As I have done in the past I'll be taking a work break to rest, reflect, and renew. I have no grand plans but I am
looking forward to much lolling about time. What that will look like here is little vacation for five things friday. You will still find me about on Facebook,Instagram, and Threads as well as Patreon in case you want to see what I am up to.Â
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I hope next few weeks bring you much goodness, rest, and beauty. I will see you back here in your mailbox on July 12.
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Before I go I offer some thoughts and bits of magic about dream claiming. Please enjoy.
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1.
It is never too late for our younger selves' dreams to grow in our older lives.Â
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They may not take the form they might have if followed from a younger age, but if their essence is still calling they still have gifts waiting to be claimed.
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For me one of the dreams is being an artist. Spending May creating and sharing small bits of painting, dipping into art classes, asking myself what I most want to do with my life, I go back to younger me. The child who sat drawing and embroidering and crocheting, making things out of sculpting clay instead of playing outside with the neighborhood kids.
The teen who took college art classes and sewed her own clothes. The college student who hung out in the photography lab, was too shy to call herself an artist and declare an art major but did as much of the course work for it as she could anyway.
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Claiming a creative title, artist, writer, poet, dancer, etc. is often fraught with conflict and questions of talent. Am I good enough? Is
it ok? What if others laugh or think me pretentious? How will I be judged? It was enough to pull me away from my art major and into psychology, a safer route. I don't regret my psych or Gender Studies degrees, but I wish I could have chosen from an "and" place with art rather than an "or" place of pushing art to the margins.
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2.
Claim your titles. Even if you don't share them with the world, let your heart own them.Â
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Set your inner compass by them. I made my artist dreams small for a very long time. It is painful. As I wrote about last week, doubt will always come but you can give it a noble job to do. I didn't know this when I was younger and doubt ended up slaying my artist dreams trying to protect me.Â
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I am artist who also coaches and teaches and writes. Different than a coach and
teacher who also makes art. It is working that can be dismissed as silly semantics but the soul resonance is profound. It is a shift in self orientation. Do I have it all figured out, no. Will I introduce myself as an artist? I don't know, but my inner navigational compass is set differently and that is enough for now. The path will unfold from here.
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If you also have a secret identity, a
dream (creative or otherwise) you hold dear but are shy to announce, admit it inside the privacy of your own heart. Let it live there while looking for ways it can live out in the world. If you want someone know, tell me. Let me know. I'll keep it safe. I see you.Â
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3.
You know my love of Korean dramas
(thank you Netflix.) Â One I highly recommend on the theme of reclaiming lost dreams latter in life is Navillera.Â
A retired letter carrier decides to fulfill his childhood dream of learning ballet. Inspiring, heartbreaking, heart expanding, tender; a beautiful story of the resilience and courage called on in following a dream.Â
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Check it out, especially if you are having any kind of "it's too late" or "I will look foolish" thoughts. Especially if you love stories set in the dance world. Especially if you love a good mentoring story.
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4.Â
The life of an
artist is learning to live in the mess of creativity.Â
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Messy, unrestrained
discovery is happening in my not so tidy space. Creation requires breaking and building. Well organized and neat spaces are a joy but I can't seem to keep them that way even when I manage to get them there. I have shamed myself for a long time for not being able to keep my spaces orderly and then used it as a hurdle to stop creating.
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A birthday wish for
myself is to find peace with my disorderly ways. If they function for me, they work. If that means scraps of paper living on my art table and only occasionally bring corralled into a box instead of sorted by type, size and color, than so be it. Reminder: Working studios do not look Instagram or Pinterest ready.Â
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What permission does your creativity
need? What permission does the dream still hanging out in the corners of your yearning need? Please grant it to yourself.
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5.
A blessing for your week:
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(The Queer Tarot by Ashley Molesso and Chess Needham)
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May what has not come to be overshadow what is yet to become.
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Until next time, I'll be in lolling about in the mess and the joy of it all. See you soon, Sandi