I’m watching a flock of mourning doves outside my window. Across the street, my neighbor has bird feeders and the doves have made a home there — but they’re not feeding. They’re airing out their wings between a parade of California storms. They’ve taken to the sky while the sky is clear.
Welcome to 2023. “Out with the old” as they say. I’m feeling the need to spread my wings and shake the water loose like the doves. I want to shake loose everything I don’t need — the fears and heaviness and the toxic relationships and all that weighs me down.
How do you rise above it all and keep rising?
Embrace your softness like Seth.
Remind yourself that you’re not on anyone else’s schedule but yours like Gabrielle.
Buy flowers and create what feels good like Robin.
Follow your highest excitement like Agnes.
Count your blessings like Leo.
Today I woke up, changed from pajamas to sweats, made coffee, worked on a puzzle with my daughter, swept the kitchen floor. I grabbed a garbage bag and went room to room, filling it with trash, and then I walked the trash bag out to the bin and threw it in. When I came back to the house, I stopped at the front door, stomping - left, right, left - against the doormat. I shook loose the mud from the souls of my boots.
There’s a time to gather and store up and take in.
And there’s a time to empty and shake loose and fly!
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Buried Dreams, an exercise by Julia Cameron
For one week, no reading, social media, watching tv. Deprive yourself of all media.
In The Artist’s Way, Cameron says that media distracts us from self-examination. Removing these distractions may allow us to:
(1) get in touch with our feelings and thoughts (introspection);
(2) connect with our inner voice (inspiration); and
(3) refill the artist’s well by experiencing the sensory world.
This is how we begin to excavate our buried dreams. With our time freed up, Cameron predicts we’ll first become productive, eventually shifting into play once we run out of busywork. Play is important because it allows creativity to grow.
Cameron:
“If we monitor the inflow and keep it to a minimum, we will be rewarded for our reading deprivation with embarrassing speed. Our reward will be a new outflow. Our own art, our own thoughts and feelings, will begin to nudge aside the sludge of blockage, to loosen it and move it upward and outward until once again our well is running freely.”
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We had such a fun community zine night in Ojai last week. Big shout out to my co-host, Sarah Shay Mirk, and to Ojai Creatives and to Ojai Valley Brewery and to all the wonderful folks who came out.
I made a mini zine for the swap called “Dear Creative” and it’s available in my store for the cost of shipping — check it out, I’d love to pop one in the mail to you.
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No matter where you find yourself today, may you ultimately be a bird in flight, rising, with the wind at your back. May you make room for play and for people who feel like the sun. And may you know the creativity that is your birthright and pursue it with wild abandon.
Jump + Pray —
Joce
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"I shook loose the mud from the souls of my boots." I love this so much! Maybe that's my next journaling exercise: what mud am I ready to shake loose from my own soul? And thanks for the link. ❤️