Alysse Aallyn

Tag: #Art

  • Inspired Pleasure – the dance diaries of Alysse Aallyn

                     Party Castle – 3 Feb 79 11:30 AM

                                         We did it – moved into the Queens Chapel Road house though nothing is organized yet.  My study is the nicest room in the house – a whole wall of huge windows – sunlight always blazing in.   I covered the walls with my pictures and they fit perfectly – leaving one wall empty for a big corkboard.

                                        Guess who showed up to help us move?  Ryder! 

    He brought his “girlfriend”,  plus a huge bucket of Kentucky Fried Chicken and a large bottle of Irish Mist. Girlfriend a shocker – little nursy mousebird of a woman!   After all the hell he gave me, this is who he ends up with.  

    His sexual revolution is over – single shot fired.

                                         Went to see Corio play at Childe Harolde –  he acted surprised to see me – introduced me to his date, Bev.  I didn’t feel Bev is much of a threat – Avril says, “She’s a hot water bottle.”  I said, “I’m not giving up”. Zachary didn’t help move – so when he showed up for sex I sent him away.

     I was really annoyed – his excuse was he “wasn’t up to it.” Who is? Fortunately,

     I have strong muscles. Carried a gold velvet sofa practically on my head.

                 Mon 5 Feb 79

                                         Moments of pure joy while painting my bedroom shelves.  

    So adoring Sylvia Plath. Closer Look at Ariel & Letters.  Her letters burst with plans, lists & preparations – like this diary. That’s how it goes.  Feeling capable, independent – maybe strong enough to even rewrite Gift. There is pleasure to be had even at the start of a journey with no apparent end in sight. Back on my Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner diet. Feel house will be ready Sunday. Party?

                 8 Feb 79 Plush Palace

                                        Surprise today – Usher Glayne came in to see me 

    dance. Curtsied low and slow. I felt intimidated by him but he said he liked poem I sent. Struggling with Boston Adventure – Me no likey.  

    I’m on p. 300 of Gift and if there’s a novel in this mess I can’t find it.

                 8PM Mon night 12 Feb 79

                                         Snowed all night – didn’t feel guilty about calling the Plush Palace and saying I couldn’t make it.  Used the time well – finished my study.  It is perfect. Bedroom almost done – must unscramble my jewelry to put it away. Great having laundry in-house – I am washing all my costumes. 

    I give up on Boston Adventure. To think a critic compared her to the Brontës. 

    Well they did have under-functioning ovaries and the English language in common. Marc called – he will be in town and wants to have lunch at the Capitol. Which I would love to do.  Told him I took his advice and bought a house.  Roll my eyes while he complains about his horrible life investing other people’s money.

                                       Maureen is never here so we hardly see her. And 

    she’s very neat, so far sharing a bathroom is no problem. Recovering 

    from my bout of restlessness over Gift, I managed two pages. But it was too hot to work up here last night (I can’t seem to control the temp.) Tomorrow buy fan. 

    Usher called.  He wants to be “friends”.

                                                Queens Chapel Rd – Wed 14 Feb 79

                                                At last a comment from an agent who likes Blood Memory (latest incarnation of Gift).   We now have one agent who likes it, one who didn’t, one close relative who likes it and two who didn’t, one lover who likes it (and two who didn’t.)  I wish she would start a “sell job” with me but she’s just “dying to talk with me about it.”  In other words, she wants to know, how crazy ARE you? Sadly, it depends on the day of the week. 

                                       Avril just phoned – invited me downstairs for an omelet.

     I said no. Fasting today. (I like being somewhere the kitchen is not.) Later we’ll go out and try to find a pair of emerald pants for me to see my new agent in. 

    This is one of the ways Avril and I make do with living together – we respect each other’s privacy. 

                                       Yesterday at work who should be second dancer but Yvonne!  We had so much fun catching up. She’s still dancing at Mother Joe’s, but needs all the work she can get.  I feel a perverse satisfaction in the fact that even amazingly talented, flaming beauties can’t seem to struggle out of life’s junk pile. Her ex, whom she quit dancing for, went out with an “all nude” dancer the night after they broke up!  A friend of Ryder’s came into the bar – 

    I pretended not to recognize him.  I’m sure he’ll be running back with the story. 

     Dreamed I had open lesions in my face and you could see right through them. 

     Reading Greene’s The Human Factor. 

                                       2 PM 15 Feb 79 – Thurs

                                       Sleeting out. Feeling restless the way I do before I write a new book.  Hauled out Bride & Wolves for a rewrite – tremendously impressed with my own talent!  Development always was my problem (as in life). 

    Greene’s Human has an odd, unfinished feel.  Reviews did not prepare me for it in the least. I think they reviewed Greene rather than his book.  More impressed by Margot Ruddock’s letter to Yeats in Ah, Sweet Dancer (which could be retitled Dirty Old Man.) She compares the “fickleness” of men to the fickleness of God! Can’t blame her if God insists on being male.  Read Howatch’s Call In the Night as a purgative. Going to see Country Wife tonight at U. Of Md. 

    Usher sent me strange Valentine collage of Playboy photos, couples kissing, etc. 

    Avril says “I give up on him.  It’ll be a miracle if he can ever say what he wants.”

                                                Starlight Sat 18 Feb 79 – 11:10 AM

                                                 Waiting for my bangs to curl at the start of a 

    double. Had a nightmare where Devon performed marriage ceremony between me and some other guy!  Right up to the end I kept thinking he was going to “rescue” me.  Naturally he did not.

    “Psychic” about him as usual, I  got a letter saying he’s busy with this year’s Ladies Ski Team meaning he’s got 12 girls passionately in love with him and he plans to take his time to savor the field. 

    Vengeful poem results:

    Cloverleaf

    Some roads lead nowhere;

    They’re my favorites.

    I held my breath while

    You drew my face in

    Blinding strokes 

    Creamed my mouth with curling lines

    Destroyed one picture; then another.

    You

    Left at dawn while I

     Ran in circles, calling

    Raging, spending

     Nights & time

    Without you,

    No blue thigh guards

    My sleeping heart while you – alertly

    Gauge the coming storm.

    Trapped in cloverleaves , I’m

    Sentenced to perform

    School figures endlessly

    Disputed by a myriad angry judges.

    Every face I paint 

    Resembles you; balked by

     Our enervating past

    Of unlived lives I

    Open up the chilly ruffles 

    Of my breasts

    To beauty; yours 

    And mine and your

    Strange spine’s;

     A body so much lighter

    Than the mountain that you loved –

     The course you learned

    Much better than you learned me.

    Overconfident as always

    I tell myself that

     you’ll come back &

    Float across the powdered snow

    In bird-winged silence –

    all-enveloping

    Unrepentant

    Lost and frozen like my heart.

                                                2 PM – Jervaze came into the club!  Ducked away momentarily from his fiancée.  Glad he didn’t bring her in as I am having my period and feeling particularly fat and grumpy. My poor body’s been unloved for a month now and is falling to pieces.  Still it was an enormous pleasure to see him. Someone for whom I apparently remain The Holy Grail.

                                       Tues. 6:45 PM  20 Feb 79

                                       Struggling against a vast undifferentiated depression.  

    Going to treat it with diet and meditation.  Reading Tapie’s Richelieu and Louis XIII.

     History a great cure for all who feel unlucky.  Even being an aristo was no picnic. Avril accepted for both of us to go to Aunt Frederica’s party on the shore where she’s rented a house.  Hitchman’s bio of Dorothy Sayers very bad book. Sayers wasn’t “in love” with Lord Peter, she was him!  

    Will-to-power and dream logic.  Trying to “bind” her two halves together when she made him marry Harriet. Had to re-read Sayers’ wonderful 

    Unnatural Death (my favorite) to get the taste out of my mouth. Ah.  Such pleasure.  Painting till I’m exhausted then long walks with dogs through pretty Queens’ Chapel Manor.  Haven’t voyeured a neighborhood this satisfying since Chevy Chase. 

                                                Starlight Wed 21 Feb 79 – 11:45 AM

                                       Going through a phase where work feels like 

    being beaten. Think it’s because no one is caring for my body. Will warmer 

    weather turn the tide? I love my house but Marc Kramer is wrong – home ownership NOT the cure-all promised.  The only difference I can see is I can no longer mess around financially. Nose permanently to grindstone.

                                                Reading John Dickson Carr’s Blind Barber.  It is so awful.  Why does anyone like him? Pass my time sewing red rhinestone buttons to my pink satin blouse. Yesterday clutch cable snapped – pedal became a dummy.  Fortunately I was right NEXT to a gas station. Had to take a taxi home. Damn Fiat.  Financial nightmare – more doubles to get my car out of hock?  Turns out it’s not expensive.  A. gives me ride to work, Eddy gives me ride to car.

    Leaning heavily on inner life. Efforts to live “outwardly” all seemingly result in hideous failure. Shopping list: pasties, carpet tape, stockings, cotton balls, liquid plumber, string bikini.

                                                Sat. 24 Feb 79

                                       Devon turned 30 today. Great house party at bungalow Aunt F rented on Mulberry Island.  Interesting artist named Stockley there with an exciting mind but unworkable body. Fun to talk to though. He wears a hard hat and welds sculpture. Avril asked out by handsome redhead named John.  

    Fingers crossed.  Jervaze called to say he broke off his engagement.  Uh oh. 

    Macmillan says my novel “not their cup of tea”.  Very sneery.

                                                Starlight Fri 2 Mar 79 – 2 PM

                                       Bought a pair of yellow overalls to write in.  Hadn’t realized how thin I’ve gotten – I look fantastic.  House closing magically lifts depression when it cost $900 less than I expected.  I was fully ready to write these nice people a rubber check – Thank God that’s not necessary.

                                       Instead of wasting away in debtor’s prison, I get to compare myself to Sylvia Plath.  What if in a panic, I married a party boy who fails to cherish The Real Me? Wait, I did that. But I didn’t stay to wrestle with him and now I’m free.  

    Could be much, much worse. Hang in there and go it alone. See it as a strength. 

    Trying to apply for grants. There’s an art form all by itself. Avril’s redhead working out nicely.  I don’t like his comments about his mother though.  Is satisfactory sex possible with men who hate their mothers? Could be massive Red Flag.  

                                                12:35 PM Tues Mar 6 – 79

                                       Sit down to chat with diary over lunch – can’t eat 

    because scolding letter from agent gave me a stomachache. Didn’t I know it was 

    unethical to allow several agents to consider me at the same time? I do see it’s a very beneficial for the agents to drag this process out so they end up doing all the choosing and not you. But since she’s the one I want I can’t say so. 

    Play dumb, promise to Be Good in Future and throw my affairs entirely into her hands and let her speak for me. Silence frees the artist from “servile 

    bondage to the world”, says Sontag. 

                                       Letter from Devon saying he really respects me for buying a house (the opposite of what Mom thought would happen.  He says it makes me more interesting. Or he’s just less scared I will show up on his doorstep.)  Also, he says “it’s been a bad ski season” and asking particularly about the men in my life, closing, ”I love you Alysse. Our relationship is the most important thing to me.” 

                                       Whew! What are the odds that every girl on that ski team would turn out to be a lesbian?  Or were they chilled by his aura of untouchable purity? Most girls would consider it a challenge but some lack the stamina necessary to defrost him. Still, they’re all out of their minds not to give him a whirl I must admit. Interesting how very much we each fear the other’s loss.

  • Sleeping Orchid – Creative Boot Camp for Sensitives & Empaths with Alysse Aallyn

    Art

    If This Archetype Chooses You – Your Soul Cries Out for Definition


    Birds gotta sing. It’s who they are. Do you dream of artistic products – paintings, sculpture, film – or artistic endeavors such as performance and construction? Do you get ideas for fresh pieces and experience exciting nonconformist thinking that seem to evaporate upon waking?

    Some of Us Are Creatives for Art – Art is the judge of our poetic confrontation with the world, the cure and the cause. It is also our prime avenue for non-verbal healing. Only non-verbal healing can address pain that can’t be quantified.

    Learn A New Language Or Develop Your Own – Your inner self is signaling to you that it is time for you to explore other languages – art expression – mastering its terms, and to start inventing terms of your own. Only art can establish the secure connection with others required to nourish you now.

    You Are an Artist Whether You Like It Or Not – Every single one of us chooses modes and objects of expression, consciously or unconsciously, every single day. We buy one object over another because it gives us pleasure; we arrange our living spaces to express some intangible quality about ourselves – a self-definition that signals to others who we are and where we are on our journey.

    Artists Are Free – Art demands individuality. We begin by copying but we must move on to expressing our uniqueness or our soul can’t evolve. If we are happy being part of an unthinking mass we are truly “unborn.” This exploration will grant you a deep peace about being alone with yourself, a strong confidence in who you really are and a feeling of spiritual value.

    New Battles to Fight – This journey is awkward at first, and in other people’s eyes it may remain awkward forever. Why wouldn’t you copy what’s popular? Why not mimic the uncontroversially successful? The problem is, while you are doing that the core of your self-hood is dying like an unwatered plant. And if your soul is dying, you are dying. Also, being bullied by the “art enforcers” is not what creatives are about.

    Sometimes We Bully Ourselves Worse – Perfection is not the answer – it is the enemy. Remember – we flee stagnation. Our soul’s “perfecting never reaches an end – that’s the definition of immortality. Constantly shaming yourself as a no-talent, pretending poseur is horrifyingly destructive to your precious infant specialness struggling for life.

    Make a Resolution to Start Supporting Yourself. The fact that a work is unsuccessful, even a horrific mess, doesn’t mean it isn’t an advance for your vision, insight and style. These are the building blocks of creation. Don’t get hung up on approval. You need teachers, not fans. Read The War of Art by Steven Pressfield.

    Models & Mentors – “Creativity takes courage” – Henri Matisse

    “It’s not what you look at that matters, it’s what you see” – Henry David Thoreau

    “The only thing worse than being blind is having sight without vision” – Helen Keller

    “You were born an original, don’t die a copy” – Jon Mason

    “Life beats down and crushes the art in your soul to remind you that you have one” – Stella Adler

    “There are no rules, only confidence, aplomb, style & joy” – Neil Gaiman

    #Haiku: Disclaimer

    I don’t write haiku
    They write me
    Jaw slack
    Eyes closed
    Ego playing
    Dead

  • Sleeping Orchid – Creative Boot Camp for Sensitives & Empaths with Alysse Aallyn

    The Thinking Artist

      When This Archetype Chooses You – YOU ARE AN ARTIST ! You possess the creative power of making Something out of Nothing. Think. Feel. Look at the tactile world around you and reach out your hands.

      Creatives and Artists immortalize themselves. Sometimes their works are so intriguingly beautiful that we are drawn in and our critical senses – our fear – is tranquillized while we allow the artist to work magic upon us. Artists change us. Artists aspire to be magicians of the mind and soul.

      Creative Challenge – You create something unforgettable because you do not want to be forgotten. You want to open hearts, minds and brains just as yours were first opened, long ago, when you looked upon this amazing world for the first time and felt the power & potential of what you saw. Creatives feel the same thing. We march to a different drummer we feel inside ourselves. We are inner, not outer directed.

      Creative Danger – There is possibility here for such overweening pride that you place your own psyche above Creation in importance. If you seek to divert worship of creation to yourself your own soul will harden unto death, and your creative powers will be extinguished.

      Creative Opportunity – Join the goddess in creating something entirely new that the world will not want to live without. The joy of sharing, the rapture of being known, the ecstasy of expression, of gratitude of being understood, will be yours.

      Are you an artist because you say you are or because they say you are? Well, are you a creative because you say you are or because they say you are? I think it should be obvious that is TOTALLY NOT UP TO THEM. You MUST decide you are a creative, you have to FEEL like a creative and they can NEVER “tell” you what you are. It’s exactly that way for artists, too. It’s a temperament, a way of viewing the world, and because it’s in harmony with Creation all around us, it’s enormously satisfying. Really gets those alpha waves going.

      The Creative in You needs to Protect your Creativity. It is always under threat.

      Hustle Culture – Art can’t hustle but the merchandisers and the monetizers hasten to tell you: “Close enough – let’s get this thing to market.” But you need to find out what’s there – why this subject, these tools are drawing you. You need to think, to explore, to experiment, to start the process of 10,000 “failures” Edison said are the steps to success.

      The Creative Creates – If you’re not being Creative for yourself, you’re highjacked as someone else’s creative and that’s a living death. Strategize. Speculate. Get out that Training Journal. Dream. Speak to your soul. Allow it to shine.

      Models & Mentors – “Creativity is seeing what everyone else has seen and thinking what no one else has thought.” – Albert Einstein

      “Creativity can’t get used up. The more you use the more you have.” – Maya Angelou


      “Creativity is just connecting things.” – Steve Jobs

      “There is no innovation, no creativity, without failure.” – Brené Brown

      “What’s so fascinating about life is the constant creativity of the soul.” – Deepak Chopra

      #Haiku: “The more neurosis, the more wisdom”

      Difficulties create
      Enlightenment;
      Recognize,
      Participate.

    1. The Sleeping Orchid – Toughening up Empaths & Sensitives & Fostering Creativity with Alysse Aallyn

      1. Eye – You Your ego has work to do. Jung tells us that in your dream, you are everyone. You chose the Ego archetype to start your day. Or did it choose you? Life is a battle. You are a warrior for art, as well as an advocate for yourself.

      You Are A Seeker – You are self-defining and self-validating. You are on a quest. You wish to explore your possible incarnations.

      Planning & Mapping: Creatives lead a designed life. A diary (also called a Training Journal) offers the ideal format in which to plan. Attempt to quantify the difficulties that you feel and assess possible reactions. Just because a situation is tough does not mean it shouldn’t be explored – on the contrary:

      • Repel takeover – You are your own creative – not somebody else’s hired gun.
      • Feel what you have to defend – your soul will reveal it to you – through relationships, through instinct, through time and through dreams.
      • Know when to let down your guard – there are times to connect, to share, to Love.
      • Learn from mistakes to hone your art. There is no Failure: only Learning. All education is precious.
      • Respect criticism; it is resistance training – it sharpens our game. We are each other’s cuttle bones, as well as cuddle bones.
      • Don’t Fear Difficulty – Take the attitude that the more time it takes the more fun it is. Your life is a long story, full of exciting challenges. Creatives love gathering around the campfire to share adventures.

      The First Resistance – Often it is our own self who resists most deeply; even savagely. Ultimately we must realize we have hijackers inside our brains wrestling for control. You can recognize these by their negative content. These negative voices clearly wish to subdue us into clones which is NOT HEALTHY.

      Becoming a Creative – It is this resistance that first marks our Creative status. Congratulate yourself. You are on the road.

      Danger– The worst hazard of self-reflection is not navel-gazing (micro study can be very revealing) but solipsism. Aloneness may in fact be Hell. We can never lose touch with those around us because it is others we are inspiring us. Avoid anyone who fail to treat you with respect. In our increasingly autocratic world we are very familiar with Aging Babies who want the rest of us to nursemaid their fussy, immature modality because Growing Up is Ouchy. For God’s sake, for your own sake, for the benefit of the Universe and in hope of Eternity, don’t cater to or worse yet, BECOME one of THOSE.

      Challenge -set a Spirituality Schedule to reflect your needs and interests. Appoint time to be absolutely alone, for meditation and reflection. If you cannot find a room to yourself, a closet will do. You can sit in the meditation position or assume any position that allows you to be comfortable enough to become physically forgetful. Concentrate first on building a life that allows both inner and outer growth. Surround yourself with people who respect this decision.

      Opportunity – This is a journey. Accept it. Begin a journal with 1. “I” and write down your meditation thoughts and desires. This can be a poem, a fantasy, a checklist – whatever pattern occurs to you as supportive of your desires. Make a list of goals. Push shame away. This is about YOU. Naturally as you evolve, your goals will evolve, and your journal will reflect that. When you have completed your Time Alone – ten minutes to an hour – whatever works for you – pat yourself on the back. What an achievement! You are started on a path of making changing Nightmares into Dreams and making dreams come true.

      Training Journal – Carefully assess your desires versus the demands on you. List expected results if you gave in to either. Develop a concept of health. Is ”freedom” staying up all night, consuming whatever substance makes you “feel better”? Clearly not. Assess the negative voice; “You’re weak”, for example. Being “in flight” from the negative voice is actually giving it mastery, you must stand up to it. Learn to answer back – “I’m in training. I did better today than yesterday.” Keep track of your achievements. Even really small ones: “I meditated for 10 minutes” are significant.

      Accept mystery: Life isn’t “win or lose.” It can’t be quantified because we are magical souls with magic coursing through us. Sometimes it’s impossible to figure out and must simply be absorbed, not rationalized. Learn to enjoy art and accept the relief it offers. Reflect back as much magic & mystery as you can muster. Your tastes will develop according to your growth – that’s a good thing. Treat yourself like a loving sensei who wants the best for you.

      Models & Mentors: Always survey possible models. Who do you admire?
      Is it

      Bruce Lee? “The difference between a creative and an average man is laser focus.”

      Is it Carl Jung? “I am not what happened to me I am what I choose to become.” Read. Study. Educate yourself. Develop your own models.

      “Avoid having your ego so close to your position that when your position falls, your ego falls with it” – Colin Powell

      “Don’t let your ego get in the way of your success”- Tony Horton

      “The ego seeks to divide and separate. The spirit seeks to unify and heal.” – Pema Chodron

      Haiku: Id vs Ego

      Argumentative
      Executioner
      Prowls brain
      Seeking
      Loopholes

    2. Butterfly Language for Caterpillars – Soulmate Seeking with Alysse Aallyn

      Birdsong = ART “Birdsong”

      “Express your emotions the better to understand them”


      We are not the only Creators in the Garden. We are surrounded by nest-makers and musical artists without whose Birdsong we would be tragically impoverished. Birds sing for the same reasons we do; to celebrate, to warn, to differentiate. To bond, and for the sheer joy of being alive in the Garden. Birdsong represents the artistic collaboration and complexity without which our lives would be meaningless.


      Art is our rescuer. Art forges connections at the deepest levels; preconscious & collective conscious. Art finds us when we are lost, can even locate love itself when we misplace it. Art sums up the mystery of what it’s like to be alive, questioning, yearning, negotiating, refusing, demanding.

      Back when we were mute children, longing to communicate and participate in the thrilling adult world surrounding us, we figured it was just a question of acquiring the tools of language.

      Education disabused us of that easy sentimentality. There will always be something within us that is wordless, a secret unknown to ourselves that we long to share. But what does it mean? Who can understand it? We artists devote our lives to fathoming these vast problems. Each question brings a new forest of questions. Each answer produces an ocean of answers.

      As our life crests its rise and heads for the downslope we are forced to conclude that we wish to express nothing more than our uniqueness, our exquisite irreplaceability – just like everyone else.

      The depth of the Tantric connection provides relief from the echo chamber – together we create a whole new force, immortal in feeling, universal in its application. We sing to each other in courtship, in despair, in longing, and the Soulmate sings our song back, in a different form, inviting collaborative collusion that will buttress our hopes and re-make our world.

      HAIKU: Birdsong

      Without your chord
      Duets are soulless;
      speechless
      without your
      harmony

    3. Becoming a Goddess – claiming your immortality by Alysse Aallyn

      Creativity – The Artist

        YOU ARE AN ARTIST – You know you possess the goddess power of making Something out of Nothing. Think. Feel. Look at the tactile world around you and reach out your hands.

        Goddess and Artists immortalize themselves. Sometimes their works are so intriguingly beautiful that we are drawn in and our critical senses – our fear – is tranquillized while we allow the artist to work magic upon us. Artists aspire to be magicians of the mind and soul.

        Goddess Challenge  –    You create something unforgettable because you do not want to be forgotten. You want to open hearts, minds and brains just as yours were first opened, long ago, when you looked upon this amazing world for the first time  and felt the power & potential of what you saw. Goddess feel the same thing. We march to a different drummer we feel inside ourselves. We are inner, not outer directed.

        Goddess Danger – There is possibility here for such overweening pride that you place your own psyche above Creation in importance.   If you seek to divert worship of creation to yourself your own soul will harden unto death, and your creative powers will be extinguished.

        Goddess Opportunity – Join with all the goddesses in creating something entirely new that the world will not want to live without. The joy of sharing, the rapture of being known, the ecstasy of expression, of gratitude of being understood, will be yours.

        Are you an artist because you say you are or because they say you are? Well, are you a goddess because you say you are or because they say you are? I think it should be obvious that is TOTALLY NOT UP TO THEM. You MUST decide you are a goddess, you have to FEEL like a goddess and they can NEVER “tell” you what you are. It’s exactly that way for artists, too. It’s a temperament, a way of viewing the world, and because it’s in harmony with Creation all around us, it’s enormously satisfying. Really gets those alpha waves going.

        The Goddess in You needs to Protect your Creativity. It is always under threat.

        Hustle Culture – Art can’t hustle but the merchandisers and the monetizers hasten to tell you: “Close enough – let’s get this thing to market.” But you need to find out what’s there – why this subject, these tools are drawing you. You need to think, to explore, to experiment, to start the process of 10,000 “failures” Edison said are the steps to success.

        The Creative Goddess – If you’re not a creative goddess, you’re someone else’s goddess and that’s a living death. Strategize. Speculate. Get out that Training Journal. Dream. Speak to your soul. Allow it to shine.

        Models & Mentors – “Creativity is seeing what everyone else has seen and thinking what no one else has thought.” – Albert Einstein

        “Creativity can’t get used up. The more you use the more you have.” – Maya Angelou

        “Creativity is just connecting things.” – Steve Jobs

        “There is no innovation, no creativity, without failure.” – Brené Brown

        “What’s so fascinating about life is the constant creativity of the soul.” – Deepak Chopra

        #Haiku: “The more neurosis, the more wisdom”

        Difficulties create

        Enlightenment;

        Recognize,

        Participate.