A little more than 3 months ago, I joined a small circle of old and new friends with mutual desire to rediscover, or for some, to discover for the first time, a sense of creativity.   We used Julia Cameron’s book The Artist’s Way as a guide to help us reach personal levels of creativity through a deepening of our spirituality.  We met once a week for an hour and a half, and in those sessions, were often surprised at the talents hidden in ourselves and others. 

At the start of the book, Ms. Cameron encourages the reader to start writing “morning pages,” to write whatever comes to mind, before the day begins.  Her reasoning was that the thoughts that occupy our minds often inhibit us from being creative and doing the spontaneous things we want to do.  If our minds are filled with worries and a busy schedule, then we never even give ourselves the chance to let our inner voices speak, and more importantly, the chance to play.  Yes, play.  Like how we used to in art class in the 5th grade.

October 12, 2006

It’s difficult to just let yourself go.  It’s difficult to just let myself go when I’ve been holding myself in for so long.  I’ve often thought of, or desired, to just let go.  To let loose on the dance floor.  to scream just for the sake of screaming.  To thrash my head and body around just because.  But I know it’s not my nature.  It’s just not me.  But how do I know what’s me if I haven’t tried it before?…

I think a lot about synchronicity now…Synchronicity is the magical way in which events and people are connected, like thin threads of an incredibly intricate and tight-woven yarn, twisted all together, a fluffy, warm, and colorful thing (life) that would not be the same, or of the true essence, if it were one thread alone…Synchronicity is like a wave of one’s life.  The experiences and people one meets in their lifetime are all folded up in a wave, and when the tide pulls in, it changes the wave, a certain moment happens, a certain person is associated with that moment, and when the wave takes another breath, it changes again, just a little bit, and another moment happens, a different person is associated, but it’s all part of the same great wave.  We’re all a part of the wave.  And the thing with synchronicity is that all the different changes, all the different ways it folds and relaxes, pulls onto the shore, and exhales back into a great ocean, all the ways in which experience happens and can happen and does happen, that there are reasons for them.  Not the sort of reasons we’re familiar with.  Not reason like cause and effect.  But reasons that are more like our life energy.  Liek the force that pulls us towards certain objects and certain emotions and certain colors and certain people.  Like a force close to love, something unexplainable, uncontrollable…

I feel like the events that have been happening, and the people I’ve been meeting are all in my yarn – they’re all twisted around my yarn; they’re all folded in the waves of my ocean.  And somehow, without trying, I have faith that I’ll come to understand.   I can’t explain my certainty for feeling that I’ll come to learn my purpose, but I do.  I don’t know why I want an MBA or what I’m going to do with it, but I know I’ll do something grand.  Not grand in the sense that everyone thinks of it, but grand in eyes of God.  I am more than I think I am.  I can do more than I think I can.  I can love more than I think I can.  I’ve seen it done by other people.  I’ve felt it.  I’m part of the wave, and I can’t deny that.

October 15, 2006

I had a wonderful dream.  I dont’ know why I think it was so wonderful, seeing that I was running away from someone, there was a sense of urgency and emergency, but still, I feel wonderful about it.  It started with being on a bus.  I was with friends, maybe a school field trip? We noticed a helicopter flying above.  Then we were walking around a restaurant.  There was a patio outside, over a lake.  It was a nice day.  Then I was on a boat.  There was a hole to somewhere on the boat, somewhere important, where we had to go, and it was imperative for us (there were 3 of us, another girl my age, and one maybe 8 years old) to get to the other side of that hole.  The hole was like a suction made of plastic.  We had to pull our bodies through the hole.  Then there was another hole, slightly smaller.  I was the last to go.  I could hear voices behind me getting louder.  We had to move quickly.  Then there was a third hole, and it was so much smaller.  I couldn’t even get my head through, but I knew the other girls had made it, so I kept trying.  I kept trying to push.  I put my arms in, tried to pull my shoulders through, but it wasn’t working.  I kept telling myself that the other girls did, that it was possible for me to get through.  Then we were on a boat, looking at the starry night.  The 3 of us standing in the boat, in hangboks (the traditional Korean dress), our backs to the viewer (me).  A beautiful sight.  I suppose me made it…

I like best looking at a bright blue sky, dotted with birds’ wings, as if a painter poked at the canvas at the last minute.  Let’s add some life there, he thinks.  And dot dot dot are birds, trailing the day sky, creating depth on the horizon.  Depth because of life.  If a sky breathes, would the birds be its breath?  Staring at a blue sky is a beautiful thing.  The most serene thing I’ve been doing lately.  When you stare at the sky, it’s hard to think of anything else.  The immensity of how the sky stretches, with no regard for anything else, just filling the space with its radiant color, is grand in of itself.  It can take as much space as it wants.  That’s its job.

October 16, 2006

Studying for the GRE’s makes you feel stupid…

I’m a rusty watch that works again, making shy clicking noises as I pass by the day markers, click click click here I come, there I go, click click, got things to do, things to learn, click click, it’s life, I’m life, click click, I am an important person.  Getting more confident with each click, with each event I pass through.

October 19, 2006

I feel like things are in a whirlwind…If I thought they were actually results of a peaceful state, would I think of them differently?  Would the pressure I feel to get my application into Johns Hopkins disappear?  Transform into a dance that happens on the wind, however the wind blows, what’s what happens.  Look at the application float away.  It’s taking its time to get to the admissions door.  And look how beautiful, and listen to the sweet whispers as it slides by the window, grazes the sidewalk, tip toes to the automatic door, and sighs in the hands of the academic advisor or whoever opens the mail…

Sometimes I wonder if I am meant for great things.  I feel it is there.  It used to be a small grain, nestled deep in my being, so deep it was hard to feel it there.  But it’s been growing since the past 9 months, and I believe there is a bud now.  I don’t know what type of flower will bloom, what color, or if it will just be a big plant leaf, or if there’ll be a flower with millions of petals to pry open and reveal their happy faces on their own time, or if there’ll be a single stalk that shoots shy at first, and then strong and proud and tall, shooting straight for the sky, to the sunlight. 

October 21, 2006

I’m thinking of the bits of dreams I’ve had, the parts I remember…

I’m laying in bed next to a new lover, and he is next to his old lover, with a newborn baby between them.  He and I intertwined, hugging.  He moves closer to the baby, (closer to her?), and she pushes him away.

October 22, 2006

Last night I don’t remember who exactly was there.  But it was a family gathering.  Were were seated in chairs, like at a funeral, but it wasn’t a funeral…There was one seat that was smooshed to the wall – my seat.  And I blurted – “Why am I always crunched in the corner?”  But it was a happy gathering.  The menus had all this pasta sauce and cream on it, and I thought it was gross…

I suppose I can’t forget the past completely, not when it’s a part of me, has made me who I am today.  How can you deny a leg or arm?  I feel like the past bubbles up, and sometimes the bubles are small and unnoticeable, and other times, they’re big explosions, and you can’t help but to say “woah, where did you come from?” and there they are with big faces, swollen with anger, or shame, or joy, or however they feel, and they demand to be heard, to be hugged, to be helped back to peaceful sleep, until something wakes them again.