Creativity Closet: The Why of It

 

Why create a Creativity Closet? Especially if one doesn’t believe that one is particularly creative? Imagination exists for lots of reasons, but it is the key element in growth and the forward movement known as progress. If we can imagine a thing, we can often find a way to create or do that thing.

Many of us resist the idea of our own creativity for numerous reasons. The first one might be the fear of failure, or of appearing foolish or untalented. We live in a world that is far more interested in product than process. What is the point of creating something that no one will use, or maybe even want? The process is often work and takes time as well as energy. The thought that others might not see value in our product can stop us cold from even beginning.

The process is a learning experience, and as such has far more value than any product produced. Fear of making a mistake, doing it wrong, can block not only the process but whatever might be learned within its boundaries. I am not just speaking here of learning how to make something, although that is one of the ultimate goals of the activity. There are life lessons to be learned and sometimes those lessons can’t be obtained in any other manner.

Very often, the creative process entails a repetitive action, something that has to be done again and again and simply takes time. That repetitive action, whether it is polishing, gluing, cutting, or whatever, allows the mind to roam free while the hands are otherwise occupied. It often becomes a form of active meditation and, it is during those periods when the subconscious can come forward and make connections.

I color with markers and artists pens. But, it is while I’m engaged in coloring that I have been able to piece together new perspectives concerning my personal life and experiences. The colors I choose often bring certain subjects to the fore and I am free to roam through those thoughts and feelings while thus engaged.

I obviously engage in journal writing on a daily basis. But there are times when I set out to write just to see where the words will take me. Writing is a creative process and as such employs that repetitive pattern that frees up my thought processes, often allowing me to find answers I didn’t even realize I was seeking.

I have written here about another new activity: doodling. Constructing an image one stroke at a time. Making lines and then connecting them in unusual ways to simply see where they will end up. It is both relaxing and quite satisfying, but also provides space for the connecting of thoughts and feelings that might not otherwise happen. Zentangles are fun, and no, they do not all turn out beautifully, but that isn’t the purpose behind doing them. They are actually meant to encourage creative flow and they do just that.

The most important reason for creating a Creativity Closet is to open the door to new possibilities. Letting ones imagination have free rein can offer new experiences and the material that dreams are made of. Far too many of us walk around angry and frustrated, wondering if this is all there is and why that is so. Never knowing that we ourselves might be the only thing blocking new experiences and adventures. If we think of ourselves as chained, held captive by our circumstances, that is exactly what we are. And no one can change that except us.

If that is our bottom line, others can make suggestions until they are blue in the face, and we will immediately find reasons (excuses) as to why those suggestions are impossible to fulfill, or follow through on. So it is up to us to open those doors that lead to our own personal freedom. It may take time and only occur in small little steps, but each step will take us farther and closer to that place we ultimately want to be.

A few months ago, I realized that I had very little mobility and it was utterly frustrating to know that. I began to think in terms of how I could change that reality. I started out thinking in terms of a scooter that would allow me to at least reach the stores and restuarants that are within close proximity.

Within a few hours, I will be registering the first car I have owned in five years, because my circumstances have changed. But, and this is important, those changes hadn’t really taken place in the mindset I had held before they occurred. That sounds like a tremendous leap in reality. It wasn’t. It occurred one step at a time while I was coloring, writing, and doodling.

The writing I do may never be more than my blogs, and may never be read by more than the few individuals who accidentally find this site. The images I create in color and with doodling may never find value in the eyes of others, but they have certainly produced far more than I could have dreamed before now. I now have the mobility I yearned for and lots of plans on how to use it. I no longer feel just this side of caged, nor am I dependent on the whims and schedules of those around me.

I am free to go where I want, when I want. What’s more, I am free to engage in other creative activities I, not that long ago, thought were utterly hopeless to even consider. My doodling and coloring had purpose and drive, a function I hadn’t considered possible. I thought I was just keeping myself busy so I wouldn’t explode because I felt so trapped. My Creativity Closet has become a priceless commodity, a treasure trove of ongoing possibilities.

It has changed my life and my awareness in ways that nothing else could. That is the why of it, its purpose and function. Have you opened that door to all of you possibilities?

Inspirational Source

 

When I first stumbled into the concept of a Creativity Closet, I had no real idea of what I might be getting myself into. As I said, in my last post, it was a spontaneous image and I could have just walked away after playing with it for a few minutes. Being me, that would have been difficult to do.

Imagery is symbolic and comes from the sub-conscious and thus, it holds all sorts of clues and messages. For instance, when I first entered that imaginary closet, it was filled with beautiful scarves of every conceivable color and design. Many were silk or silk-like, but others were wool, and even brocade. Scarves are obviously a fashion accessory, but they are also meant to protect the throat and the head from inclement weather.

That suggested, to me, that I needed to find a way to protect both my thoughts and expressions. At the time, I was keeping a journal and also submitting some of my poetry for publication. I had also discovered that my own feelings were often my biggest barrier in moving forward. I call it internal resistance to change, but you might want to define it for yourself in your own terms. We are most often, our own worse judges and enemies.

The closet was small because of my own experience with physical closets. I knew I needed more room to just move around and explore that space. I pushed back the walls to create a very large and open room and added lots and lots of windows for sunlight and access to the outdoors. I discovered two things in the process of doing that. The first one was that idea for the need to protect this space, and the second was that there was another backdoor in that room.

I have already written about the creation of my Personal Mythology. You can find an introduction to that in an earlier blog titled A Tiger Called Pain, and another of my blogs, http://intuitivepaths.wordpress.com. I had created, in my imagination, doors that allowed me to move in the four main directions: East being spiritual aspects, South for my Inner Child and Emotional Levels, West for the Unknown and Future, and North for the direction of Wisdom and Knowledge. I now asked four of the wild creatures from my Mythology to act as guardians and sentinels at these entrances to my Creativity Closet.

Each of those wild creatures has a name and a specific purpose and they were chosen with all of that in mind. Katherine, a Golden Eagle; Raffi, who was a solitary black Wolf; Tui, an imp of a Dragon with sparkling green and gold scales; and far from last or least, Jacob, an incredibly sensuous black panther. Outside of the windows were a constant flitting of Dragonflies. They are the Guardians and Keepers of the Dreamtime. In my mind, an absolute necessity for continuing creative flow and inspiration.

Once that was all in place, and it only took a few moments, I was free to go and explore what was on the other side of that back door. Another room, wood paneled and with a stone fireplace always lit with dancing flames (symbol of creative fire), several desks with writing tools and art supplies, and walls lined with books, a quasi-bibliophile’s greatest and deepest fantasy. And most important, yet another door to another room.

And so it went, each room led to another and another. Some were filled with hats that reminded me to stay mentally open and inquisitive, another with cooking utensils, and yet another with books that contained mental puzzles. One was filled with paper of different textures and patterns, an endless supply of source materials. Another with maps to all of the places I’d like to travel and visit.

That was thirty years ago and I am still exploring and hope that will never cease. That is what a Creativity Closet is meant to do and be, a constant ongoing source of inspiration, limited only by the imagination of the individual. Which means it can be, and is, limitless. It’s boundaries are only what you allow them to be.

It is also, I believe, a source of synchronicity, that energy that brings disconnected things and experiences together in the physical realm and let’s us know that we are on the right track. As I said in the preceding blog, my students often came back to tell me that they had ”happened upon” physical objects that they had first encountered within the Creativity Closet they had explored within the original classroom exercise.

One of the rooms, I explored, was filled with Tarot decks of different sizes and shapes, each with different images and creative expressions of those classic archetypal energies. That wasn’t a surprise to me as I had already begun using those images for self-exploration, rather than divination.

Within only a few days of that imaginary experience, I was at the new/used bookstore I managed, and a woman brought in a box of books she wanted to sell. Nestled at the bottom of the box was a boxed set of Tarot cards. It was done in Native American imagery (a deeply personal fascination), and intended for, or aimed at, the feminine gender. But the best part was that these cards had obviously never been used and were done in black and white, leaving them to be colored by the individual owner. Of course, I bought the lady’s books and took the Tarot cards home for myself. Oh, it also included a large book of explanations for each of the cards.

A much more recent example of this happened as I was writing this blog. I have recently been able to start thinking about going to the local University for classes. I can audit them as I am an alumni of the University and have wanted to do that for two years, but have not had the transportation necessary to accomplish it. That hurdle will be met within the coming week.

This morning as I was sitting here writing, I recieved two phone calls. Both were wrong numbers. The first, was a woman wanting information about continuing education classes. The second one, about forty-five minutes later, was a recording from the Continuing Education Dept. telling me the number I had to call to get the information I was seeking, lol. I haven’t requested any such information, but I certainly believe I am on the right track.

The Wild Child

In response to Claudette’s weekly writing challenge #12: Inspire
http://claudetteellinger.wordpress.com/

About fifteen years ago, when my middle daughter was still in high school and working part-time in the evenings, she came home from work exhausted, one night, and was complaining that she had to watch a video for her sociology class the next day. I volunteered to stay up and watch it with her, and perhaps discuss some of it so she’d have some ideas for the next day’s class.

I had no idea what the contents of the video were. It was about a young girl, age thirteen, who had been discovered after being isolated in an upstairs back bedroom since her birth. She had spent most of her days tied to a potty chair, and her nights tied into a sleeping bag in a crib that was completely enclosed by wire mesh. Her father had decided that was the best way to deal with her after doctors told him that his newborn daughter might be retarded.

She had not been taught how to speak, walked with a strange gait, and was a dark-haired pixie who looked about eight years old. The video was her story and how she became the center of a dispute between linguists and researchers over the idea that children, once past puberty, couldn’t learn language. I was completely captivated.

I had recently committed myself to a daily writing regimen. I had done that many times over the years, but always, at some point, dropped the commitment when life became too busy or complicated to continue. Genie, so named by her caregivers, became the inspiration that kept me on the page, kept me writing day after day, week after week, and still doing so after all of these years.

Back then, I already knew that researchers had found that an infant who fails to bond with a parent figure, did not flourish, and many died because of that lack of bonding. It fascinated me that this child, without any form of regular stimulation had survived at all. She hadn’t flourished, but she had survived. And her presence inhabited my daily pages for months after watching the video.

Obviously, I began to relate and identify with her and her story, exploring some of the psychological issues that arose around her person. I love language and communication. Here was a child that had been utterly deprived of both, and yet she continued, albeit, in a somewhat stunted manner, but her eyes danced with intelligence and an eagerness to explore her brand new world.

While focusing on Genie, I became aware of other similar stories reaching back in time. Mythology tells us about Romulus and Remus, the twins who founded and built Rome and, we are told, were fed and raised by a female wolf. The Wolf Boy, in France of the 1800’s. And even more recently, last week, the report of three Austrian children kept in a basement with their mother for over twenty years.

They, and Genie, are defined as feral children, thus The Wild Child. Their prognosis isn’t a good one, and their stories are sad and painful to read. Completely cut off from the socialization process, they develop coping mechanisms that have little to do with living within a community and everything to do with moment to moment survival. The movie Nell, starring Jodie Foster is a fictionalized version with at least a somewhat happy ending.

My major question, in the midst of my exploring, was what did Genie do to survive? How did she exist from one moment to the next in her silent tied up world? The only tool she had was her own mind and her imagination. Did she create a world separate from this one and go there in order to pass the time? I think that is exactly what she did.

But, Genie is now in her fifties, and although she did learn some language skills and sign language, she was eventually passed through several foster homes, sometimes abused, and finally ended up in an institution for adults unable to care for themselves. You can read more about Genie and other feral children by simply googling Genie or The Wild Child.

As I said earlier, I did eventually relate and identify with Genie. Especially with the idea of using the imagination to create coping mechanisms. Some of my own experiences, related in past posts, include aspects of my own adventures in that arena, especially in the area of spontaneous imaging. I not only incorporated them into my own life, but once I started teaching, used many of them in my classroom.

Here, within this blog, I have written several articles about the Wild Thing that lives in each of us. Those pieces and parts of us that get silenced or cut off during the socialization process. Many of which actually form the basis of continued creative energies seeking some form of outlet. If allowed to speak, they can and do provide a richness to the texture of our lives that might otherwise never be explored, let alone utilized. And, perhaps more important, may become the gifts we can share with our world.

I have also written here, of friends who are Multiples, suffering from DID (Dissociative Identity Disorder), or what used to be defined as Multiple Personality Disorder. These individuals are dealing with life as did Genie and all other feral children, by creating coping mechanisms that allow them to survive in a world that is often hostile and brutal. And like Genie, they have much to offer for inspiration.

Genie’s story doesn’t have a happy ending, like that of Nell. But it does point out the very real fact that there is much to be learned from taking the time to explore and investigate these very real stories and how they pertain to all of us as human beings. What we find can change the way in which we perceive and interpret our own little pieces of reality.

For me, Genie will always be a cornerstone of inspiration. She has taught me a great deal and continues to do so. There are those who might define her as somehow invalid. Of no value to society or to herself. I would strongly disagree. Personally, I find her story, her very existence,  absolutely priceless.

Holes in The Soul

 

She pictures the broken glass
pictures the steam
pictures a soul
with no leak at the seam
                                       __Peter Gabriel
                                            Mercy Street

Several months ago, I told my counselor about a dream I’d had many years ago, in which I was shown a piece of fabric with assorted sized holes cut in it, and was told, in the dream, that I was looking at my soul. I told her how, with the help of my daughter, I’d found a way to change the end of the dream by mending the holes in the dream fabric. It is an imaging technique I created to deal with dream material.

As far as I’m concerned, dreams are messages from my subconscious mind, and they pertain to my life, how I am traveling through it, my emotional states, activities I’m involved in, and yes, even the state of my soul. Those messages come in a different language than the one used by the conscious mind. They are not conveyed in logic or language, so much as in connective links of images that I can associate with my own person.

In the dream, someone threw that piece of material in a dark corner behind the front door, before leaving and walking out of my life. After picking up the piece of material, holding it in my hands,  and seeing its condition, I awoke slowly. As I was waking from the dream, becoming consciously aware, a voice in my head simply said, “That is your soul, Elizabeth.”

My soul was in pretty bad shape. Dust clung to it, from that dark corner where it had been tossed and the assorted holes, cut through most of the material made it appear as flimsy as waste material or cheese cloth. The semi-conscious voice and its alarming message still rang in my ears. This was serious business.

At the time, my oldest daughter was living with me, and I immediately called her into my room and related all of the details of the dream that led up to its ending and that deep male voice and its disturbing message. We had worked out a technique to deal with dreams, so she gave me very simple instructions, “Describe the material, see how it looks in your hands, just as it appeared in the dream. How does it appear, feel, and how does its appearance makes you feel now as you look at it?”

It didn’t make me feel very good. My soul was in tatters. She then asked me what I thought I could do about it. I told her, I obviously couldn’t toss it in the garbage, it was my soul, for goodness sake. I would have to figure out a way to repair it, mend it, if possible. She then asked me to close my eyes and see if I could see myself doing that and tell her what I saw. I did.

I saw my hands smooth out the material, then go in search of another fabric that would at least match the square I was holding. I found one with a particular pattern and in a contrasting color and then watched my hands pick up a needle and thread and begin to patch each hole separately until they were all mended. Satisfied, we both went on with our regular routines.

What we did, was respond to the message inside the dream, actually changing the end of the story in the dream to one that was far more satisfying and that made sense of the story. We did that in the same language that the dream had suggested, using the images from the dream itself.  In other words, we gave back images that could be easily understood within the context of the dream and could be similarly interpreted, and thus, acted on.

Not every dream image is as easily interpreted as these were, nor do they come accompanied by a waking voice that clearly identifies them. I am using this dream as an example because all of us, in the course of our lives, do encounter differing degrees of pain. And the pain that we experience does cut and rip holes in our souls. To be whole and healthy, we need to mend those holes, or might be in danger of tossing our souls in the garbage.

We mend those holes by finding a way to express our story. Writing it down is one way, painting it, sculpting it, dancing through those feelings, carving them out in wood, or other materials, are just other forms of expression. There are innumerable ways of expressing those things that left unattended will, and do, poke holes in our souls of well being.

The subconscious mind is a wondrous thing. But it is also a wilderness to a logic oriented mindset. It does have a voice and will speak through dreams, both waking and sleeping. When I later went back and explored the material I had chosen to mend the fabric in my dream, I found more and deeper connections in the pattern on that material. It all pertained to me and the manner of my life and experiences. And all of this took place spontaneously inside my own imagination.

I did not set out to find a physical solution to the message within the dream. I found an image that went directly back to my subconscious mind and simply went on with my life as I knew it. In the years since then, I have discovered many ways in which to mend those holes. Each and every one of them is a creative element meant to heal and strengthen the broken places inside of me. That is what creative energy is, a healing agent built directly into the system.

As I stated before, our subconscious mind is a wilderness, and within that wilderness are the living, breathing, Wild Things born out of our pain as we experience our lives on a daily basis. I wrote about one of mine in my last blog. The imagery I learned how to use thirty years ago, is another element of the subconscious mind and it is what I mean when I speak about waking dreams. One uses the exact same equipment to visualize as is used to project dream images on the screen of the sleeping mind.

I am not speaking only of physical pain. We also experience mental, emotional and spiritual pain. Obviously my spiritual pain was deep enough that it spoke (maybe yelled) at me through a dream in which I was graphically shown the holes in my soul. By changing the end of the dream, incorporating a healing solution, I changed the end of my own story. The individual portrayed in the dream as walking out that door, has now walked back into my life, years later, and I can greet her with a healed and intact soul. That is what I call good therapy. And my counselor agrees.

A Tiger Named Pain

Writer’s Island Prompt #10  “MOST AMAZING EXPERIENCE”

Pain is the shell that encloses your understanding.    __Kahlil Gibran

Thirty-plus years ago, I gave birth to my fourth and last child. She was beautiful and healthy, but I seemed to be in almost constant pain after bringing her home. I’d had arthritic pain since age 17, always in different joints, most consistently in my lower back and hips. This was different. It seemed to concentrate in my hands and the joints of my fingers. I was tired most of the time. When the pain continued, I made an appointment with my regular doctor.

He took x-rays and told me he thought I had Rheumatoid Arthritis. I went blank as he explained to me that this form of arthritis was painful and crippling. I remember going directly to the library after leaving his office. After finding, and checking out, four large books on Arthritis, I brought them home and attempted to read them. It didn’t go well. Each of the tomes had a chapter on Rheumatoid, and each of those chapters began with exactly the same sentence: Rheumatoid Arthritis is the most painful and crippling form of this illness.

I carried the four books back out to the car and drove into town to the library, dropping them, one at a time, in the outside drop box. They made a resounding thud when they landed. I drove home in a fog. The doctor had given me a prescription for an anti-inflammatory drug and I began taking it immediately. Although the pain diminished to some extent, it was always there, and the exhaustion never really lifted. Most evenings, after cleaning up the kitchen, and putting the kids to bed, I would drop into the rocker in the living room and just sit there, feeling whatever energy I might still retain, oozing away, as though dripping off my fingertips.

My husband told me that he felt really cheated by the diagnosis. When I asked him to explain, he told me that he felt that he’d been cheated out of a full partner, and might now be saddled with a cripple. If I wasn’t suffering from what has been termed the after baby blues, I was definitely dealing with a lot of depression. I took my medication regularly and also took time out to take warm baths because they relaxed and soothed me.

Meanwhile, I was trying to get on with resuming a rather hectic life. I had always been a veracious reader and continued to do just that. I was interested in a wide variety of reading material and much of it pertained to psychology and the spiritual aspects of life. In doing that reading, I had come across the idea of creating ones own personal space inside ones own being. At that point in time, I desperately needed just such a place and began to seek it actively.

My two youngest were only fifteen months apart in age, so when they went down for an afternoon nap, I would go in my bedroom, sit crossed legged on my bed, and actively seek to create an inner space that would allow me to rest, relax, and possibly refuel. After many attempts, I settled on an image that both pleased and refreshed me. I would watch myself walk through an open, but very old wooden gate into a small meadow dotted with wild flowers and tall grass. There was a path there, through the grasses, that led to a huge boulder. I would climb up onto the boulder and sit, again crossed legged, and just breathe.

Once atop the boulder, I could see for miles. There were no signs of habitation anywhere in view, but there was a fast running wide river and mountains in the distance on the other side of the river. I was pleased with my creation, and got so good at it, that there were moments when I would feel the breeze caress my skin, and could even smell the faint scent of fresh earth, flowers, and even the water. And when I left that inner space, to resume my physical existence, I actually felt rested and more peaceful for having been there.

Then, one day, he came. I was in my usual spot, atop the boulder in my imagined inner space, looking out at the beautiful landscape when my eye caught movement in the tall grasses down near the river. The grasses seemed to be swaying from side to side, as though bowing to whatever was passing there in their midst. I was mesmerized and watched as he stepped from the grasses to the foot of the boulder where I was sitting. A larger than life, fully grown Siberian Tiger.

Amazingly enough, I wasn’t in the least bit frightened. I knew that this was taking place in my imagination, but I had always had a great deal of admiration for the Big Cats. No visit to the zoo was complete without a long slow stroll past their habitats. To me, they were the epitome of power and grace welded together in extraordinary physical beauty. So, I eagerly leaned forward and said, “Oh, yes. You are perfect,” and then grinned like a kid set free in a candy store, preferably in the chocolate section.

He gracefully settled on his back haunches and then spoke. He didn’t move his mouth, but spoke quite clearly into my mind. “I have come of my own accord, and at no ones bidding. I have come to teach and you will not treat me like your pet dog. I come of my own choosing, sent by the one you call Lord.” Then just as gracefully, he lowered the rest of his incredibly beautiful body, closed his eyes, and went to sleep.

I was stunned and past exhilaration. I wanted to jump up and down, hug myself, and ask him a thousand questions. What he’d said sounded a great deal like some sort of rabbi riddle. What was his name? Where had he come from? If he came at his own choosing, why did he say he  “was sent?” Why would I even think of treating him like my dog? I loved my pet, but this was way beyond anything even similar to that.

Over the next few days, I went eagerly to my secret place, always hoping he’d still be there, and he was. I did ask a great many questions, but his answers were again, more riddle than clear statement. He continued to tell me he had come from a long way away, a far off place that I wouldn’t understand. When I asked about his name, he avoided giving me a direct answer, and said instead, that I might call him, “ by the lesson he came to teach.”

By the third evening after his arrival, although I was still eager and even excited, I had begun to think this was a useless waste of energy. I couldn’t understand, either because I was just too dumb, or because he wasn’t a very good teacher. I began to prepare yet another warm bath, when suddenly he was there in the room with me. His voice was deep but gentle as he said, “I come to teach you about pain.”

I recoiled away from him and the words he spoke. How could he, the most beautiful and graceful creature, teach me about pain? He had said I was to call him by the lesson he came to teach. How could anyone expect me to call him by that word? Was this whole thing just some sort of cosmic joke played out at my expense? I was instantly crushed and wounded. I said, with deep deep sorrow and regret, “I think you better go now. I have enough pain in my life as it is, I don’t want or need any more.” I was in tears.

He said, just as quietly, “Do you remember when I came? How joyous and eager you were? Would that all would greet me in such a manner. ” There was deep sorrow in his eyes and his voice as he said that. Then he continued, “If you say I must go, I will do so, but I would ask you a question before I leave.” He paused, then asked,  ”You would put away all of that joy and eagerness because of  four simple letters, arranged in a random manner, defining a word you may not clearly understand?”

By then, I was sitting down on the floor, tears rolling softly down my face, but I heard his question. He hadn’t shouted, hadn’t raised his voice, but those words were caught forever in my mind. I thought about what he said, and what he meant. No, I didn’t understand, not the word, its meaning to my present life, who or what he might be, or why he had so suddenly appeared in my mind. And how bereft I felt at the thought of never again, seeing him, even if only in my imagination.

After a great deal of thought, during which he waited silently and patiently, I slowly nodded my head and said, “Okay, yes, you can stay.” And he did, teaching me many lessons about pain. One of them is here on this blog. It’s the story of the little seed (Story Time, Sept.23, 2008), and I learned that story as I weeded the huge garden my husband had planted, with my dog following along slowly beside me, and Pain’s deep gentle voice accompanying me the entire time.

He has never left me and has taught me many things and in many ways. I had always thought that the tigers I saw at the zoo, suffered a great deal from their captivity. Just looking at them, I could see how their skin was slack, hanging from their bellies and had thought it was because, in captivity, they couldn’t run freely and so their skin and perhaps, even some muscle had gone slack in the process. Not so. That is a natural condition, meant to secure life and help in survival. Big cats are predators and that means they hunt to live, battling other wild creatures for the very food that will sustain them. That slack skin and fur is meant to preserve and protect vital organs during that continuous battle. I had to learn the same lesson:  not to live so close to my skin and the skin (surface) of my own life.

I did get a second opinion from a Rheumatologist. He took magnified x-rays of my hands and found no distortion of any kind, which would definitely appear if I had Rheumatoid. He suggested that I might be suffering from a sleep disorder that actually mimics arthritis conditions in lab tests. My own doctor said that that sounded fishy. But the pain did diminish to its usual, and mostly, tolerable level.

Several years later, I entered college and took some basic courses in psychology. One of them was about different personality theories, and the men who had defined them. One of those men was Carl Gustav Jung, and I read about how he felt that each individual actually held a ‘guru’ within their psyche. A voice that spoke to the answers we all search for. But, a voice that could only be heard if one got still and quiet in some form of meditation. I knew my guru, he didn’t look like a Tibetan monk, he was a huge Siberian Tiger, named Pain.

While I taught for several years, I actually led groups of people through imaging techniques that I had come to understand were called “spontaneous imagery,” or “guided imagery.” Imagine my surprise, when one night after class, a shy quiet woman approached me with a question. She said that while following the sound of my voice, really getting into her own inner space, she was shocked to find herself, face to face with a great big tiger. She wanted to know if that was okay, and if it was, what she should do next? I laughed out loud, told her of my own experience,  and advised her to go home, get quiet, and ask him his name.

Map of Awareness

 

In a recent blog, I used the phrase map of awareness, and its been circling around inside my head ever since. I’m not aware of having ever used the phrase before, so it intrigues me that it sort of just slipped out and was so appropriate for what I was discussing. I even made an actual note of it in a notebook I keep near at hand to jot down just such phrases, ideas, questions that need further investigation, and tidbits I might want to use at a later time.

That little notebook could easily be seen as a type of map of awareness. Not sure anyone else could follow that map and arrive at any distinct destination, because what is there, are just notes, a few words to remind myself of things that have caught my interest, if even only for a moment. They are mile markers made exclusively for myself.

I have, most recently, spent some amount of time telling you a big piece of my personal story. That too, is a type of  map of awareness. I used it as an example to underscore and explain my own thoughts about the Wild Things that come to reside within any given individual. One can readily know a lot of things, but that is not the same as being aware of how those things connect one to another. My journal pages are my map toward awareness, the specific points of interest I choose to write on any given day, the ones that seem of importance to me at the moment of writing the page itself. They are, in effect, more extensive notes than those which I keep in that notebook I just mentioned.

My journal pages are filled with emotions about the things I’ve had, or made, contact with in the previous twenty-four hours. They often include colors, smells, detailed images, weather reports, both inside and out, and the way in which I have come to certain conclusions about situations and people. They are a record of the input of my senses as I travel through my life and existence. And yes, some of them are of absolutely no importance to me or anyone else. So why do it at all? Mainly because not all of them have a lack of value in the building of my awareness.

Do you remember the four steps in the learning process (Sept. 7, of this blog)? The second step: We find out what we didn’t know, is that step into awareness, the beginning of that map I am speaking about. Awareness is the first step toward actual knowing and understanding. Without it, we can, and sometimes do, walk through our own lives, without any knowledge of who we are, let alone where we might be going. That, for me, is a very uncomfortable thought.

It immediately reminds me of that first day I came home from the hospital, and found out that nothing would ever be the same. I was changed, and all the rules had been changed about how I belonged inside of that picture called home. Mainly, what I recall is that feeling of deep loss and total disorientation. And those feelings didn’t disappear. On some levels they became a part of my person, affecting the shape and form of my personality that was still developing at the time. A very deep need to know and to understand was born inside of me that day. A Wild Thing, desperate to regain that secure sense and deep desire of knowing that I belonged.

I used the word desperate because it is the only one that fits. I became the little girl with all of the questions. Constantly asking about all things in an attempt to put them in their proper places, and to regain some control.  So, all of that seems pretty natural under the circumstances, doesn’t it? Why would I define it as a Wild Thing? Because I grew up, on the tail end of that generation that expected well behaved children to not question what they were told, but simply accept whatever was handed down to them by the all-knowing adults within their environment.

In a very real sense, my personal need of the moment, became one of the Wild Things inside of me. My questing was often frowned upon, dismissed, even ignored, and on occasion, was actually answered by more telling questions. “Why would you ask such a thing, where did you get such a weird idea, or what would make you ask about such utter nonsense?” I learned through those actions, to still and silence many of the questions I was seeking answers for, inadvertently developing yet another need, that one for reassurance.

I had been through surgery, head surgery. My sense of loss was far deeper because of my own lack of understanding. I had had a hole in my head that was patched up, then sewn permanently into my person. What had escaped through that hole? What had seeped out while the doctors had debated about just what they could do to alleviate the problem I had created on that snow-filled afternoon of play with my younger sister? I had, in essence, become a complete question mark to my own person. That is not a place I would wish on anyone.

Many other issues arose from that first step in my developing awareness. Issues that also became Wild Things kept within the confines of the wilderness of my imagination. And please remember, there is nothing so imaginative, or creative, as a four year old child. Nothing.

That was the beginning of my map of awareness. I have backtracked over it, exploring the mile markers that I left in one form or another, on countless numbers of occasions. And inside of that process, I have been told that I think way too much, get way too deeply involved in introspection, know nothing of value or worth because it is all subjective conjecture, and have been called dumb, scatter-brained, and even a liar, completely out of touch with any form of reality.

Many of those things were no more than careless words, thrown out to stop me from exploring my world on the only terms I had at my disposal. Those terms were a mind, a physical brain that had endured a hell of a wallop, and might prove to be defective at any moment. That might actually prove itself to be nothing more than a Wild Thing, needing to be caged, contained away from polite and acceptable society. Oh, my.

My map of awareness has led me to the Wild Things that inhabit my own inner wilderness. A wilderness I share with every thinking, breathing human being that exists on the face of the earth. That wilderness may be as different, as diverse, as the number of those individuals. But, I doubt that, because I am aware of meeting similar Wild Things throughout my journey. Each of them has a story to tell, and they do, expressing it in whatever manner they have developed within that wilderness we share called imagination.