Help!
I’m assuming that you, like me, have
grappled with this dilemma…
From the Oregon State Fair art by Jenny Armitage
Not the dragon, that just represents a dilemma, here is the dilemma. Have have you ever gone to an art fair and
browsed through exquisite paintings, crafts, photographs, and some you would
like to buy, but the price tag prohibits it? You feel for the artist. They
deserve what they are charging, for you know chances are they spent hours on that
painting, or that dragon. Even if they did whip it out, they deserve energy in the form on
money in exchange for the energy they put into their craft.
My
grapple is charging for my services.
I feel selfish charging for something I
have created, knowing how much art feeds the soul.
I’ve paid people, and I have taken a lot
of free advice from people willing to give it.
Perhaps right now what I write ought to end up
being my morning pages that Julia Cameron writes about in The Artists Way.
For those who do not know about Morning Pages,
they are a way to write out the crap that’s cluttering one’s head, and it’s not
for public consumption. With morning pages, you can gripe on the page and then
throw it away. It’s a way to put a period at the end of a sentence. You know
how thoughts can cycle through then turn around and bite you on the butt.
Morning pages are a way to write without
fear of mistakes. It’s letting thoughts pour out through the fingers. Why write
it? That way you can put a period at the end of a sentence and be done with it.
Who wants to repeat themselves with a pen—you get writer’s cramps.
It’s the best therapy I can think of right
now.
Help!
I need help turning my thinking around.
What if my art stinks? And who wants to
buy it anyway? People are short of funds right now I don’t want to ask them to
part with money better spent on survival. And regarding books, who reads these
days, and why would they read mine?
Long ago I took a correspondence course from
The Art Instruction Institute thinking I wanted to be an artist. Charles Schultz,
Peanuts creator, you’ve heard of him, took that course before me, and that
convinced me to sign up. Somewhere in the middle of the course when we were
doing pen and ink drawings, I came upon the phrase “The Painter with a Pen,”
and while the course is long-gone, and I’m not an illustrator, or a cartoonist,
I like the idea of being a painter with a pen. For do not words draw upon a page,
and with ink?
Zig
Zigler to the rescue!
“It’s the attitude, not the aptitude that determines
your altitude,”
I know that half the world--more than half--spend
their day doing soulless work. Thus, we ask ourselves, “Why am I different? What
makes me think I can pop out of the morass and do what I want?”
Suffer with the world seems to be the
mantra.
Well, are you not a child of God destined
to do great things? We didn’t come here to be small. We came to live a grand life,
and to live abundantly.
Are we someone who settles?
Let’s do it and ask others to come along.
You know there are a few, bless their
hearts, that do what they love, and love doing it. And they get paid for their
services.
It doesn’t matter whether you like them or
not, what matters is that they believe they deserve to be paid, and they do.
Motivational speakers are hot on that
trail, and people flock to them for inspiration and advice. Their clients plunk
down money on the line, and often running up their credit cards to do it.
The BELIEF is that these people can help
them accomplish what their soul is desirous of. It’s a belief that they can
live their dreams if only someone points the way. And if they do your money is
well spent. If they don’t, you probably let your energy fall down.
From old Zig’s wonderful drawl: “Some say
motivation doesn’t last. Neither does bathing. That’s why we do it daily.”
I was in need of it today. I let my energy
fall.
And so, I searched the web for his
Attitude vs Aptitude quote and found one of Zig’s talks:
- Recognize when you’re down.
- Set a limit on it—know it is temporary, and set a "get up and go day."
- Wake up in the morning and say, “Today I’m going to give it my best shot.”
- Do it with a smile.
- Attitude, like the flu, is catching. Associate with positive people, avoid nay-Sayers.
- Measure your success, not against others, but with what you could have done.
Zig’s podcast segued into a commencement
speech at the University of Pennsylvania given by Denzel Washington:
“You will fail at some part of your life.”
“You will suck sometimes. “
“Don’t quit.”
“I
never understood the concept of ‘have something to fall back on.’” said
Washington. “Fall forward.”
Do you have the guts to fail? What are you
going to do with our one glorious life?
After Washington failed two auditions in a
theater in NY, he went onto many more failures. Thirty years after that first
audition, he was back in that same theater performing Fences, for which he
won an Emmy.
We find ourselves in an odd world
condition. But we will get out of it. We will find our passion again.
Why wait?
We need it more now that ever.
Do it now.
Okay. After that motivation, I’m off and
running. I wrote the first edition of my newsletter “Where Tigers Belch.”
A
newsletter cometh. See below.
Volume 1, June 21,
2020
May your rivers flow without end, meandering through pastoral valleys tinkling with bells, past temples and castles and poet’s towers into dark primeval forest where tigers belch, and monkeys howl…beyond that next turning of the canyon walls.”–Edward Abbey
Have you ever had one of those days where you
felt off? You were out of sorts, irritable, thinking that nothing was going
right? You were mad at the world and mad that things weren’t going according to
plan. You were angry that you aren’t further along on your enlightenment trail,
and wondering what in the heck enlightenment is anyway.
You could search for years and never find that
spot where the tiger belches, where you are calm, and believe that all’s right
with the world. It is the place where you feel invincible.
I understand the gap. Best to back off. Go
into your hut, take a nap, pet that baby cheetah that was sleeping on your bed,
and listen to it purr. (I’ve heard that they have a purr like a lawnmower, and
if they lick you, your skin will feel like it has been sanded.) Decide at that
moment that you will be fresh tomorrow, and you are not going to push it
today.
Page 2
Tomorrow, you think, I will take my
backpack. I will add a few bottles of water, a couple of sandwiches, and set
off to find my destiny.
This is the purpose of Where the Tigers Belch—more a journal than a
newsletter. It is an investigation into finding our purpose, and learning that
we are magnificent beings on the road to greatness.
We’re not on safari here, although I
wish we were. We’re here to find the spot, that spot that lights
our fire. That’s where the tiger belches. I could say sleeps or lies down, or
roars, but I like Abby’s lyrical poem, so I’m saying, “Where it belches.”
While in Africa, Martha Beck found
herself in an awkward and dangerous place. She was between a Momma rhinoceros
and her baby. Standing there looking at an animal the size of a Volkswagen bus,
she experienced a strange phenomenon. She was frightened, yes, but she was also
elated. She was at a place she had dreamed of since childhood, and at that
moment that rhinoceros represented her one true nature. She felt that somehow,
she had come face to face with her destiny. (Between a rhino and a hard
place?)
Perhaps that rhino was a talisman for
her, a representation of what she could become: big, strong, able to overcome
obstacles, that thing that both scares us and elates us. We just hope we live
to tell of it.
Being at a spot where a tiger belches
has a gentler ring than coming face to face with a rhino. The purpose is
the same.
The teacher Abraham talks about the vortex. That’s her
description of that place where you are experiencing your highest self, and
that’s the place where miracles happen.
Tony Robbins pumps up his energy, and the energy of the audience
by standing, moving, dancing, yelling, for we know that not much happens when
we are in a slump, or bored, or lackadaisical.
I’m using the word miracles loosely here, for I think a miracle
is divinely sent by grace, maybe asked for, maybe not.
However, Creating at the spot where the tiger belches is
an intentional, thought induced action.
I don’t think we can take credit for all we have produced, for I
believe in muses, and divine intervention. However, we can take credit for
finding that spot in the jungle where the tiger belches, and where the magic
happens.
You think we’re small? Don’t believe it.
I'm so anxious I can't sit still, but I will wait for morning knowing all the while that I am jumping without a parachute.
Let's see.
Let's see.
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FREE copy to give you a glimpse of the road ahead. The
second volume will begin July 21, 2020
