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.

Tanka: Japanese Poetry

In the spirit of adventure and exploration, I've been exploring different forms of writing. Right now, given my shortened attention span, I've been working with the flash fiction and tanka forms. I discovered tanka a few years ago, and my main source of information and inspiration for the form comes from the website Tanka Online. Tanka Online features sections on tanka's background, writing techniques, and samples of tanka (I especially enjoy the selections from Mariko Kitakubo).

So, what is the tanka form like? It is similar to haiku but slightly longer. Tanka consists of one flowing sentence divided into 5 lines; tanka features the syllable pattern 5-7-5-7-7 (depending on your style, you may want to be flexible with how you approach this pattern).

Once you become proficient in the form, you may want to consider submitting your work to the Tanka Society of America's annual competition. I recommend that you play with the form for awhile, though; I've found that once I begin submitting writing for publication or contests, the process feels more like work and less like creativity and play.

Writing Prompt Friday

A travel agent walks up to you and hands you a plane ticket. Where will the ticket take you, and what will you do once you're there?

A Return to Creativity

As I reflect on my creative journey through the past several years, I have to admit my record has been somewhat spotty. I would have sudden bursts of creative energy that would stimulate me to write for a week or so then lose focus and lapse into inactivity. I would feel terribly guilty and think "I should be writing" . . . then not do anything. In the spring and summer, I decided to break the guilt cycle when I found out I was pregnant.

Now, I approach writing and creativity with a more hopeful and forgiving spirit. I've returned to writing in my journal on a regular basis, which helps to clear out the cobwebs (similar to Julia Cameron's strategy of morning pages). Also, I've started a joural for my daugher, which I will write more about in a later post. Essentially, this journal consists of little notes and letters about her development and my thoughts on her progress and hopes and dreams for her future.

Also, I discovered a beautiful journal in Barnes and Noble; it has a pink spine and is called "My Life Journal." I find all the different prompts and quotations inspiring and motivating, and when I feel I have absolutely nothing to write about, I open up the book to a random page and write at least one idea under the assigned prompt.

Finally, I keep my favorite writing books close to me. My essential books are listed below, and I encourage you to find  your own list of books that stir your creative spirit:

• Eric Maisel's A Writer's Paris
• Natalie Goldberg's Writing Down the Bones
• Heather Sellers' Page After Page
• Judy Reeves' A Writer's Book of Days

Happy Holidays!

A Victorian Christmas

From The Victorian Scrap Gallery, Dee Davis & Gail B. Cooper

Years ago, I visited a used bookstore in Gainesville, FL, and found this beautiful illustrated edition of Dickens's A Christmas Carol. Looking at this book both reminds me to constantly be on the lookout for small treasures and to support independent bookstores as much as possible.

You may obtain the full edition online for free at the Electronic Text Center of the University of Virginia Library.

Blank Slate: Preparing an Art Journal Page

Sometimes when I don't have a specific project in mind, I like to prepare a page in my art journal for when inspiration finally strikes. Here I've torn sheets of paper from a "The Lace & Linen Stack" of cardstock I found at Michael's and pasted them as borders.

Mandalas

Martha Bartfield's Magic Mandala Coloring Book, Volume One

Whenever I've had an especially stressful day, I like to pull out a coloring book- it reminds me of being a child and how important it is to have a sense of play built into each day.

One of my favorite coloring books, designed by Martha Bartfield, features mandalas (labyrinths are fun to color as well).

Experiment with a lot of different colors and meditate on your current mood to influence your color selection. In the first mandala, I was feeling some angst on the job- hence, the fiery shades of reds and oranges. In the second mandala, colored a few weeks later, I was feeling calm and mellow- thus, the cool shades of yellow, blue, and pink.

Reading Nook

My husband and I decorated the downstairs in shades of red and gold for Christmas. For the upstairs, though, I wanted something peaceful and pretty, my own little nook to read and write. So, with my mom's help, I created a dainty little nook upstairs.
What's your favorite place to read and write?

First Post: Ecletic Art

Inspired by the Spring 2011 issue of Artful Blogging, I've decided to create my own blog to share the creative side of my life. As an educator, I have a job that is exhilarating, hectic, and even sometimes stressful.Art comforts during the craziest times, and I define art broadly- writing, gardening, painting, drawing, crocheting, coloring. Spending time in my garden is restorative- I've shared images of some of my roses in this first blog.

  

I live in south Florida, and recently my rose garden erupted with lots of beautiful blossoms. Turns out my roses thrive on the comfortable December weather in Florida; I hope they last for a few more weeks.