i wonder if cards can help me reopen my creativity?

i got this deck of intuiti cards from an ad i saw on instagram. they were developed by a student at a polytechnic in milan to open up creativity. they use tarot, numerology, design and gestalt psychology and should help with opening up one’s creativity. i thought it would be interesting to work with them to open up my stymied creativity.

the first exercise they recommend is to take the primary cards (they have roman numerals) and pick the one you like best and the one you like least and try to explain to yourself why you choose each one. they say to do it out loud, but i want to do it “out loud” here on the page.

this is the card that i chose as the one i like. i had laid them all out (there are 24 of these primary cards) and then, without thinking too much, i chose the one that spoke most to me in this moment. it would undoubtedly be a totally different card on a different day. but today, it was this card. what i like about it is that it is dark and deep, but the path is bright and clear. that dark blue opening down at the end may be dark and have eyes, but i don’t get a scary feeling from it. nor do i get any ominous feelings from the darkness of the forest. the yellow eyes glowing seem to me like lights in the darkness and i feel that when i get there, they will guide my way. it makes me think of autumn and the time of darkness that lies ahead of us. now, after more than 20 years of it, i’m not afraid of it or dreading it anymore, but looking forward. it’s only when we experience darkness that we can appreciate the light. and this darkness doesn’t feel ominous to me. it feels enveloping and mysterious in a good way. we never know what’s ahead and i feel like we shouldn’t. i get the feeling, looking at this card, with its forest of trees and dark blue opening with yellow eyes at the end, and bright orange path through a bed of deep green, like we may be walking through the darkness, but light lies ahead. 

this is the card that spoke to me in this moment today as the one i liked least. it has a dusty pink background, a blue oval with a green border and with a symbol made of shapes in the middle. they are intertwined and have that möbius unendingness to them. they are a long skinny diamond shape, a half circle, a circle and a triangle, all tangled up within each other. they look like one of those desktop puzzles where there’s a way to take them apart if you fiddle with them just right while you talk on the phone. 

i didn’t like it because in their closedness, they seem unwelcoming and so tangled up in their own thing, there’s no room to join them (they remind me a little bit of the danes). they poked at that terrible feeling that i get when i feel like i’m excluded or don’t belong. being closed off, kept away from the group, not welcome in the community. they also feel somehow like a ritualistic symbol used by a secret society, one that also is based on exclusion. and there are no openings, every way in is closed. the colors were also not appealing in their combination – kind of washed out and clashing a little bit, though not exactly clashing, because they’re too faded for that, but they aren’t in harmony. 

the intuiti booklet gives this explanation of the first card that i chose: 

XVIII: with eyes closed she goes down the dark winding stairs. one step after another, she perceives some changes in her body. at first she becomes narrow and starts to crawl like a baby, then her face gets longer and hair grows all over her body. she continues to go down, in the shape of a beast, in the darkness, and she hears the moans of desire, feels the burning hope, and sees the sparkle of terror. and she continues to go down, in the dark abyss of a dream that contains all the other dreams.

trust the irrational. you must feel, not see.

and the second card: 

XXI: she walks and dances, she devotes herself to the joy of life, she puts a cross step in her walk, and she spins on herself like that, without reason, just for the fun of seeing the colors of the world turning around her. And so that the world too realizes that she is turning within it.

it’s time to connect the dots. 

interesting how different the story the maker applies to them in relation to the story my mind told when it saw them. that seems pretty powerful and the fact that they’re each more or less opposite to how i experienced them is a very rich learning. it reminds me that there is always two sides to everything and those two sides can be diametrically opposed (i should have known that in light of the times we are living in). i also quite like the notion that i should trust the irrational – and i do think that’s not so far from my interpretation of the card that i liked on this day. it was a little bit irrational that i liked it since it seems a bit dark and ominous. And i only see the world in the second one now when i look at the blue background edged in green – it could have an elongated globe-like quality, but i still see it as excluding and not connecting the dots, despite that it’s intertwined. it may be intertwined, but it’s also very closed, so it’s a kind of self-contained and while they may be tangled, they aren’t really in dialogue with one another.

interesting. i’m looking forward to working further with these. i don't know if the exercise opened up my creativity, but i guess time will tell. at least it resulted in these words and that's something.

eyes wide open :: you can't fix someone else

my throwback impulse is passive aggressive. someone who i thought was a friend, a very good friend, in fact, recently proved not to be so. for reasons apparently beyond my comprehension. when she began ghosting me, i went through all of the stages - worry - was she ok? did something happen to her? was she ill? taken by pirates? kidnapped by drug lords? i even texted another of her friends to ask if they had heard from her. then there was guilt - i spent quite a lot of time feeling vaguely guilty that i had done something that i wasn't aware of, but i sincerely couldn't think of what it might be. we parted on a good note - with a very fun, laughter-filled photoshoot. that couldn't be it. but eventually i realized, it really truly wasn't about me. it was her. i finally received a cryptic and disingenuous email that only bewildered me more. and then it dawned on me, that akin to a breakup, i just needed to get the few things i'd left at her place, and get the hell out. and when i stopped by, she was super weird, claiming to be on her deathbed ill, offering a lame excuse that sounded like a tired lie and then posting instagram pictures of a dinner with another mutual friend the next day. (damn you social media.) and while i still don't understand it, i have arrived at the place where i no longer want to. whatever her flaky, vague, dishonest motivations are, they actually have nothing to do with me. they are hers alone. and i hereby release both her and myself. and it's like a weight has lifted from my shoulders. you can't fix other people. and you can never be inside of who they are. and frankly, you probably don't even want to be.

at home in my body

my "to blog" list grows, but alas, time has not expanded and it leaves me feeling a bit diffuse and out-of-focus. i always suffer when i'm not writing. but while not writing, my mind has been occupied. occupied by questions of home, being present in my body and dreams of making a podcast.

last weekend, in connection with an amazing art project that i'm participating in with our local art group, trapholt museum in kolding and trekantsområde, a danish artist and a syrian artist, we had an amazing discussion of what home means. it's a question i increasingly ponder these days, as the country of my birth displays distressing signs of madness on the political front. denmark isn't that much better, but they did just regain their status as world's happiest. this, despite rabid right wing xenophobes at the helm. but it all leaves me feeling, once again, a lack of a place that feels like home. at least identity-wise. and maybe i'm also feeling split since my work week is spent away from the house i call home. but that seems to be serving to make our actual house feel more like home base. the place from which i go into the world, stretch my wings (and my muscles at yoga class these days), and soar. i'm loving work and the fun things i get to do there - photoshoots, video shoots, chasing a lorry through the scottish highlands, casting, arranging, planning fun projects. so the split isn't a sad one. and maybe the conclusion is that i now have multiple homes - i feel at home at work and at home, in copenhagen and in the countryside, with husband on the weekend and on my own during the week. maybe we're multifaceted and we have many homes. perhaps the constant is me and thanks to my newfound yoga practice, i am finding home right here within myself, in my own body. and i honestly can't remember when the last time i felt that was, if i ever did.

that fact hit me the other day, as i stretched into minute 5 of a yoga pose, my inner thigh muscles screaming for every bit of my attention. i couldn't remember the last time i really listened to my body in that way. was attuned to it. that it had my full attention. that i was just there, in it, and nowhere else. i really don't know if i've ever been fully in my body in that way before. ever. in nearly five decades. we live so much in our heads these days, it's hard to be fully present in our bodies. but, now, after the major wakeup call of acute and sudden back problems, i'm working on it. and yoga is definitely helping. with regular practice, maybe i'll be able to call my own body home.

writing my way back to myself

i feel that facebook is sucking the life out of me. it steals my time, it steals my sleep, it bores me, it infuriates me, it exposes me to horrible things (like that live on-air shooting of the poor t.v. reporter in virginia) that i wish i hadn't seen (see also all coverage of donald trump). it makes me feel passive aggressive. it keeps me indoors when i should be outdoors. it never lets me be alone with my thoughts. it stops me from writing here in this space (which my sanity misses very much). or seeking inspiration about things to write about here. in short, i think it's really bad for me. and yet i go back again and again. out of habit. for the social interaction with friends who are far away, for the laughs, for the cat videos and the buzzfeed quizzes and the oatmeal and humans of new york. 

and not writing often enough in this space leaves my brain and perhaps even my soul, feeling congested. it's not only facebook, but also the constant holding pattern i feel i've been in for the whole of this year. eternally waiting to see what might be next. i used to love the liminal space, for what i perceived as the vastness of the possibilities contained within it. but these days, it gives me a kind of powerless feeling, a paralysis. i am unable to fill the waiting with much of anything productive (i pin prolifically on pinterest, but don't make anything). and it seems that all of the gargantuan efforts that i put forward towards moving out of the liminal space are stymied again and again and i am forced back into the waiting position. and i'll admit i feel a bit lost, like i'm wandering in the labyrinth of the liminal space and i can't find my way - neither to the center, nor out again. and it's an uncomfortable place to be. 

which all sounds pretty morbid, i realize. i don't think i knew how morbid i actually felt until the words came out here onto the page (hence that congested feeling). and i do get through my days feeling reasonably happy - finding joy in a visit from an inspiring friend, picking vegetables from the garden for dinner, taking photos of minifigs, finding vintage burberry items for the child on eBay, watching battlestar galactica (again, again) with husband. it's not a joyless life, by any means. but i would like to have some of the spark back, the spark that feels so dim in the midst of all of this waiting. i don't feel it's gone out, but it could definitely use a breath of fresh air to fan it into a stronger, bright, warm flame again. 

maybe finally writing again here will help. that and some time away from facebook. 

* * *

great article in rolling stone on the republican clown car.

* * *

if you need a laugh, this guy from mashable who dressed like prince george for a week will do it.

* * *

dang. harper lee's lawyer is definitely of the shadier sort.

* * *

feeling stressed? here's a cat purr generator for those times when your cat isn't handy.

what you let into your life

i was reading this piece on brainpickings about the greatest books of all time. i'm always impressed when someone claims they have cracked that list definitively. this particular compilation asked famous writers for their lists (who knows reading better than writers, after all?). i'm not sure that gets us truly closer to a definitive list, but with the help of averages and some statistics, the book apparently gives it a go. what interested me wasn't so much the lists, as a quote by austen kleon (or is it paula sher?) that postulates "you are a mashup of what you let into your life."

and that triggered something in me that's been simmering below the surface, just out of reach in my brain during this long, hot summer (i'm not complaining, it's the first summer ever in denmark in 15 years and i'm grateful for it). you are a mashup of what you let into your life. and what have i let in lately?

i think that ever since the thing with the station fell through once we saw the proposed contract from DSB (the danish railway, who owns the building), what i have let into my life is fear and disappointment and a vague feeling of someone having tried to put one over on me because they thought i was a stupid hick. i was so disappointed when i saw the ridiculous terms DSB wanted to impose on us that i couldn't even write about it here. but quick overview is: they expected that we, as renters, would be responsible for everything inside and outside the building, but we would have no say on anything and have to ask permission for every screw and nail we wished to put into the wall. but if they decided to put in new plumbing or rewire the place, or have a new roof put on, we would have to foot the bill - as mere renters. i've never seen anything like it. it was so far from something we could accept that we didn't even go back and try to negotiate. the price was right (it was, admittedly, a very affordable rent), but the terms were not. not even remotely. and somehow it feels like it crushed my spirit. and it made me feel like i was controlled by fear, because i was truly too afraid to enter into such a contract. but worst of all, i felt like they presented us with such terms because they thought that out here in the sticks we'd be stupid enough to go for them. or at the very least that they didn't really want to rent to us at all, but let us go through several weeks of charade, planning and hopes. all of which led to me feeling disappointed and somehow paralyzed by fears and not really knowing how to pick up the pieces.

add in then that i probably have borrelia, molly was seriously ill with mastitis, someone stole our chickens and i lost my beloved frankie cat, aside from the good weather, it's been a rather crap summer.

it's time to start mashing up something new - hanging out with people who give me energy and happiness and laughter, working on new projects which excite me, doing more of the things that nourish and less of the things that don't. moving forward. and to stop thinking about that stupid piss-taking DSB rental contract and just get over it. it probably wasn't personal, but it was so connected to dreams and plans that it certainly feels that way.

i think it's what's so empowering about the statement: you are a mashup of what you let into your life - what you let in is a choice, which means you can control it. i hereby take back control right now.

* * *

and talk about letting in something different, check out tom phillips' humument project.

so inspiring it makes me a little short of breath.

* * *

a not-so-rosy, but very interesting, take on the new domesticity.

and how sex & the city lost its feminism.
(i have to wonder if it ever really had it.)

* * *

the modern face of poverty or
how a member of the working poor in england is blogging her way to a better life.

think different

there are so many stories in this picture. a tale of a lost captain, far from the sea. or a tale of a tidal wave. or the tale of a lake that dried up, leaving the boat stranded high and dry. being run aground - stories of tragedy and dashed dreams. but instead, i choose to see a story of hope - of faith that the water will come and the boat will float once again.

apple once urged us to think different (the grammar of that always bothered me). a combination of 21 days of meditating with oprah and chopra, months of butting my head against the troglodyte, and a general weariness brought on by the protracted delay of spring has me feeling a strong need to think different(ly).

kylie's thoughts on a support ecosystem, which i linked to the other day, via mel(who has taken the brave step of following her passion towards self-employment) have been tumbling around in my head. as have salman rushdie's musings in joseph anton on maintaining a sense of authentic identity in the face of (even self-chosen) exile. all of this makes being in my head a very confusing place. as rushdie says, 

the migrated self became, inevitably, heterogeneous instead of homogeneous, belonging to more than one place, multiple rather than singular, responding to more than one way of being, more than averagely mixed up. was it possible to be - to become good at being - not rootless, but multiply rooted? not to suffer from a loss of roots but to benefit from an excess of them? ... the self was both its origins and its journey.

so as a way of bringing together these fragments that have been circulating in my brain, i've been thinking about how to create a support ecosystem that will cushion the blows of rejection from the culture in which i find myself (by accident as well as choice) when they come (because they inevitably and regularly come).

i think the notion of a support ecosystem is powerful because it contains the feeling of being constantly in flux and adjusting, not static and precarious. i can add and subtract to achieve the sense of balance needed on a given day. one day i might be needing someone to lean on, the next, i may be the one being leaned on. but it's all a matter of interaction and giving (and taking) on all sides. of taking and giving courage and kindness and energy as needed.

and maybe it's not so much a support ecosystem as a cultural ecosystem - trying to retain the best aspects of my culture and meld them much more with the good bits of the culture where i find myself - weaving a more balanced sense of identity that's not so fragile to the blows when they come. because i have to stop feeling every disagreement as a rejection of me as a person and as the denial of my humanity that it currently feels like. i'm not exactly sure how i got to a place where that's what happens. all i know is that it requires too much energy to sustain it and i would much rather channel that energy creatively, into weaving something stronger for myself - identity, ecosystem, culture, life - whatever it be called.

so i'm going to begin to think differently - to look for the positive in every situation instead of defaulting to the negative story. it's undoubtedly a long and slow journey, and a lot of courage will be required along the way, but it seems like one that i need to take. one day soon, that boat will float.

* * *

green cities: worth thinking about.

giving myself a pep talk

i am working hard at not letting my actions (or inactions as the case may be) be driven by fear and worry. because i don't believe that's the recipe for success. to succeed you have to dare, you can't hold back, just because you're worried. because it closes you off and you give off big waves of desperation. and i want to be open, not closed and i most definitely do not want to be desperate. i want to soar, not stay on the ground. i want to dare, not cower on the sidelines. i want to open new doors and to do that, some must close. and stay closed. i want to walk the tightrope without a safety net. i'm coming to think it's the only way.

and we don't have to be completely without a safety net if we choose the right people to walk the rope with. they can be a safety net of sorts. and if we're lucky, we might even be able to fly.

~~~

apropos worries and fears...
what *should* we be worried about? that's edge's question for 2013.
here are some answers.

~~~ 

i guess we should have realized that color is the stuff of consumerism.

~~~

i love the work of nathan sawaya - he's a LEGO artist, but he doesn't drink the kool-aid work for them.
here's the interesting article where i learned of him.

~~~

*these snow photos are from this morning. when the sun was on its way up. they don't really have anything to do with the post. i just liked them. they feel peaceful to me.

wherein you means me

changing is really hard. it is all too easy to fall back into old patterns and ways of thinking, without even meaning to. suddenly, you find yourself obsessing over some stupid, small, trivial thing and you're right back there; that old person that you really don't want to be anymore.  and then you stir in a little PMS and your mind begins to blow things completely out of proportion. your thoughts race, you rehearse condescending conversations in your head and pepper them with triumphant one-liners.  and the next thing, you look up and you see the wicked witch as you pass the mirror. and you remember that that's not how you want to live anymore. being a cauldron of seething superiority is no way to live. it doesn't make you happy and it certainly doesn't make anyone else happy. it's frustrating on all sides, because it never works, even if you can feel momentarily victorious at your own cleverness.

we are so damaged by our experiences. shaped by them in ways it's hard to see. i don't need to be to be mean and tough and hard anymore. that's no longer my reality. but it's a choice i have to make. every day.  and sometimes it's hard to remember, like when a situation puts me right back there, and i'm entrenched in the fallback position of the old pattern before i even know it.

you'd like to be able to step into an elevator and get off on a different floor this time. one where it's peaceful and kind and giving and all of the good things are there (openness, ideas, compassion, energy) and the bad (arrogance, condescension, meanness, toughness) aren't needed.

but it is so hard, breaking old habits. especially ones you feel you learned after you got burned. but you have to do it, because if you don't, then you didn't learn anything and it was all for nothing. and you want that least of all.

a community photo project

a lomo photo exhibition i saw in manila inspired my project

in recent months, i've gotten involved in a culture group in my community. funds have been ear-marked for our town to have a new "culture house," of which the only thing that's known is that the library will be part of it. right now, the culture house exists in what was the old city hall (and the library is a few blocks away in another old building). decisions have to be made as to whether that building will be renovated or a new one built. as you may imagine, there are factions on both sides and emotions run high.

me, i don't much care WHERE the events to take place, only THAT they take place, so it's quite easy for me to be dispassionate about it (the same cannot be said for many of the others). what i want is for there to be a big variety of cultural events and classes and activities going on for people of all ages. i got involved to bring new ideas to the table and, because i'm selfish like that, to ensure that there's stuff happening that i want to do!

but first, i'm putting my money where my mouth is - tomorrow evening, i'll present the start of a community photo project. the idea of the project is that anyone and everyone in the community should take photos of their life in our town over the next year. they will then (hopefully) contribute them to a flickr group and in a year, we'll have a lomo-style photo exhibition along the lines of the one i saw one time in manila, featuring everyone's photos. and we'll have documented a year in the life of our little town, as well as, i hope, having made new friends along the way.  i've planned the first photo meet-up, since it's sometimes easier to take pictures in public when you're with other people.

i'm going to kick off the project with some inspiration from my own nearly four years of taking daily photos. until i went through my three (!!) iPhoto libraries to prepare the presentation for this project, i didn't realize that i effectively started taking photos every day when i got my first nikon DSLR in may 2008. i just didn't call it a 365 'til january 1, 2010.

it has been a bit hard for me to narrow down all i want to share about how rewarding i think it is to take photos every day (tho' doing that will not be a requirement for participation in the project). it has also been hard to narrow down which photos i want to show for inspiration. i have a notion that many people think that every photograph has to include people, so i'm going to share some ideas for photos that expand people's photographic horizons...to get them thinking about light and shadows and photographing the same spot at different times of day, in different seasons. i've also included a few of my foot shots, as well as shoe per diem, just to share a bit of my own photo obsessions and prove you don't need faces for a photo to be interesting.

most of all, i love the beginning of a new project. i love the feeling of anticipation, the not knowing what direction it will go or how it will turn out. i even love the butterflies in my stomach over the thought that no one will come (all i need is a few to come). but i also want to make it clear that people can join along the way.  of course, i have some ideas of what i want the exhibition to be like in the end (see above lomo photo), but i also intend to keep an open mind and see what happens. when you put something out there and you involve other people, you never know where it lead. but you have to be willing to see where it will take you.