about his ethos – in creating his “Nike of The Forest” series he says “the Greek Nike is one of my favorite gestures … it’s a hopeful choice, a triumph of the balance of humans and nature ….humans learning to respect nature so we can temper our greed, so we can maintain this beautiful planet for our children.”

Image, Nike of the Forest III, is borrowed from Jason’s Etsy shop – Available to buy! What a wonderful world we live in.

01/09/2010 / 5 Comments

Constraint, Freedom + The Big Adventure of Quitting my Day Job

[I’m beside-myself with excitement and joy to bring you a guest post by Andrea from ABCcreativity.

Andrea is the coach I most admire and appreciate on the internet today.  She seems to constantly create and share a beautiful, vibrating feeling of love and abundance, creativity and spirituality. I signed up for Andrea’s Creativity 101 e-course – it is spectacular (+free!) and her honey-voiced, guided meditations have reduced me to lovely, healing tears.

Andrea is an artist, a creative journaler, creativity workshop facilitator, meditator and coach. Please be good to yourself today and visit Andrea’s online place of miracles-waiting-to-happen-for-you, ABCcreativity.]

“What I love about Inner Wild Therapy is that the posts here flow into that deep space beyond words. Right now, The Case for Constraint is speaking to something deep inside me.

For several years as a struggling artist, I saw day jobs as the devil and did everything I could do avoid them. I would not be constrained.

I had no idea that the very thing I rebelled so much against, the day job, was the very thing that would move me forward and onward and into fabulous new worlds and experiences i couldn’t even see from my day job-less world.

When I got that day job, seven years ago, I swore it was only temporary.

But as I settled into the routine of an employed person, my creativity began to soar. Constrained, for sure. My days weren’t free for art anymore. But when it was time for art – I was focused. I was clear. I was more productive as an artist when I had a full time job! Who would have thought?

New art supplies. Courses. Retreats. Stability. Routine. Growth. The biggest constraint, the day job, turned into my best tool for creating a life that feels right for me. It was like a little incubator. And as I grew stronger and my creative work great bigger, the incubator got smaller and I shifted into part time work.

I am coming up to the part now where it’s time to let the day job go completely. To release the constraint and fly free. And this part is so much harder than I ever would have thought. Every day I am stunned about how much there is to process in letting this part of my life go.

This is it. Freedom. No constraints.

And I know I’m ready. Or I’m getting ready anyway. I’m planning to leave my job by the end of the year. But in the meantime I am so really fully completely aware of how beneficial the constraint has been. The safety and nurturing of it. The familiarity.

And then I get to this part in The Case for Constraint.

And that means our creative power can explode like a new universe from a black hole.

Well yeah. On the other side of the constraint there is this magnificent explosion of creative delight. That alone is worth going into a constrained period, isn’t it? To go from the grey office day job to having this as my workspace:

fabulous art room

Creative explosion of delight.

But really what it’s all coming down to for me is that this can’t be separated. Constraint and freedom are partners. I’ll always have both and how comfortable can I really get with that fact?

There are ebbs and flows. There is downtime. There are reasons to contract. Just like there are reasons to expand and create and enjoy. There has to be balance. All I can really do is listen to my life, listen to my heart, do my best to do what feels right and trust what shows up – if it’s constraint or freedom or success or stillness or a big mess or a totally amazing adventure.

xoxo

andrea”

Image “i know who i am” borrowed by me from Andrea’s Art Exhibit: “let’s all live happily ever after, a celebration of life, possibility and dreams about to come true” which I just discovered is on redbubble – available for sale as Greeting Cards, Matted Prints, Laminated Prints, Mounted Prints, Canvas Prints and Framed Prints. For stories about Andrea’s series of darling & inspiring paper dolls,  creativity blog, art journaling videos, online creativity workshops and guided meditations visit ABCcreativity.

26/08/2010 / 1 Comment

Wild is the wind ————> and so are you

Recommended: listen to David Bowie’s beautiful rendition of Wild is the Wind by Dimitri Tiompkin and Ned Washington while reading.

It’s so easy to forget about nature and the wild forces that are the backdrop to our tiny life plays and sit-coms.

We knew it was windy. We even heard the shipping forecast that morning spoken in hushed, hypnotizing tones telling of gale force 11 winds gusting to … something, I forget now. And out we went loving the gusting, the big breezes and the clouds spinning in the sky as though the universe in which our Earth resides was a centrifuge.

Off we went, skipping, to walk the dog with — what else but a huge, bright pink balloon? I made absolutely no connection at the time about the powerful affinity of the wind and a helium-filled balloon.

Let me introduce you to the balloon. My child had given it a name. I’ll just let that notion sink in for you. OK, it was called “Alice”. And Alice had already had many adventures as a balloon-person with a pink ribbon tail and a face drawn in black felt pen – it was a “she” and my child had chirruped various stories about Alice.

She was doing this when suddenly I heard “MY BALLOON!”. Balloon? Oh yes ‘she’ was a balloon and here she was, no – I mean there she WAS for now she was already metres up in the air and as I felt relief flood me that some angel had stopped my child from instinctively reaching for the escaping balloon and her pink ribbon which would have taken her onto the road, I also felt the rising of a quagmire of conflicting emotions.

It was exhilarating watching Alice the pink balloon with a felt-pen drawn face and pink ribbon zipping higher and higher, further and further away with a speed that had our mouths hanging open.

The wind. The wind had snatched Alice and she, so floatily, fit-to-bursting full of lighter than air helium was crescendoing with her natural element. We stared, we saw again the pale gray clouds slewing like a torrential, flooded river across a vast sky. Alice the balloon becoming smaller and smaller in our sight as she was carried by air currents higher and further away, away, away, northwards.

It was exhilarating to imagine how that must feel, to be in the wind and part of it, losing yourself to it, having no sense of where you end and the wind begins (I am an Air sign, can you tell?!) the freedom of flying with no attachment, being freed from a ribbon anchoring bond to earth via a child’s hand.

But it was also achingly sad. We were bereaved. We weren’t ready for Alice to go, to be snatched away so suddenly in her prime, not even a little deflated yet. A shock. Watching her, a lone, alone little balloon person in a vast sky of gray wind was stunningly upsetting. How awful it would be to be so alone in such vastness.

We stood and watched and in about a minute Alice was so far away she disappeared completely. Gone.

What would happen to her?

I will spare you the hideous thoughts of seals choking on a pink balloon burst on rocks in the North Sea or a small plane crashing because of a large balloon being sucked into an engine. I could make a very long list here of horrible consequences but notice I am not. That way desperate sadness lies.

And so  I brought all my snatched remembrances of Richard Bach’s Jonathan Livingstone Seagull to bear on the situation. Pink balloon named Alice not like a seagull at all but no matter!

I began a monologue about Alice dancing with the wild air currents, soaring and sliding, moving so fast she might make it all the way to Greenland, or Sweden, Norway or, if the wind changed direction, America even.

Alice was going wherever the wind took her, floating high and light and with no attachment whatsoever, the dangle of her pink ribbon a kite tail now. She was filled with air, like the wind, but helium weighs less that the wind I said.

My child was sad – but good, healthy sad. And she did not fixate on the balloon that was Alice nor the excitement of the wind and so it all seemed fine. Natural.

All things have their own lifetime, short or long and we need not grieve when they go for something else awaits to replenish our joy if we can but see it instead of staring too long after a disappeared balloon and wallowing in the torment of relating ourselves to imagined things like Alice’s situation, projecting our own neuroses on it with what might happen to Alice, for example, as though we were experiencing it ourselves. (This is one of the down-sides of having a well-honed creative imagination.)

The positive carefree soaring high was as powerful and real as the sad sense of bereavement and loss. Both are important emotions to feel and deserving of attention.

As humans we are made to, like flowers and plants, always turn to the sun; to please the mind with thoughts of wonderment and things that make us happy, to notice in things as bizarre as the sudden flight of a pink balloon named Alice with a felt pen face ways we can be braver, better and more inspired. And always know that nature is with us, helping us and showing us if we simply watch and allow ourselves to feel – to be like a beautiful balloon tossed and rushed by emotional forces, going with them, letting them blow all around us not matter how stormy or conflicted they feel because we are human and being human is a fine thing.

Image “Sending and Receiving” borrowed from Keith Dotson — Fine Art Photographs. Visit his Etsy Store for more beautiful images. Thank you for making the world more beautiful Keith.

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Flora Kennedy

Flora Kennedy

Author, poet, creative director

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inner wild therapy, breathe dearheart, breathe

Your inner wild might enjoy playing in the wilderness. We like wilderness, and wildness, around here ... don't we?

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