lush?

Non lush week - a massive financial problem I've been wrestling with. Someone I've done work for doesn't want to pay me. Much much emailing and toing and froing. In between I gather myself up and try to get back to my life and not let this depress me. Gosh this is hard work. I saw a small boy on the bus this morning counting toffies in his tiney wee hands. A friend struggling to get into her flat with bags of shopping, another friend around for coffee, finding an unused stamp to write to a far away friend. Tiny lushious moments snatched from the wreckage of a week. Wish me luck I'm about to enter the fray again.

Magnum slideshow of last 60 years of photos.

randomish snippets

Bookslut is running a series of interviews with writers.

Philp Glass was speaking on Front Row tonight about being surprised about his success 'I had a day job until I was 40'. Carol Lloyds book 'Creating a life worth living' is great for getting artists to think about things like 'day jobs' and the support structures people need to create for their creative work.

post braai

(Braai= South African for barbecue)

Diego cat has gone to the great Cat Basket in the Sky. I'd meant and meant to have a birthday party for him and his sister so with his untimely demise I eventually got myself into gear and sent out invites about a week ago via email and even via mail mail. Shopped yesterday (thank you C for your kind help in lugging back the booty and for the Pimms).

Then I got up this morning made a birthday cake for the remaining feline, cleaned, made salads, moved furniture. Directed the lodger to get more charcoal. And then wished I hadn't started the whole shebang. About 1.30 if nobody turned up (apart from being overwhelmed by a feeling that nobody loves/cares for me) I would have been relieved. Then by mid afternoon the garden was packed, small children were dashing around the house. Frida cat had escaped to the furthest furthest branch of the wild cherry tree to escape, my friend Katty had thank god briskly taken over the task of burning sausages. By late afternoon the rain had started (the dodgy weather we have had this week can squarely be blamed on me for outrageously wanting to have a braai at all in Scotland ) We huddled under the tree with umbrellas eventually giving up an hour later and fleeing to the kitchen. Wee Joe had decided that noisy cat toys are fab and he went off clutching two examples. The last guest left at 7.30. Glasses are waiting to be washed up. But I'm so glad that I made the effort even with that sinking pre event feeling - its so worth riding through it to the good stuff. People reconnecting, having passionate conversations, parents just having a break, emails being exchanged, making connections. We are connected people but we have to work at it give our selves places to be connected. It was good I hope to do it before the end of the year. And I hope I don't influence the weather so disastrously next time.

Alice Ayers via 52projects -great photographs

'I have a friend who’s an Italian filmmaker of great artistic sensibility. After years of struggling to get his films made, he sent an anguished letter to his hero, the brilliant (and perhaps half-insane) German filmmaker Werner Herzog. My friend complained about how difficult it is these days to be an independent filmmaker, how hard it is to find government arts grants, how the audiences have all been ruined by Hollywood and how the world has lost its taste…etc, etc. Herzog wrote back a personal letter to my friend that essentially ran along these lines: “Quit your complaining. It’s not the world’s fault that you wanted to be an artist. It’s not the world’s job to enjoy the films you make, and it’s certainly not the world’s obligation to pay for your dreams. Nobody wants to hear it. Steal a camera if you have to, but stop whining and get back to work.” I repeat those words back to myself whenever I start to feel resentful, entitled, competitive or unappreciated with regard to my writing: “It’s not the world’s fault that you want to be an artist…now get back to work.” Always, at the end of the day, the important thing is only and always that: Get back to work. This is a path for the courageous and the faithful. You must find another reason to work, other than the desire for success or recognition. It must come from another place. '

Elizabeth Gilbert

hand written notes to myself

I've had an odd few days. Financial stress, being let down, sitting on my frustrations is so tiring. I've been out and about walking in the city and at the beloved Porty beach for two weeks straight. We'll I flaked yesterday. I stayed home. Read and watched terrible terrible TV. I think one can safely say the opening of Big Brother 2007 is truly terribleTV.

If I was going to write a hand written note to myself it would say.

'Its ok you don't have to do all the time. Its ok to be. And its ok to say this this sucks.'

Travelling by train in US

interesting article via kottke.

1. Go to the ugliest or most forlorn place you know—a drugstore parking lot, the front porch of a crack house, a toxic waste dump, or the place that symbolizes your secret shame—and build a shrine devoted to beauty, truth, and love.Here are some suggestions about what to put in your shrine: a silk scarf; a smooth rock on which you've inscribed a haiku or joke with a felt-tip pen; coconut cookies or ginger candy; pumpkin seeds and an origami crane; a green kite shaped like a dragon; a music CD you love; a photo of your hero; a votive candle carved with your word of power; a rubber ducky; a bouquet of fresh beets; a print of Van Gogh's Starry Night.

2. Late at night when there's no traffic, stride down the middle of an empty road that by day is crawling with cars. Dance, careen, and sing songs that fill you with pleasurable emotions. Splay your arms triumphantly as you extemporize prayers in which you make extravagant demands and promises. Give pet names to the trees you pass, declare your admiration for the workers who made the road, and celebrate your sovereignty over a territory that usually belongs to heavy machines and their operators.

3. Where exactly does happiness come from? That's the riddle posed by David Meyers and Ed Diener in their article, "The Science of Happiness," published in *The Futurist* magazine. Write your answers to their question. Map out the foundations of your own science of happiness. Get serious about defining what makes you feel good. What specific experiences arouse your deepest gratification? Physical pleasure? Seeking the truth? Being a good person? Contemplating the meaning of life? Enjoying the fruits of your accomplishments? Purging pent-up emotion?

4. Have you ever seen the game called "Playing the Dozens?" Participants compete in the exercise of hurling witty insults at each other. Here are some examples: "You're so dumb, if you spoke your mind you'd be speechless." "Your mother is so old, she was a waitress at the Last Supper." "You're so ugly, you couldn't get laid if you were a brick." I invite you to rebel against any impulse in you that resonates with the spirit of "Playing the Dozens." Instead, try a new game, "Paying the Tributes." Choose worthy targets and ransack your imagination to come up with smart, true, and amusing praise about them. The best stuff will be specific to the person you're addressing, not generic, but here are some prototypes: "You're so far-seeing, you can probably catch a glimpse of the back of your own head." "You're so ingenious, you could use your nightmares to get rich and famous." "Your mastery of pronoia is so artful, you could convince me to love my worst enemy."

5. Salvador Dali once staged a party in which guests were told to come disguised as characters from their nightmares. Do the reverse. Throw a bash in which everyone is invited to arrive dressed as a character from the best dream they remember.6. "The messiah will come when we don't need him any more," wrote Franz Kafka. Give your interpretation of his remark . . . .

7. On a big piece of cardboard, make a sign that says, "I love to help; I need to give; please take some money." Then go out and stand on a traffic island while wearing your best clothes, and give away money to passing motorists. Offer a little more to drivers in rusty brown Pinto station wagons and 1976 El Camino Classics than those in a late-model Lexus or Jaguar.

8. In response to our culture's ever-rising levels of noise and frenzy, rites of purification have become more popular. Many people now recognize the value of taking periodic retreats. Withdrawing from their usual compulsions, they go on fasts, avoid mass media, practice celibacy, or even abstain from speaking. While we applaud cleansing ceremonies like this, we recommend balancing them with periodic outbreaks of an equal and opposite custom: the Bliss Blitz.During this celebration, you tune out the numbing banality of the daily grind. But instead of shrinking into asceticism, you indulge in uninhibited explorations of joy, release, and expansion. Turning away from the mildly stimulating distractions you seek out when you're bored or worried, you become inexhaustibly resourceful as you search for unsurpassable sources of cathartic pleasure. Try it for a day or a week: the Bliss Blitz.

From FreeWillAstrology go there to sign up.

No 1 reminds me of Guerilla Art actions which I've been mulling over for years ... time to start doing some.

"We live in a world of theophanies. Holiness comes wrapped in the ordinary. There are burning bushes all around you. Every tree is full of angels. Hidden beauty is waiting in every crumb. Life wants to lead you from crumbs to angels, but this can happen only if you are willing to unwrap the ordinary by staying with it long enough to harvest its treasure."-Macrina Wiederkehr

365 Portraits

Great website by NY photographer who is doing a portrait a day for a year.

opp mildred's on Lexington st Soho

Redevelopment

We interrupt this blog to urge you to go to www.eh8.org.uk and check out the info about protesting about the redevelopment of the Canongate part of the High St in Edinburgh. Large swathes of buildings will be demolished (listed buildings) and will be replaced by hideous modern buildings.

I've been thinking about the High St a lot recently. There have been really quite successful redevelopments of the High St in the past including Ramsay Gardens which was an appalling slum until Sir Patrick Geddes persuaded some businessmen at the end of the 19th Century to redevelop it. If is of course now a major landmark in Edinburgh and we couldn't think of the skyline without it. However - Ramsay Gardens in beautifully built with incredible craftsmanship and expense inside and out. What we are being promised is something with a skim on the outside which will look hideous in probably 5 years.

Similarly I was in the Portrait Gallery in Queen St in a part I don't normally go to for work last week. As I was being drawn I had to sit still for 2 hours and only had the building to look at. I had all that time to appreciate the craftsmanship. The carving on the pillars and the gold leaf applied to the stonework. I don't know how long it took to create the Portrait Gallery or what it cost but over 100 years later it is still stunning and still in use.

Then I got given a watering can by my mother. My last watering can sprung a leak a few months ago and I've been looking for another. To be honest I thought the gifted watering can the ugliest watering can I'd ever seen in green plastic. I felt terrible - looking a gift watering can in the pout. I took it home and eventually hid it under the stairs. But I thought about it more. My last watering can I lived with 7 years. The buildings they are proposing to build in the Canongate will be for us for decades or hundreds of years. Don't we have a duty rather like Morris would urge us to make sure that they are beautiful? elegant? pleasing to the eye? I would rather have something which gives me pleasure to look and and use it entirely up. Than something that 'does' then I throw it away when tired of it. I'm currently searching for a new bag and the one I currently own is in a sorry state (a very sorry state) but I will not get some thing that will just 'do'.

We don't as a city have to just 'do' because a property developer is scamming us to make money

Here is an article on the public meeting last week. And this is the installation at Causewayside as part of the 6 cities festival. Where some unfortunate woman came up to me to interview me on my opinions on design and I think I ranted for about 10 mins.

Miss B at Mildred's in Lexington St Feb 2007

Would they build a Tesco on the Great Wall of China?

Turn the hanging gardens of Babylon into MacDonalds?

Probably...

Just back from a meeting about the proposed 'redevelopment' of the Canongate a part of the Royal Mile in Edinburgh a UNESCO designated World Heritage Site. Please go here www.eh8.org.uk to read more and send in objections to the plans. You don't have to live in Edinburgh to do this. Anyone can object regardless of age, nationality or where you live. We may have a chance to stop these plans with a change in local government.

HERE I AM

In February when I was in London I was taking photos around Verde in Spitalfields and this workman asked me to take his photo. Lots of building work going on around there.
~*~*~*~*
A few days ago I was writing in my journal sitting outside. I wrote HERE I AM in capitals and outlined the letters. Here I am sitting in my garden, the wind in the tree, clouds in the sky, cat sniffing the hedge. Here I Am.

A huge burden lifted off me. I didn't have to cloak myself in an activity in the future to justify myself Here I Am Making An Important Film About, I didn't have to qualify it by saying Here I Am Administrator/Co-ordinator/Life Model. I didn't have to qualify it with any kind of activity to justify my being.

So much of my time my head is a running list of to do's / undones' not done yets. And often they are linked to shoring up my sense of identity and worthiness. I do think that creative projects often also fall into that scheme of things. I'll write my novel and then I'll be worthy of notice. I'll become an artist and become a bohemian. I'll do X and show them! You are already enough, do enough. Just existing is enough.

Freed (I'm pretty sure this is temporary so I'm writing about it so I don't forget) from feeling a need to prove myself to myself and others I found myself walking across the city to an appointment and greedily appreciating everything, the leaves, the grass, the children wobbling across lawns, small dogs waiting for their owners in shops. Life immediately had a depth to it that has been missing for some time.

I love that photography is a way of seeing what is here already with more depth. I'm not scrabbling around creating something but just getting something already here. Of course at the same time its full of moments that I did not think had occurred. For example the black & white photos below of the beach which look like Fox Talbot. But they seem to me to be a revelation of something that was there but I didn't know was there. I find myself grappling with accepting the mysterious accidents rather than going out and thinking I can control the process.

"Next time you go on eBay, try running a search for sackcloths and ashes. You won't find many for sale. Nobody is wearing them anymore. They are so out of fashion that there is not even a second-hand market. 'Guilt, darling, how very 20th century. We don't do that sort of thing anymore.' Actually, we do. We do far too much of it. The world would be a better place with a little less self-flagellation and a little more constructive action. Forget your worries and regrets now. Just be glad of what's possible. "

Jonathan Cainer

Yes and I'm having such a good time walking around the city between errands, taking photos, watching films, meeting friends (unexpected meetings as well even more delightful). I keep on thinking there must be a downside a - punishment. The long arm of Calvin.

Going outside with my coffee and journal now.

from 'The Dreamer'

'It's not so much whether you should or should not sell spirituality, you simply can't. You cannot buy your spirituality from me or anyone else. I cannot sell you knowledge of your soul's deepest longing, an experience of your innately compassionate nature, or a connection to something later than you because I don't have your knowledge, your experience, or your connection to sell. All I can do when I am facilitating retreats is provide you with a sacred container - a place and some practices that will give you the opportunity to do the work of penning to your own knowledge, experience, and connection - and some stories that hopefully will inspire and encourage us all when we are lost or tired. I charge money for the time and energy it takes to do all of this so I can provide for myself and my family while I am doing it.'

Oriah Mountain Dreamer

unthawing

At last the summer seems to have come this morning. Sat out with my coffee this morning and drew badly in my journal.

There is a ton of stuff on Leith Festival and Six Cities Design Festival.

Off to post office and back to do some late spring cleaning.

Yesterday went to the beach and Fife was slowly obscured by a rain storm and the sea went green.

Living the dream with the day job

"I consider this a little handbook to help us all feel a little bit better about the whole picture of our lives, not just the after five o'clock and on the weekends. Also, it's to acknowledge the time we spend MAKING IT WORK. The reality is, MOST of us have day jobs in addition to our "real work" or "real lives." Some people go to work and never think twice about it. Some people go to work at a place that they HATE, but can't think of anything different. I wanted to make something that honors the fact that most of us have two lives and that takes A LOT of energy. I also wanted to make something that could be an easy reminder that you are living your ONE life right now (not later)--why not enjoy it as much as you can--with a day job or not."

Summer Pierre on her new zine on artists making the day job work.

Beyond Words Holga 2007

Freedom from Self Improvement Day

Because if self-improvement worked, we’d all be self-levitating, multi-lingual, size-zero billionaires by now.

Because we know, deep down inside, that we already have everything we need right now, exactly as we are, and that accepting ourselves moment by moment, over and over again, is the fastest, cheapest and actually only way to ever be truly at peace, happy, and content— and FYI, to actually change anything about yourself (no guarantees when it comes to others; they may remain annoying and obtuse).
~~~

This is just the kind of holiday I can get behind. Free postcards to download here.

Also twenty ways to make a difference by just being who you are.

Holga's from Claire's party

find your own left bank

On Friday night I had dinner with friends. Lovely food and wine. I'd gone there from meeting some students of my last Artists Way class and so arrived already 3 glasses down. I hadn't seen F for more than 6 months, and H not 'properly' for 5.

Late on in the evening F kicked back and asked why H and I didn't spend half an hour per day doing 'proper' creative work not emailing and blogging and complained that he though creative all day and making money at it (composing for advertisements) wasn't creating something worth leaving behind. I countered by pointing out that blogs/ blogging/email have a kind of virtual community attached and one reason why people invest in them is that we desire community. We need a place to go where we feel supported encouraged, and that there are other slightly odd people doing the same. Basically what ever we would like to think, we are social animals and thrive with a community around us that supports us. Or 'Believing Mirrors' as Julia Cameron would call them.

Anyway the next day I dragged myself to an early bus and found myself in the company of these dear close family friends who have known me for 30 years. I grew up in the same street as them. As I entered their kitchen I exclaimed at the smell - exactly the same as their house in Edinburgh - instantly transporting me like a Madeline through the years, of strife pain and love to myself nearly 3 decades ago. I took my latest batch of Holgas to show them and V was convulsed by their lack of focus.

I'm convinced that we need to find and create and nurture our own lefty bank cafe in order to facilitate our creativity. I don't think creativity flourishes in a barren and rocky place without encouragement. I think encouragement and belief in each other go a long way towards our creations coming out.

Sheri Beinstock's book Women of the Left Bank popped into my head when talking to F (who is French anyway). This amazing confluence of creativity in the period of the Lost Weekend was partly because women set up structures formal and informal to support each other's creative work.

In addition to creative encouragement we need to feel generally that there are people who love and encourage us for 'just being us'. And I know that V is just such a person even if she thought my photos could have been sharper.

bluebells

Just been in the country. The woods of Dumfries and Galloway are carpeted in blue. I'm clean out of film so no photos. Feel refreshed from a change of scene and overconsumption of wine over the weekend.

Taking action makes you happier

a great post by Christine Kane - hop over and read it. She's so so right. I do think my Artist Way groups have such a high success rate because much of it is about getting out of your head and doing something. Anything!

Oh and to add good results happen even if your attitude is 'bad'.

I did some action last week and processed a sleugh of holgas which I'm thrilled about and will start posting soon.

Another of the weird work places I've done temp time in but I rather like the mix of green and orange in this picture.

Robbie/Portobello/non polluted beach

the journey begins

Waverley Station

~~~~~~

Weird things happening - I keep on having these odd encounters.

I started a new job today and got a bus I don't normally get. A man got on sat in front of me and had this conversation on a mobile straight out of Rebus about how nobody in his family could dive anywhere or they would be lifted by the polis. He seemed pretty drunk/under the influence to me. We were proceeding in an easterly direction towards Leith.

Then he turned around and started this long monologue about how his passport had been taken away because he was ill (!) He was supposed to have an operation but he wasn't sure if he should just go underground instead. And he hadn't told his family about being ill and yesterday 3 ambulances came to take him away but he was just thinking about skipping the country. What did I think he should do? I thought he should have the operation. Then he stood up to get off the bus showed me the scar from his last operation and lurched off the bus. Somewhere in the monologue was a mention of him not drinking. Luckily he was struggling with two boxes as he got off my stop so I was able to make my escape to the supermarket.

How to set goals....

Bad goals are ones make for other people.To curry favour or love or acceptance. Bad goals are ones made to create an identity, for the ego to preen.

Life enhancing goals are about the journey as well as the end. It doesn't mean that all parts of the goal will be easy or pleasant there will still be moments of stuckness and terror and anxiety and a need to 'do it anyway'. But looking overall in the totality of one's life the goal will be worth it. If you don't get the goal you are not worthless or diminished - things happen. Plans fail it does not mean that you have failed as a person. You were not necessarily failing to 'manifest' properly. Sometimes you need to find another way to your goal sometimes you find its something else you need all together. Sometimes we just need to set a goal and set out on the journey until we do we will not know if it is the right goal for us. We cannot always know in advance. We have to take risks in order to live.

New idea 'soft goals' not hard in stone if I don't do this I have failed but lets try this and see what happens. It may be the way or it might not. Neither is good or bad - it just is.

I'm really enjoying posting up these photos (I think from two years ago) With a bit of distance I can see them fresh and anew. I'm trying to shift a lot of things at the moment and hanging onto the small things that give pleasure like finding a stash of photos on my hard drive and clicking the jpeg numbers and seeing what comes up is a moment of pleasure.

At the same time I'm aware that I spend far too much time here at my computer and am making a concerted effort to meet people and actually gasp! speak to them on the phone!

useful Holga camera hints

here - I've got about 10 exposed rolls waiting for the funds to process them. In the meanwhile I'll keep uploading the lomos.

10 tips for great travel photos

By Sibylle Meder over at JPEG.

I've no idea what this tryptich of bomb like containers are - I see them each time I'm on the train to London and they always catch my eye.

Sign in Liberty's for the bookshop - now turned into the perfume area so the bookshop sign made out of books is gone.

Neal's Yard Courtyard London Lomo

From the Edinburgh to London train

5 ways to find inspiration

This is something I wrote over at my other blog.


Ok you want to write a script - in fact you are desperate to write a script and you sit down and stare at the computer or notepad and nothing… nada. Here's some ways of accessing the muse.

1. 
   Carry a notebook and pen with you at all times. Something which can be shoved into a pocket or a bag easily. The writer Anne Lamott keeps index cards about her person at all time. This way when you are struck by something say an overheard conversation in a bus you can quickly jot down the idea and capture it.
2. Give yourself space for the muse to visit. Ie allow yourself a bit of living and what I call noodling time. Give yourself to walk between appointments, do something you’ve always thought might be interesting or fun to do. Somehow allowing ourselves to play and have fun keeps the imagination alive.
3. 
   Don’t just go to the cinema any thing you write will then be influenced by what you see rather than being original - mix in museums, theatre, music- the off beat. In the same way vary your inputs – don’t just read film books browse the other sections of the library and bookshop. My first film came out of reading a review copy of a non-fiction book in the publisher I worked in. (Similarily if you are a poet don't just read poetry)
4. 
   Become known as a screenwriter in your circle. Once people know that you are a writer they will offer you stories – I kid you not. Again take notes (one of my short film scripts was a heavily revised and changed take on a friend’s really weird childhood).
5. 
   Do what writer/director Adrian Meade does - go through newspapers not nationals but local papers tear out all the weird and off beat and intriguing stories. 'Two brothers transport their dead dad in an ice cream van.' He puts them in a large trunk so he knows that if he runs out of ideas that he can always look in it.Strangely enough he never has. (This does't work with online papers as the serediptious factor is taken out - they must be real old fashioned paper papers).
   

tulips and blossom

Spring seems to be out in force and I'm spending time sitting on buses and admiring those garish park plantings tulips/stocks/pansies in clashing colours, the impossibly fluffy hybrid sweetie pink blossom. All quite yummy. No photies but do go out and do a little 'Cherry Blossom Admiring Time' if you can.

I like to remind myself of this occasionally!

The Lives of Others

I went last night to see this film. Its about the power of art to change people despite living in intollerable situations. I was very moved by it. I met my friend in the South African cafe Ndbele which is just oppostite the cinema - perhaps the reminder of my childhood in another authoritarian state overlaid my response to the film. Here is an interview with the director.

Jealousy

Christine Kane has a great blog about it. It uses up lots of energy so well worth engaging with rather than trying to 'over come 'it or ignore it.

Mommy effiiciency

Great post by Andrea Scher on getting down to it without the procastination.

Cool Australian food blog - makes me nostaligic for my time in Sydney.

guerilla benching....

ChavCat aka Perry now rehomed - it was that or a cat ASBO. One day I'm going to do a film about the cats in my street. I should be ashamed to say that I know more about the cats then the humans but I'm not. For example I got very worred about Miss Blott (full name Blott on the Landscape) because I hadn't seen her all winter and was very relieved to find her sitting in her garden with her human a few weeks ago. Next door has a new cat called Jess who is young and 'done' but is now ... how can I put it politely ... well I can't - sexually assaulting my little Frida. And the other day a new neighbour introduced himself and it was obvious I was known as Frida and Diego's human above all other labels.

Right now I've been sluping up amazing views. I went to the beach on Thursday it was as calm as milk and looked like mother of pearl. I was walking with my parents as my lights went out a few days earlier and my dad came to fix my circuit. I quite enjoyed watching Desperate Housewifes by the light of four candles and a string of fairy lights. Perhaps we should spend more time in candle light. . Yesterday the haar came in and as I waited for the bus the mist was so thick I couldn't see Edinburgh Castle. Just a wall of blank whiteness with occasional building looming out when the mist thinned. Very odd as the entire city is a city of vistas and views - it is what makes Edinburgh Edinburgh.

The glass roof on the escalator at the Kelvinbridge Underground in Glasgow.

I'm going through my back catalog of photos and posting them. This was taken in 2005.

Small slow steps today. I'm finding breaking things down to the tiniest part is the best for me. I get more done that way by sneaking the work in.

Ian Hamilton Finlay

There is an exhibition of his works in London at the moment.

Photography - how to draw a picture in light

instructions here

North Bridge Edinburgh looking towards the Carlton Hotel.

I don't drive so lots of the photographs I take are from bus stops I wait at or are from my way to or from a bus stop. Its by these things the fabric of our lives is fashioned.

The beach at night

another lomo of the skylights

the star shaped skylights at Portobello Turkish Baths

H a p p y E a s t e r

Sitting outside and drinking coffee with my friend, trying to stop cats eating my tulip buds.

Smalll furry cuteness for Easter here.

turkish baths and easter eggs

Last night I went to the Turkish Baths at Portobello. (Here's a history of Turkish Baths in the UK). It was fabulous. After several rounds of steaming, plunging, eating of cake, fruit and turkish coffee brought by my friend L with REAL cups we tumbled out about 9pm and sat on the promenade looking at the light houses twinkling and the waves and felt completely blissed out.

I've been neglecting my body recently I must make amends. Today its lovely and sunny and I'm thinking about my easter egg buying strategy...

don't buy it make it

article on the revival of sewing your own clothes .

walking barefoot

I went to the beach last night and its the first time this year it was warm enough to take off my woolly tights and shoes and walk with bare toes.

Bliss.

I hope that you can do the same whereever you are.

giving ourselves credit

I spoke to a friend recently. I asked her what she had been doing and she said that she drove her mother 6 and a half hours each way so her mother could visit a friend in hospital. I commended her for doing a very good deed. And she said grumpily that it was a chore and it wasn't a good deed because she felt it was like a chore. But I disagree - who was it said it doesn't matter what you think but what your actions are - Sartre? The bottom line is that she did a good deed she might have done it with bad grace but she still did it. It was shame that she couldn't give herself the credit for having done it as well.

I have a new blog!

Dear heavens another ... this one is specialised on short film making. Any requests for blogs on specific area let me know. I wanted to build up a big of a backlog of posts before spreading the word.

Artists Survival Kit

by Keri Smith. I'm sure that I've posted this before but do check it out!

Encouragement to Do More Things Badly

SARK: We’re always thinking progress is an advantage. In fact, it can be the exact opposite of what our souls need. Once again, our souls need regression as much as they need progress. I love Thomas Moore for saying that. We’re so indoctrinated that progress is the way.

ALISSA: We don’t even want to admit when we regress or that we’re not being productive.

SARK: People lie all the time. Just take television. People continually lie about it. They say they only watch a little bit and mostly public television—or the nature shows and the Discovery Channel. They’re presenting an inner critic compilation of the appropriate programming to watch. Or they go further and say, they never watch. TV’s a waste. There are better things to do with your time. Simultaneously, they judge others who watch too much TV and specifically, the wrong kind of TV. It’s another subterfuge we undertake to hide our actual experience.

I remember I was home alone sick one Thanksgiving weekend. I watched reruns of “Thirty-something” or some other show. There was a marathon. I watched 38 episodes in a row. I began living in it. I was so with these people that when they had their Thanksgiving show, that was my Thanksgiving. I confessed what I did to a friend, and to this day, the friend admits to feeling so safe when I owned up to it, because this person had done similar things and always felt really alone.

TV here is just a metaphor for a lot of other things that people don’t tell the truth about. Most of us have similar things. We have too many books we haven’t read. Most of us feel guilty about the books we haven’t read. Most of us have overflowing closets and procrastinate about ever having any order in them. On and on. Why aren’t we just admitting these things, laughing about them and then spending our energy elsewhere. There’s always going to be entropy and disorder and lack of progress. That’s going to be a constant. We can use the energy we’re spending trying to make progress in much more pleasurable pursuits or other creative endeavors. I know that was a tangent, but I had to go on it.

ALISSA: It’s an important one. We put ourselves in these rigid molds based on what we think is socially acceptable or the right approach.

Encouragement to Do More Things Badly

SARK: Please let’s invoke the spirit of my friend Rebecca who died two years ago. She said, “Please tell people to do more things badly.” For instance, meditation works even when you do it badly. And that goes for everything else. Once again, most of us aren’t just procrastinators, but we’re perfectionists, too. We don’t even try new things because we might be any good at them. Guess what? It’s fun to take dance lessons—even if you’re not good. Not everything you try may turn out to be fun, but don’t futurize to stop yourself, because of your perfectionism.

ALISSA: I loved when you wrote about taking a class in something you know you’re bad at in one of your books. How that act is freeing.

SARK: Even my speed dating experience. I was really bad at the preliminaries of that. I was a wreck. I was overfocused on my appearance and having trouble driving. I was talking to myself. I’m a meticulous person, but when I got there, I filled out all the forms and promptly lost my name tag. I don’t think it was an accident. When I went to report the loss, the person said, “I’m sorry. We can’t replace that.” I thought he was kidding, but he wasn’t. He said if I’d lost it, I couldn’t participate.

He told me to talk to the organizer about whether or not he might do something. Fortunately, he had found my name tag on the floor. But he said, “Don’t lose it again or you can’t participate.” My perfectionist was going wild, saying I didn’t do the right thing. It was funny. Then, I found out that I was much better at talking to 10 people for 10 minutes each than I ever knew. I found out that in some ways, I was more comfortable than the people I was talking to. The point is I’d never know if I hadn’t tried.

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Finding water

I found a bloggers collective all doing Julia Camerons' new book

Interview with Julia Cameron about the Artists Way

"I think people become more comfortable in their own skin. I think people become more bold. I think people become less easily intimated by authority. I think their humor improves and all of those things tend to be reflected in daily choices."

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