Tag Archives: art

Leveraging the light

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Ironically, I slept in just a bit this morning. But let it be known that I didn’t sleep nearly as late as I normally do on Mandy Mondays. That, my friends, was a small victory. Yes I had the annoying stream of morning light through the window cheering me on. But I was going to get up anyway. I was, dadgummit.

I had the best of intentions.

I wanted to leverage the extra hour of morning light that I’ve we’ve been given. I wanted to wake up to greet the sun with inspiring words flying out of my fingertips and pounding onto page and key.

I wanted to make something beautiful and poetic and colorful. And I wanted to do all of this before the 8am hour arrived.

I’m not the only one with such aspirations. Go on. Raise your hand if you feel the same way.

So for those of us with hands raised and hearts ready, let’s do this together.

Let’s make a pact right here, before our body-clocks adjust to this new timeness we’re in. Let’s make a pact to go to bed closer to our old body-clocks’ time. And let’s make a pact to wake up closer to our old body-clocks’ waking time. And let’s make a pact to leverage the light and make something beautiful before the day even knows we’re upon it. Let’s claim a corner of a table, a section of a room, a stack of papers, and let’s make that our morning spot where we gather our thoughts and our hearts and let whatever is in us come floating out over the soft steam of the morning’s coffee.

It’s easy. All we have to do is wake up a wee bit earlier.

The art in asking answerless questions…

Aside

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Pablo Neruda and his Book of Questions have profoundly impacted me.

I found him this morning, after seeing him in two places yesterday. I think it’s astounding that the poet went to such great lenghts to write 316 answerless questions, in 74 poems, and they are all collected in a book.

And all of this just months before his death. Oh the cruel irony.

Great art shows significance through great effort and great thoughtfulness. Like the temples that are so ornate and symbolic and elaborate, demanding life and effort from the hands of men in order to claim rightful status as Sacred.

Effort implies significance, infuses a task with meaning and purpose. And all of Neruda’s these lines and rhymes of questions show us the significance and the art of question-asking itself.

There’s no doubt that he was making a deliberate statement, a statement that life is filled with unanswerable questions, but we can still ask them. And should. We should search for more. But we should also see the beauty in the questions.

And those 316 were just some of his.

Thank you for writing such a work, Pablo, with your green-inked pen of hope. Thank you.

The Blind Exercise

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Grab a blank piece of paper and a pencil or pen. Humor me. ;)

Now are you ready? You’re going to write with your eyes closed. You can do this. Just go with it. Ready? No cheating.

Yet.

On the frist line write “I” then circle it. Write “am” and then write “me” and underline it. Then write “and.”

Great work. Keep those eyes closed.

On the second line write “no one” and underline that three times. Then write “else.”

Bravo!! I should’ve made this a video, then you would hear clapping!! You did it!

Now keep those eyes closed. And flip over your paper to the other side.

Open your eyes to see that nice clean full-of-potential side waiting to be used.

Let’s use it.

Follow the same instructions as before, but with your eyes open this time. Do you feel a bit less awkward? A bit more confident that you can do this and do this well? Suddenly it’s a simple exercise of writing.

And in five seconds you’re done.

And it looks great.

But you haven’t forgotten what’s on the blind side. Let’s flip that page back over & take a look.

Wow. This looks very different from the neat side. See how you didn’t quite line up the words. And the underlines and circles were not exactly where they should be. And that third word? What does that say again? Doesn’t look like “me” at all.

It’s amazing how well we can express ourselves when we can see what we’re doing.

And this is exactly how I feel about trying to write/sing/explain bits and pieces of myself when I’ve got the blindfold of denial or fear or control covering my eyes. I can hardly write a sentence worth reading.

But when I really open my eyes to what’s inside and what’s happening and what I’m feeling and thinking and living, I know what I’m writing. And I feel much more competent. And, surprisingly, a lot less anxious.

So, I’m hoping to return to writing with my eyes open. No more of this blind-writing. It’s not worth reading/singing/sharing anyway.

What to do with your self-portraitings??

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Hello everybody!

It’s time! Next week I’ll be featuring some of the self-portraits that we’ve churned up. I’ve already gotten a taste of what we’ve done, and I’m very excited.

So. Here’s how we’ll do this. You can post it on your own blog (photo, song, poem, prose, whatever). AND/OR send it to me (mandy[at]mandythompson[dot]com) and I’ll put a few up next week.

If you’re interested, but have no idea what we’re talking about, click the link above and check it out. It’s all about being real and honest and vulnerable about how we see ourselves. And there’s still time to send yours in. You can knock it out over the weekend! yay!!

How’s that sound?

Send ‘em. I’m excited!!