Emotional journey

Another journey over the weekend. Emotional journey. From the depths of despair to an excited buzzing brain.

For the first time in five years I’ve felt depression lurking. But for now I’ve headed it off.  When one has suffered depression, or generally has a pessimistic outlook, it is quite amazing how skewed the thinking can be. Well I am speaking for myself here, not necessarily others.

I had looked on the years 2001-2006 inclusive as barren, wasted years. Why? Because I had no lover or love interest in this time. I was shutdown emotionally. However, looking back the other night I realised what an incredibly personally creative period it was for me. I started painting, I self published a travel memoir and a book of digital art, I created the digital art, I entered photos and short stories in competitions (and this is the first time I’ve actually completed my short stories). I started a novel (ok still nowhere near complete). I took lots of video footage and created some little clips (of India, Nepal and Tibet). I was project manager for an educational video for which I wrote scripts… the output of all this is in evidence in my own home but I tend to overlook it. And at work in this timeframe I worked on designing and developing a  lot of eLearning materials.

Taking a more realistic look at the past decade or so has helped me recognise how far I have come, both in my thinking and attitudes and in developing my creativity. All is not lost.

Three Cs

Art

I’ve created a new page called Gallery (for you Bekki ). This contains some of my art work – both digital and paint. The paintings have been photographed and have not turned out too well unfortunately. I work in oils and acrylics on canvas mostly.

I am NOT an artist. I am a writer. I potter with paints because I love the tactile expression, I love colour and texture and shape. I am a visual person. I can never capture what I see in my mind on the canvas – and to me a true artist can do that. So I play with the medium as another outlet for creativity. Sometimes words are not enough for me (!!!!! did I really say that!!!!) I am never satisfied with the results of my painting. Anyway feel free to take a look.

Zen state

Last night was my weekly meditation/study group. How I enjoy those sessions. I get a lot out of them and find myself mentally challenged and stimulated by the Ageless Wisdom materials.

I got a wider sense of where I may fit into the scheme of things last night. I can glimpse the part I may be able to play. The more I study and read, the more I realise my intuitive insights match what I’m reading. Ideas that I have in my mind are there in black and white on the page. I didn’t read them first – I intuited them. At the conference in Arizona I was amazed to hear someone make a comment on something that wasn’t recorded in the books that exactly fitted with my own views. (It was about the internet being the externalisation of the planetary brain – the internet being unknown at the time the books were written. But I had come to that conclusion myself some years ago, and to hear it stated as a fact thrilled me).

Then this morning at work I participated in one of those ‘personality profiling’ sessions. You know, the ones that lump everybody into one of four boxes? The thing I found most interesting about the session was watching the interactions and reactions of the presenter to the participants. She did not practise what she preached at all I found that very entertaining and amusing. I have to admit to challenging her a bit on one or two points (well I did come out as the dominating personality type!) The test suggested I was a double extrovert whereas I know I have a very strong introverted side. It all seemed a bit trivial and banal to me. And not entirely accurate or useful.

This evening I went to the opening of an art exhibition. The paintings had a strong Celtic theme which I loved, and the artist was interesting to talk to – she has travelled a lot in Ireland/Scotland. I met a friend and she introduced me to some others and I had some interesting conversations which was nice.

Weekend ahead – a few plans so not a lonely one. It is P’s birthday and he is going out to dinner with his family and a few friends but I am not invited. Normally I have no wish to participate in his social life but I must admit missing his birthday gives me a pang. Never mind, all part of the letting go process I’m sure.

So what do you all have planned for the weekend? I hope it is a good one for you all. I bought some 3d paints (!!) in the shop below the art gallery tonight and am hoping to do some painting over the weekend. I have a huge back room here that is my ’studio’ – no furniture, just easel, a few tables and benches and my art materials. I haven’t painted much in the year I’ve been in this house. But the urge has come upon me again – I am in a creative streak at the moment and want to capitalise on it. I am thinking of turning my diamond ring poem into a painting.

I remember one Easter quite a few years ago I painted several Celtic mandala paintings. I remember it totally engrossed me for the entire four day weekend and I didn’t go out or see anyone the whole time. I felt I’d been in a deep meditation for the entire time so engrossed was I in the task. I love that feeling and don’t experience it often enough. Writing, creating multimedia, painting – these are some of the activities that can affect me this way. Creative, problem solving activities. I need to do more of this. I write when I am unhappy or moving through things – it helps me process. But I only paint when I am in a reasonably good place. I’ve not been in a good place much this past year but I am doing ok right now. Bring on those paints!

Edge of Love

Yesterday I went to the movies. First I went and had a massage and then took myself to see Edge of Love. I loved the film and came out of the cinema in that state I love – when you are still psychologically engrossed in the movie. I walked along the wet, cold street half believing I was in war torn London.

Films and books about creative people (especially writers) always catch my imagination. Anything deep and a bit dark appeals to me. Writers are often not ‘normal’ people – they live their lives on the edge and connect with meaning in a way others may not. I relate to this strongly.

The film is based on events in the life of the poet Dylan Thomas although he is not really the central character in the movie at all. Complex and passionate lives intertwined in events far from normal even in WWII. Stories like these feed something deep within me. I have never wanted an ordinary life – I always yearned for excitement, drama, intensity, passion. Instead I mostly found depression and anguish. Still there is something about pain that makes you feel alive.

Walking along those streets alone in the darkening evening I remembered all that intensity I always felt – that longing for a life that was different from those I saw around me. That longing for a deep, intense, passionate love affair with everything. And above all to create – to express myself through words. I also reconnected with the first career I wanted – to be an actor. I still think that would have been a good outlet for my psyche.

To create, to live and to love fully – must be the most important things in life. Sometimes I get lost in a smothering blanket of mediocrity and that is why I have spent so many years depressed. Life has never lived up to my expectations of what it could be. And I take full responsibility for that – nobody and nothing else is to blame. I have settled for mediocrity in my life through fear and ignorance.

The urge I had to come straight home and start writing… but alas I was due at my parent’s place for dinner. By the time I got home the mood had passed of course. But if I cannot act, I can at least write. Write my way into life, into love, into existence. Writing is a compulsion for me, I never go anywhere without a pen and notebook. My shelves groan with journals going back 30 years.

I’ve always dreamt of publishing a novel one day. Or writing a screenplay. That has gone on the back burner many times. I even have a novel in progress. But I am also a creature of impulse and find the hard yakka of turning my idea into a piece of art too hard to sustain. I lack the discipline and interest.

Again yesterday I was put in touch with the power of creating – and how that can be the very life blood of our lives. Why am I always yearning for an ordinary, normal life (whatever that might be?) when for so long I abhorred the very idea. It has made me who I am today. Complicated. Not really very stable and grounded. Intense and deep and dark at times. Is it any wonder no man wants to take me on?

It isn’t just going to be about finding love for me – personal romantic love. I have to create as well. I was born to create. Perhaps I need to find a creative partner – then we can feed off each other, spring boarding to higher states of being.

Emotional nourishment

I indulged myself last night and watched ‘The English Patient’ on dvd. I love that film.

It fed me. It nourished me. It is a way for my deep, dark emotions to come out and play for a while. They  relate and respond to the unfolding drama. Just finally accepting that this is a basic need for me makes me feel so much better somehow.

I felt good after the movie which was a pleasant outcome. I did cry of course, but not as much as I usually do. Often after this sort of film I’m left craving that passion and intensity in my own life. For the first time I could watch the intense love and sex scenes and know, through direct experience, what that passion is like (thanks, P). Instead of yearning after it, I could identify and go ‘yes’! That was actually very healing for me.

I tend to steer clear of watching these intense and tragic films too often because they can take me over in some way – affect my moods and thoughts. Last night I was under control – not possessed by the story. I must admit to a bit of confusion over the place of my deep, dark emotions. Sometimes they don’t seem particularly ’spiritual’ or dedicated to the highest good.  But then I figure I was born with this set of emotions and they are there for a reason. And I think part of the reason is that I need to use them to tell stories.

Every time I watch a movie like The English Patient, I just feel deep in my soul that I should be doing things like that. Telling stories of emotion and passion but also of redemption and healing and higher things.

I had the urge to put my deep emotions into some story form again. I’ve wanted to be a writer for a very long time. That took over from the youngster who wanted to be an actor. Finding a way to express these deeper parts of myself not just through a relationship but through my work is becoming very important to me.

My favourite films are the tragic deep ones that I can lose myself in – The English Patient, Moulin Rouge, Shakespeare in Love, Titanic. Common theme – intense passion, ultimately thwarted.  I  realised last night that I don’t need to take that on as the theme for my own relationships – which is what I’ve tended to do of course. Just because I love and relate to the emotion in these movies, doesn’t mean I need to act them out in my own life. If I can channel that intensity into a creative endeavour then I can free myself to have the good, committed relationship without the unhappy ending.  I’d never thought of it like that before. And, as an example of a happy ending – I love The Lord of the Rings trilogy and that ends happily for Aragorn and Arwen, and for Eowyn and Faramir. Happy couples. Not without their share of sorrow and tragedy along the way mind you! So a happy ever after ending is possible.

Grace, at the Wild Pomegranate, wrote about following your bliss. I asked her how to find your bliss. She replied, in part, “What it is that you do that – when you do it – you totally lose track of time and yourself in the process?”

I’ve looked at that idea several times over the past year. I made a list:

• deep in a good book that I never want to end
• watching a good movie (I love it when you come out of the movie theatre and are still ‘in’ the world of the film and you look around and go ‘where am I?’ In fact I sometimes would come out of the movie theatre thinking I WAS the main character and would be seeing things through her eyes. That is why I love going to the movies by myself – being with someone else just intrudes on that feeling)
• drawing/painting a watercolour picture of Aoraki/Mt Cook in NZ by the side of the Hooker trail
• creating an animated video/CDROM on a topic of great interest to me
• spending one Easter designing and painting celtic mandalas
• creating the reflections series of digital artworks from my photography
• downloading and editing video footage of India, Nepal and Tibet
• writing emotional content or on topics of interest to me – via blogging, journalling, essays or in story form

The key with the ‘active’ tasks was they were creative but focussing in on detail and problem solving. And all of these occasions involved creativity and visualisation and imagination. That’s where my bliss is.

Again I am wondering if I should do some sort of screenwriting course so I can actually develop a proper script/screenplay. Screenwriting and directing are areas that appeal to me.

I’m not just talking about making films here. My scope includes multimedia in all forms. And I’ve never ruled out the idea of writing a novel (I’ve one I’ve been working on since 2000).

Deva play

Why do I take photographs? Why do I write? I long to create, to capture in creative form the world as I experience it. Tonight I feel a measure of peace. I am back from my evening walk. The struggle will continue but for now I am at rest. A pause in the chaos of living.

It is through creative endeavour that I feel I connect with others and with the universe. I feel a connection with these plants when I try to capture their essence. I sense, subliminally, the devas calling me to play, to take their image and keep it forever. This particular lantana bloom has long since died but it lives on in this photo and in my soul. I’ve experienced it and it has become a part of me. It always was a part of me. For this bloom and I are connected in ways I cannot even begin to imagine.

Next time you are outside stop for a while. Pause beside a tree or a flower. See if you can sense the deva – the underlying energy or being that vivifies that plant. See the vibrant colours, inhale the wonderful scent, touch the rough bark or the velvety petals. Close your eyes. Can you hear the deva asking you to play?