Morning Pages

I’ve been doing a little exploring this year.  You’ll be disappointed if you think I’m digging for fossils, gold, or lost coins buried in the sand on the beach.  But I hope you’ll keep reading.

I’m exploring that self-actualization level on Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, taking stock, re-acquainting myself with myself, trying to decide what I want to do with the rest of my life, building better connections….that kind of stuff.

Exploring has led me to Brene Brown’s world, the world of wholehearted living which I’ll get back to in a minute.  I recently completed an eCourse based on her book The Gifts of Imperfection.  Art journaling was the tool she used to convert ideas into practice.  Brene’s course opened up creativity and connection in my world.

I no longer say “I’m not a creative person”.   There is creativity in all of us, some of us just choose to ignore it, others choose not to use it.  I now believe this to be true.  I don’t know what I’m doing and have very little skill.  But all you need is a willingness to try and the ability to not judge or compare your work to others’.  That last part is critical, by the way.  There are many lessons in art other than how to use a paint brush, I’m learning.

So in addition to this blog I’m continuing with my art journal and I’ve joined a wonderful online community started by one of the students from the eCourse.  It turns out I’m not the only one exploring the potential in my life through art.

So how does this relate to mornings, you ask?  Well a group of us decided to continue the practice of art journaling in conjunction with another book.  The book we’ve chosen is The Artist’s Way: A Spiritual Path to Higher Creativity by Julia Cameron.  It was originally published in 1992 and it seems everyone knows about this book except me.  I’ve been unknowingly surrounding myself with creative people while hiding in the creativity closet.  One of the tools used in this book is “morning pages”.  Every morning for the next 24 weeks I am to write three pages of stream of consciousness writing.  If my mind is blank I can just write “my mind is blank” for three pages, although I hope it doesn’t come to that.  The author states that morning pages “Get us to the other side: the other side of our fear, of our negativity, of our moods.  They get us beyond our internal censor.”   I like this idea because my mind is way too busy thinking about the same old things and it needs a course change.

But I am not a morning person.  I barely get up in time to get myself decently dressed and fed much less have 15 minutes to write.  But I am also inspired by new ideas and this one, like several others over the past months, inspired me.  So the first day I was up at 5:30 am writing my pages and then I went out for a walk!  I was so inspired I tore the pages out and added them to my art journal and swore that this day forward I would embrace the mornings.  And I posted this declaration along with my journal page on the online community board and got tons of support.  And then the next day I overslept and the day after that I’m up at my usual time.  Okay, so change doesn’t happen overnight.  But that got me thinking.  What is it about morning that makes me want to stay in bed snuggled under the covers with the cat at my feet and a little bit of warmth left in the bed from husband.  Well, besides that.

It’s not that I don’t like mornings.  It’s a beautiful time of day.  It’s peaceful. There are birds singing and birds rustling around in the rose garden outside my bedroom.  The beauty of the changing sky.  What could be more idyllic.

I realize that despite the beauty I see and hear in the morning, it’s also the loneliest part of the day for me.  Because when I first awake all my defenses are down.  I’m a scared little girl that has to consciously decide to cross the threshold into the part of the day where I have to be responsible; where I need to be what I think others want me to be; where I read and hear news about all the pain in the world and how we’ve lost our ability to get along and work together.  Then I don’t want to go to bed at night because I’m like “Yeah! High five!” I made it through the day and if I go to bed I have to start over again.

But the thing is, once I’m up and going I’m fine.  And it would be boring and uninspiring to wake up every morning and enter a perfect world.  It’s the imperfections of the world that give it beauty and meaning.  So it’s not that I want to start each day in a perfect world.  I just want to awake with the confidence and strength to embrace each day for all it has to offer, good and bad, and to know that whatever the day brings, I will handle it with all that I am because I am enough.  We are enough.  We collectively in our desire to find meaning bring light to the world.  That is reason enough to get up in the morning.  That is wholehearted living.

Sunrise over the Galapagos Islands, March 2013 (photo)