So, as you may have noticed from the date of my last post, it's been awhile since I've written any new entries. In the last three years, I've made the journey from married new mom to a fabulous baby girl to a divorced single mom (my baby girl is still fabulous). As anyone who has been divorced can testify, the journey to sanity and contentment has been marked with landmines and numerous setbacks. Now that I've survived a significant portion of this journey, however, I've decided it's time to return to my calling as a writer and artist. I  will be sharing my story in the hopes of encouraging other women who are undertaking a similar journey. To that end,  I will be posting books and other resources that I found useful in renewing my creative spirit; you may also expect to see some posts that are more about surviving and thriving in your new role as a single mama.

Creative Workspace

When it comes time for me to work on my dissertation or on my courses, I like to have a pretty workspace. To inspire you to create your own unique area to work, I've included images of my space. Enjoy!

Vision Board: Wheel of Fortune

The central image of my vision board is of the Wheel of Fortune (Rota Fortunae), which pertains to the role of fate in a person's life. Recently, I stumbled across a blog posting from the blog Tarot in a Teacup that helps explain my fascination with the image. Monica, the blog's author, quotes from Juliet Sharman-Burke's book The New Complete Book of Tarot: "The Wheel of Fortune is a paradoxical image of stability and change. The true self of a man, which is hidden from his conscious mind, very often remains at the still hub of the wheel, like the blind goddess. The hub remains stable, although the external or conscious situations change, as reflected by the moving outer rim. Fate is the circumference of the wheel, and the true self is the centre. The hub enables the rim to turn and thus controls all that comes its way. Each man is responsible for his own destiny, and although circumstances are determined, as are the four points of the great wheel, it is each man who turns his own wheel to whichever point his true self dictates. . . . In reality, we are presented with choices and situations, and what we do with them is on our own account."

Activity: Gratitude List

Both Ingber (Yogalosophy) and Schwarz (The Vision Board) emphasize the quality of gratitude.They recommend making daily lists of everything we are grateful for, such as family, education, friends, career, hobbies, health, etc. In the spirit of their analysis, and because I do have a lot to be grateful for, I've made my own list below. I hope you will create your own list; both authors advise making gratitude lists a daily habit.

My Gratitude List:

1. My daily yoga practice- it's not very long, about 10-15 minutes, but it's consistent.

2. My family- my little daughter and my husband are my pillars

3. My job- yes, teaching can get stressful, but I am thankful I have a stable job

4. My education- it's taken me a long time to complete my Ph.D. Each day as I work on the dissertation, I  
     remind myself it's one step closer to achieving my dream of having a doctoral degree.

5. The time to live a creative life. It can be challenging to find time to be creative since I've had the baby, but
      I'm grateful for each minute I can devote to writing or drawing or working on my blog.

Inspiring Thought: Junot Diaz

As I was working on my vision board at the Oprah.com website, I decided to take a break and browse the website. As luck would have it, I stumbled across "Becoming a Writer" by Junot Diaz. Diaz's relates a harrowing account of what it took for him to achieve his goal of finishing his novel, and my favorite lines from his column are these: "You see, in my view a writer is a writer not because she writes well and easily, because she has amazing talent, because everything she does is golden. In my view a writer is a writer because even when there is no hope, even when nothing you do shows any sign of promise, you keep writing anyway."

Read more: http://www.oprah.com/spirit/Junot-Diaz-Talks-About-What-Made-Him-Become-a-Writer/2#ixzz2T5vYESnI

Renewed Journey

I was just looking at my last post in December with a sense of nostalgia. A few days after that post, I gave birth to my first child. The labor and delivery experience was very different from what I had anticipated, and I experienced a complication at the end of the delivery (not with the baby- she was healthy, thank goodness). As a result, and perhaps from other factors such as hormones, I ended up with a mild case of postpartum depression. Over the past few months, I've focused on healing and on taking care of the baby, and now that I'm stronger and happier, I've decided to rejoin the journey of creativity that I started several years ago.

To that end, I've recommitted to my blog and to documenting ideas and inspiration I receive along my life's path. If I can help even one person feel more revitalized, I will be a happy blogger!

What I'm reading now:

I'm also working with the Yogalosophy DVD. I've been sporadically practicing yoga for ten years and decided I wanted to become more focused in my practice. I am proud of myself for practicing yoga every day this week! It's good to start small; right now, I've committed to 10-15 minutes of yoga each day and will increase that increment every few weeks. I like the book because of Ingber's positive attitude and motivational ideas, plus the yoga poses and diet ideas help with achieving my health goal. Right now I'm working on chapter 2, which has to do with setting intentions.

To be honest, I bought this book about four years ago, and it's been languishing on my to-be-read list. However, after reading Ingber's recommendation about creating a vision board, I decided to revisit the book. I am a little skeptical about the bestseller series The Secret, which this book is linked with, because of its emphasis on material possessions. However, I am giving this book a chance and am currently learning about creating a personal mission statement.
Extra: Type "the vision board" into the Google Images search engine, and you'll find hundreds of examples of different vision boards.
Extra: You can create an online board board at Oprah.com: O Dream Board. It's free, though you will have to sign up for an account.

Writing Resource: Mini Dream Journal

Recently, I was browsing through a variety of websites dedicated to writing and creativity when I ran across Kathryn Costa's  offer for a free download of a mini dream journal. Her design is beautiful, and the prompts can inspire budding writers to pinpoint their dreams and write specifically about how they can achieve those dreams. I am committed to daily journal writing, though sometimes it can be hard to come up with material to write about. Kathryn's beautiful journal can keep the inspiration of the creative journey alive and provide a concrete guide that any writer can use.