Sometimes You Swing.

Last summer someone directed my path to Julia Cameron's, The Artist's Way.  It's a brilliant writing-based personal growth program intended to help each person embrace and nurture her (or his) creativity.  I was warned to expect "transformation."  I was cynical, and responded that transformation was probably reaching too high, but if I could just find a few missing pieces it would be worth it.

He then gifted me with this analogy.  He said to think of it like a strand of old-fashioned Christmas lights.  The kind where, when one went out, they all went out and you had to try, one bulb at a time, to find the burned-out bulb.  But when you did, the entire strand was transformed.  I remember that experience.  You started with something dull and kind of hopeless looking, and ended up with something lovely.  Sparkly.

I wanted that transformation, and set out to work Cameron's program in hopes that I, too, would end up sparkling through the rest of my life.


It wasn't always easy to work.  Her prompts forced me to face some issues that I didn't want to face.  But, face them I did.  Finish I did. And transformation is my gift.

For me, part of transformation has been developing a new openness.  Open to new experiences, new people with new ideas, new direction.  Transformation is, at least in this new stage, fragile.  I have down times, when I question what I've done, where I am and where I'm headed.  This morning was one of those times.

But one of the appeals of Cameron's process is that it is premised on a spiritual belief system that I already embraced, although I didn't have vocabulary for it.  She gave me the words, which I paraphrase to remind myself several times each day that...

• The Universe is always working for us.
• There is no such thing as a coincidence.
• We have to be paying attention - stay open - to see the coincidences as opportunities and grab them when they come.

This morning was a down day for me, a questioning day.  But immediately, the Universe responded.  My friend Scott (there's a link in the sidebar that will take you to his poetry, which frequently helps me get my head in the right place) posted a link to Em.  Em's life concept is phenomenal - rich - and she shares generously.

This morning, as I questioned whether it was worth the painful moments of living outside of the void, Scott's group, A Circle of Twelve, posted this:

You see,

sometimes we are emptied.

We are emptied

because 

Life wants us to know

...so

much

more

Light.

- Em Claire

And just like that, my day was right again.