Because we happened to move to New York City, and because my mother, who was from a small city in Central Illinois, was hungry for art and culture, I was exposed to the great museums when I was quite young.
I can remember seeing Van Gogh and Renoir, Modigliani and El Greco, but no one quite moved me like Cezanne. I was five years old at the time, and it was Cezanne who invited me into his world like no one else did. A mysterious, magical world that existed alongside this one, but was different. In this world but not of it.
To this day I am not quite sure how he did it. Though I have gone back to look at his work innumerable times, I have not been able to recapture the feeling I had as a child. I have also read about his life, his techniques, and interpretations of his oeuvre. But that initial and startling realization as a young person that a French painter from another century had the key to another world beside this one—or through this one—or at any rate co-existing with this one—though less readily available—has never been duplicated.
And here’s the thing. Cezanne not only saw it himself and showed it to me on his canvases, but he invited me in to share it with him. That was the feeling I got with the landscape paintings, the blue trees and blue rocks. The sheer magical depth of scenes I had never envisioned or thought might exist—and yet here they were.
It was a very different feeling from the one I got from stories and fairy tales and the illustrations provided in those books—perhaps because I was looking at the actual work of art, and not a printed version on paper.
And here’s another thing: there was nothing there to see! Of this “other” world, I mean. It was the merest suggestion, but that was all it took to get my imagination. And I think that’s all I’ve ever needed, just a suggestion. As I might need only a single leaf to tickle my cheek in order for me to believe I am surrounded by a whole forest of trees!
In other words, I was inspired. Because I knew, as most children do, that there truly was another world within this one, and it was just as real, just as viable. Yet many years had to pass by before I was willing as an adult to delve into the inner world with my inner creative being. Years of disappointment, shattered hopes and dreams fallen by the wayside before I could say to myself Wait! There IS something else! Something inside to explore. And Be. And Realize. And Do. And Create.
“Little Man #4″ oil on canvas by Nancy Wait
But I had to reach for it. I had to dig and delve. I also had to master my materials of choice—the paints and instruments of drawing—a process of trial and error as most things are. The continuing result has of course been worthwhile. For as I gave credence to the inner workings of my psyche, I came more alive in the outer expression of ‘my’ world. And that has been the greatest payoff imaginable. To come more alive to oneself. And then, to feel the whole world resonating with that same aliveness, that same spark of life and creation, of change and evolution.
It begins with the feeling of being invited into another world…
This Tuesday, April 30th, 2013, will be our last show of the series we began three months ago on Inspirational Storytellers on Blog Talk Radio. I am grateful to all the guests who have come on our show to share their stories, and to my friend and co-host, Lynne Ralph (aka Lynne Maree) for her tireless work in creating and promoting our guests and their stories on her website, Inspirational Storytellers. It is our stories that give meaning to the world. And meaning to our own lives.
Behind everything, there is a story. Did you write a shopping list? There’s a story behind each one of the items you’ve chosen. There’s a story behind your need for them too. The shoes you’re wearing have a story to tell. Life itself is a myriad of stories—funny, sad, poignant, tragic, ennobling, confusing, difficult to express sometimes, which is why we salute those who do write their stories, and those that even make the attempt. Those who write fiction draw from their own experiences, so we salute them too, as well as those who write from their imagination.
When you put your story out there, you are making a difference. Even if you don’t share it with anyone, you are changing the world because you have changed the energy in your room. You’ve changed the way your molecules vibrate. In opening up, in putting your story down on paper, you are putting it outside yourself. So it is no longer just inside you. And in that process, you are making yourself more real in the world.
But we haven’t only had writers on the show; we’ve had people who have taken it upon themselves to inspire others the way that they have been inspired. It may have been to take a leap of faith. Or to pick themselves up after a disappointment, when the life they had previously known fell apart. And they want to share how they did it, what steps they took, and how they ended up finding a new life, new meaning, and a new perspective.
We’ve also talked with a couple of artists who, aside from doing their own work, support others in taking up the brush in order to access a deeper part of themselves. Perhaps a hidden part, or a more real part, but definitely an aspect that has not been acknowledged or dealt with—the creative side, which makes all things possible. Whenever you dream that you can do something, you must do it. You need to make a start, and believe in yourself, and do whatever you can to keep that belief going, no matter what. Because we are all here to fulfill the dream of ourselves. A dream that I believe, we came in with at birth.
Our job, the purpose of this show, has been for a short period of time, to say Hurrah! to those who have been inspired to follow their dream, to follow their heart, and have lived to tell the tale. Sending out sparks, as it were, so that others may be ignited with the courage to get on with it, and share their light too. Never underestimate the power of a single spark!
It’s all about sharing the light. If you have done the work of transforming your darkness into light, you will naturally want to share it, so that others may be inspired to share their stories as well, and we all may be encouraged to keep peering into our shadows, lighting up the darkness! Re-energizing ourselves and all we come in contact with—with the energy of lightness, the fire of creativity. So say it loud, and say it clear, because we cherish your radiance!
You are invited to call in and share your inspirational stories with us for our Radio Season Finale! Our northern hemisphere team have books to write and a spring and summer to enjoy! So for our first Radio Season Finale we’ve decided to celebrate with a VERY SPECIAL show. Please join Nancy Wait and Lynne Maree on-air and share your story!
All expression is a way of putting it “out there.”
As soon as we put it out there it’s no longer inside us, or merely inside us. It has been expressed outwardly. So we can now hear it, feel it, see it, touch it – outside of us. And so we get to know ourselves better in the world. And so we become more knowing.
This is especially true of memoir.
Memoir is the story of us. It is about who we are, who we think we are, who we think we might have been, and who we were.
We write our stories with the hope they will be read and that readers will have a response, that they will be moved in some way.
But whether or not they respond in ways we expect or desire, whether or not our books fly off the shelves, something utterly amazing has occurred within us along the way of transforming our memory into prose: we have become conscious of who we actually are.
Look forward to hearing all your stories! Please remember to reserve your spot on the show with Lynne and we’ll catch you on-air on the 30th!
I will be reading a radio play with my cohost Gary Moore called Mr. Woundid and Ms. Heeler at the Starbucks Cafe, which is about a meaningful encounter.
Then I will read aloud a story called Geo for George,
(working title), which is about how the cover image came about on a little eBook called Sacred Wound, which is FREE March 18th through the twentieth.
The show will be LIVE at 5pm EDT; 9pm GMT, and available afterwards in the archives.
Geo for George is about a Meaningful Encounter of the 4th Dimensional Kind (as experienced by a romantic).
It is part of a collection of true stories in progress about a female artist in the 1980s who is propelled into 4th dimensional consciousness vis-à-vis a number of “meaningful encounters.” The 4th dimension has been called a clearing station, and that is how I like to see it. A place of clearing, on the journey to wholeness and love, aka 5D.
The story begins in 3D, yet doesn’t end there. It goes on. But not in 3D. It ends in 3D, but it goes on, this fly-by-night you thought was a new journey. But it ended. However meaningful the encounter was to you, it didn’t go anywhere. Not in 3D.
There will be no shared memories, only your memory. The memory will stay with you because it was meaningful. And it was meaningful because your life has been altered, and you will never look at things in quite the same way again.
I’m serious. Writer’s block is serious. It can be devastating. I’m currently hosting a blog talk radio show called Inspirational Storytellers, and as you’d naturally expect, my goal is to be inspiring. This is actually not difficult for me. Because no matter what I am going through personally, I have this bubbly sun-shiny personality that always sounds enthusiastic. (Except when I’m really low, and then I keep my mouth shut and write in my journal. Or watch DVDs.) Doing a radio show is in itself an upper, so no worries there.
But this isn’t about radio shows per se. This is about writing. And what to do when you feel you’re stagnating, or you can’t seem to move forward, or can’t seem to get to it period.
I have been struggling with these very things in recent months. A year and a half ago I published my first book, my first memoir, and began the sequel immediately afterwards. I was extremely excited about covering new territory after being submerged for so many years in one particular time-frame—albeit a twenty-seven-year time-frame. The sequel was to be about what came after. Many slot gacorreaders expressed enthusiasm for the next book, and that helped. But not enough. Not nearly enough.
I can imagine that even if I had a hefty advance from a publisher for this next book, I still might be flummoxed. Because this has absolutely nothing to do with someone waiting for pages or printed pages or bound pages or digital pages… This has to do with my personal objective. Or lack thereof.
One of the most valuable comments I received from my advisor at grad school was, “Why are you telling me this?”
Boy, what a wake-up call! Why indeed? I had quite a story to tell, if I could just get it out, but until I found the raison-d’etre, forgeddabout it – as we say in Brooklyn.
It has not been a simple matter, deciding who I am writing to this time. For the first book it finally became clear to me, when I asked the question in the very first line—What did I know and when did I know it? I then proceed to spend the next three-hundred and fifty pages explaining the answer. Tellingly, I subtitled slot tergacorthe book, “The Memoir That Solved A Mystery” Because it was true.
watercolor by Nancy Wait
With the second book, the sequel, I have wanted to tell the story of how I became an artist and why, and what it did for me, and what it did not do. It sounds fairly straight forward, yet I have found this is far from the case. I have one of those minds that slot88needs constantly to be held in check because it tends to go all over the place. It’s why I literally throw away hundreds of pages. But never mind about that. It’s part of my process and I’ve learned to live with it. The thing is, and what I wanted to say today is, that it struck me this morning with a great deal of force—that what I must do is see and perceive my overall mission. I could say ‘goal,’ but mission tends to put it on a slightly higher level. Of course my goal is to finish the thing…but what is my purpose, my mission, the thing I need to keep reminding myself each day that will keep me focused on reaching my goal?
It is not just to spill my guts or bleed on the page or ‘just’ put it out there, tell my story. There’s got to be a why. Why should you situs slot gacor bother to read it? Who am I writing to? I cannot emphasize enough how important this last thing is—who am I writing to. This “Who” is not going to change the facts of the story, but it is going to change my slant. It is going to affect the presentation.
Well, the good news is that this morning I have made a decision. I will write to that uncensored aspect of myself who understands my truth, and will not judge. Because often it is not enough in memoir to merely change names—or even lump characters together. It’s the truth of ourselves we’re dealing with. And we have to know why we’re telling it, and the purpose behind it—in order to have slot pragmatic gacor hari inithe strength and courage to carry on. And I have to believe, have to have to have to, that somewhere, there is someone, who needs to hear my truth. Not just my story, but my truth. Why else would I be struggling so hard to get it out? Because perhaps I hear a voice, calling me from the future, pleading with me to spit it out already.
Today I welcome back to my blog actress, artist, author and radio host Nancy Wait. Nancy kindly agreed to an interview… and here it is!
Hi Nancy and thanks so much for whizzing in from New York to join us.
Haha! Thank you so much for inviting me to share. I really appreciate it.
So, Nancy, I know that you are actually a former actress, but I’ve never had a real live actress on my blog before so I hope you don’t mind me listing you as such here.
Not at all. In fact my short-lived acting career in the UK is still my only claim to fame thus far.
I have to ask you Nancy, actress or drama queen?
Actress, please! In fact I was very serious about my career until I discovered that others did not take me seriously. That was my fault of course. I can be so dense at times! I thought that others would see me as I saw myself inside, but of course a lot of people just look at your exterior—especially in the performing arts. When I was young my interior and exterior were at odds. It made me feel I was born into the wrong body! I bet I’m not alone in that feeling either. But as I’ve gotten older it’s all come out in the wash as they say. And I’m certainly more conscious of what I project. (I hope so!)
Initially, I was ultra serious about “the art of acting.” I was sent to acting school as a child because I was what was called “painfully shy,” never speaking up in class, and the teachers complained to my parents. My father had been an actor at one time, and he had a great love for the theatre, so off I went to Saturday morning classes to learn how to pretend to be an extrovert. Very good training it was, too!
They say that underneath every introvert is an extrovert. Perhaps not someone as flamboyant as I turned out to be, but there all the same. I continued to study at a special high school in Manhattan, then at Carnegie-Mellon’s excellent drama department—but I was never what you would call a drama queen. I think being one of five children gave me the need to be recognized and set apart from the crowd, so to speak. But I wouldn’t call myself a drama queen, as that conjures up an image of someone filled with a sense of their own importance—and that was quite the opposite of yours truly! The confidence it took to go out on stage or in front of the cameras was just as much of an act as the part I was playing.
I know that you lived in London during the 1970’s and you were also involved in the British film industry…. So would we have seen, circa 1976, a scantily clad Nancy running from the clutches of a lecherous Syd James in Carry On Camping?
I don’t think so! Though I did do something of a similar nature, Au-Pair Girls, directed by Val Guest in 1972. My professional name was Nancie Wait, as an astrologer told me it would bring me more luck. Though whether it was good luck or bad is a debatable!
Ahhhh never mind, so what brought you to London?
Such a long story! It goes back to when I was a child in New York and my mother was in her “English” period. I have English ancestry from Yorkshire, and she began with buying Yorkshire antiques and cooking English food, then reading Wuthering Heights aloud to us. Then along came the “Swinging Sixties” and the Beatles and so on, and because I was studying acting at the time and going to Broadway plays—many of which were English—a dream was born to study at Rada. We had no money of course, but I met and fell in love with a boy at college who had the same dream I did, and he brought me to London with him.
It’s actually a bit more complicated than that, having a great deal to do with my eagerness to leave home as well as live in another country, and I tell the whole sad story of that in my book, The Nancy Who Drew.
Were you a diva? Did you demand salami on rye to be flown into Shepperton Studios from your favourite deli in Manhattan?
Honestly, Richard, I think you’ve seen too many movies! I was a working stiff like most actors were and are. It’s funny really, because when I was dreaming up my life as a young teen, I decided on acting as I was hungry for “glamour.” And then what a shock to find the profession was 95% hard work like anything else.
The only time I ever worked at Shepperton was when I was hired as an extra for The Great Gatsby. It was Myrtle’s party. The film with Robert Redford and Mia Farrow. And what a treat it was being put in Redford’s dressing room the week before he arrived. I had to share it with two other actresses, but still—what a luxurious dressing room compared to what I was normally used to!
Believe it or not I was in a theatre company once and I’ve performed Shakespeare (didn’t understand it though); have you ever trodden the boards? If so what was your favourite production?
My best performance and favourite production was actually a play I did while still at Rada. A Streetcar Named Desire. I played Blanche. Opportunities in the professional world—at least for an American in London—were few and far between. But I did an American play at the Traverse up in Edinburgh, and then The Country Wife at Oxford, which we took on tour. I played the Cockney maid (Cor blimey guv’nor Ed.) —and didn’t do too badly with the accent I’m told—haha!
I was actually getting called for more auditions at rep companies when I decided to chuck it all in and come back to America. I loved acting at one time, but I found “the life” didn’t agree with me. That can happen, you know.
What made you get into writing?
My father was a writer and I had a love for books. I put writers up on a pedestal. But though I wrote long letters to friends and family, I had no confidence that I could write stories myself. After I gave up acting I took a class here in New York, and the instructor used me as an example of what not to do! Looking back, it’s so clear to me that I wasn’t able to express myself on the page because I had so very little knowledge of who I was in those days. I was aware of my inner life, but I had no confidence in my ability to reveal it to anyone else. I found later that good writing depended so much upon that over-used expression—high self-esteem. You have to think well of yourself and believe that what you have to say is interesting, otherwise you’ll never stick with it. So I let go of the idea of becoming a writer—and took up art instead.
Can you tell us something about your book The Nancy Who Drew?
Self Portrait, Nancy Wait
Well, I’ll tell you this—it took fourteen years to finally get it out there. I spent five of those years going back to college and then grad school to learn how to write. Then another five years revising it and finishing it on my own. Then some time passed looking for an agent and a publisher. Then more revising. But two things were going on in my life at that time. One was that I was raising a son with Asperger’s. He had a mild case, but it was still something to deal with. The other issue was my indecisiveness whether or not to include the idea of reincarnation as the backbone of the challenges I had faced as a young person. I put it in and took it out several times. I patched it onto the beginning and the ending, but found it didn’t really work. The problem was that I was being totally honest in relating the events of my life, and here was this idea of reincarnation I didn’t have any tangible proof for. I felt it was true, but I didn’t want to make assumptions I couldn’t prove.
So I had to get over that. I had to trust myself and believe in myself and my perception—in the clues I’d been given, the knowledge that had come my way—and just go for it. Finally, when my son left for college and I had the space in my head to do it, I just sat down and said this is it! This is my story and I’m going to tell it like it is—and to heck with asking an agent or a publisher for approval. So I self-published last year, 2011. What a relief to finally finish and get it out there!
What writing projects do you have planned for the future?
Well, I ended the story in 1977, when I came back to the States. I had been gone for seven years. My next book is the sequel, telling the story of how and why I became a painter and the tremendous change it wrought in my life. I’m in the process now of making revisions, and I plan to bring it out next year sometime.
Do you want to tell us something about your work as an artist?
Watercolor by Nancy Wait
Sure. One thing a memoirist doesn’t lack is the eagerness to talk about herself! I studied drawing because I wanted to draw and paint realism. It enabled me to earn my living as a free-lance artist in the 1980s—before scanners and digital cameras and Photoshop became ubiquitous—because there was a market then for architectural renderings, or building portraits as I called them. I also did a fair number of portraits of people. I’ve had some gallery shows of my other work from time to time, but they never really took off or connected with people, which is one of the reasons I feel impelled to write about them. It’s a series actually, called Journey to the Deep. Then a while back I was one of the founders of a group of artists here in Brooklyn called Brooklyn Visions, and we had many group shows. But the most pleasure I got out of it was the series of interviews I did of nine of the artists which we then published in pamphlet form. See how I tend to want to combine writing and art?
I mostly stopped painting after I got into writing, except for a series I did called Little Man. But that was a narrative too. I created a story around him and posted the video on you tube. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6udkw0odOY4
I find I’m having a resurgence of the urge to draw though, which is good because how can I continue on with the story of The Nancy Who Drew—with a Nancy who stopped drawing?
I’m going to put you on the spot now Nancy… writing, acting or painting; and why?
You know, everything we’re drawn to do or compelled to do I might say, is for a reason. If it’s creative work, then we have a need to express something. And we must keep searching and exploring, and through trial and error, find out what it is and then do it. Give it all we’ve got.
When I was growing up I was so frightened of the world. I felt like an alien soul among the savages! I was crippled, in a metaphorical sense, like Laura in The Glass Menagerie. As retiring and shy as a little mouse! Like Isabelle Huppert’s character in that 70s movie, The Lacemaker. So the acting training was the best thing that could have happened—in order for me to become the person I wanted to be—and am today—someone who could host Blog Talk Radio shows for instance. (Opening her now big mouth when the situation calls for it!) But as I mentioned, the acting life was difficult for me, as it is for many sensitive souls—and naive young women I should add! With painting, I was able to not only connect to myself on a deep level, I was able to access an inherent power I didn’t even know I had. Painting can be quite physical when you’re standing at an easel for hours on end. And then there was the power of creation. One of my favourite titles is Rollo May’s book, The Courage to Create.
Writing is different. I can see how beneficial it’s been for me to save it for my later years. Because now I have the opportunity to put it all together, to try and salvage some wisdom from the chaos and confusion I’ve lived through. Writing things down for other eyes forces a kind of clarity we wouldn’t otherwise labour to employ. Which is something I’m sure you have found also, in your work, Richard.
And last but not least, there is this over-powering urge for communication! For sharing. For saying to people, can you relate? Do you see what I mean? Has this ever happened to you? And so on. Because we know how it is that often we don’t know what we’re even thinking or feeling until we witness someone else thinking or feeling that very same thing. And so it brings us together. We identify. And we know we’re not alone. Someone else has been there too. And the very act of writing our own stories, painting our own pictures, makes us more whole.
Well all that remains is for me to thank author, actress and artist Nancy Wait once again for joining me on my blog today. Before you go Nancy I just want to ask you one more thing. You are obviously a very inspirational and creative person, so do you think you could delve into the vastness of your inner being and leave us with some words of wisdom? Thanks again and do come back soon…
The “vastness of my inner being!” Oh, you do have a way with words, don’t you Richard. Well, I’ll tell you what comes right away to mind—because I’m also a writing coach, is the importance of self-revelation through any creative means. It doesn’t get any better than Socrates phrase, Know Thyself. We are all of us composed of a vastness of riches that lies in wait, as soon as we’re ready and willing to tap into it. The new world we’re entering into is one of Conscious Creation. Whatever artistic field we go into will sharpen our senses and give us a fuller sense of life and who we are in it. Music teaches us to hear. Art teaches us to see. Writing calls on us to observe and describe what we see and feel. Acting calls on us to walk in another character’s shoes, to be them for a while, and so it teaches us compassion. And the Dance! I don’t want to leave out dancing. None of us should want that. Whether we dance with sorrow or joy, or have to sit in a chair and only dance with our eyes, we mustn’t forget the dance of life and love and everything in between—and keep on keeping on! Thank you so much Richard. It’s been a pleasure!
You can find out more about Nancy’s work by clicking on the links below; and why not follow her on twitter?
When I’m inspired, it’s like being in a whorl of surging energy. I’m focused and centered on what I’m doing. I’m totally absorbed in the moment. I’m not “thinking,” I’m doing. And if my “doing” is a thought process, then the thoughts seem to be coming through me, effortlessly. I can be lost in an activity for hours and not know where the time went. It’s what athletes call being in “the zone.”
For me, it’s being in touch with my muse. My muse can come from different sources, but there’s always a sense of reaching. Of trying to capture a feeling or an idea that feels just out of reach. So I have to raise myself up a little, or stretch down further. And always, always, open my heart more. Open to more feeling, more love, more trust.
When I’m inspired, I create something new. Or I take what I’ve been working on, to a new place. I take it to a new level. It always feels like a higher level, or a deeper level. But even when I’m trying to express the depth of a feeling, I have this sense of having to reach higher for it.
And I know why this is. I know it’s because I’m in a physical body wanting to express a thought or an idea that’s beyond me, that resides in my spirit.
I also know that spirit is matter, but moving at a much faster rate. Too fast to be seen on the physical plane. So I must move faster. I must accelerate. Speed up my vibrations. Break through my old patterning.
You can, you can
take yourself in and UP
through the spire itself.
As in, aspiring
Through the whorls of energy
to the rings of the spiral
As in, grabbing hold of the spiral
As in, swinging with it
As in, spiraling with it
As in, allowing yourself
to be carried away.
Energy speeds for a new cycle
A new turn in the spiral
As in, acceleration
The mind speeds up, and UP
(It may feel like we’ve slowed down)
But we stop being bogged down
By doubts and thoughts of failure
Before we even begin
Because we are UP
In the spire
Aspiring to be more.
As children it was easy for us to be inspired. Anything could inspire us. Alphabet soup, fire trucks, paper dolls, empty boxes—what didn’t inspire us then! Every day something new to absorb, no backlog of disappointments weighing us down.
Watercolor by Nancy Wait
Being inspired is like being a child again, which Nietzsche describes so beautifully in his parable from Thus Spake Zarathustra. “Finally, after defeating the dragon of “Thou shalt”, the creative spirit is born into its final metamorphosis: the child. As Zarathustra says of the child: The child is innocence and forgetting, a new beginning, a game, a self-propelled wheel, a first movement, a sacred “Yes”. For the game of creation, my brothers, a sacred “Yes” is needed…”
This video (book trailer) explains why Nancy Wait taught herself to write and her amazing journey as she connected with the blueprint of her soul. What a story!!
Why should we write our stories? Because in the words of Baba Ram Dass :
Ram Dass
“Everything changes once we identify with being the witness to the story instead of the actor in it.”
For now we are watching the action from above, or from the side, or from the wings. We have some distance. We are an observer. Everyone in the story, including ourselves, is now a character. This is taking our lives to another level.
Story-Me means “make-it-into-a-story.” It means taking an episode from your life, something memorable because of the emotions attached to it, and creating a story around it, a narrative that doesn’t part with the facts of the situation, but one in which you are the observer, the witness to what is happening. This retelling is like being “in it but not of it.” Not this time around. This time around you can see it all playing out in hindsight. This time you are wiser. You know the outcome already, but you are re-creating it for us, your listeners.
* Story-Me
When you Story-Me*, you are taking your experience to a different level. If the experience was a painful one, there can be healing through writing it down. Through bringing the events up again we can hold them in the light. We can step back, change the view in the viewfinder. Re-evaluate. Perhaps change our perception.
And then there is the sharing part. Reading a story aloud opens up the throat chakra.
In the process of creating story, we are outside, looking in. We begin to see ourselves as a “character” in our own lives. Why is this good? Because when we are able to observe ourselves, we are no longer at the mercy of our thoughts and feelings. We still have thoughts and we still have feelings, but now we are observing ourselves as we have them. Journaling does this for us as well, albeit in a private way. Journaling doesn’t necessarily open up the throat chakra or take us to another place. But it does make us more self-aware.
When you are able to re-create your life or part of your life as a story, your life starts to turn into an art-form. Maybe you start to see the plot, or the theme. Or what it has been so far.
As we move into the accelerated evolutionary pathway, the telling of our stories has never been more popular. “This flowering of story-telling is certainly no accident,” says Daniel Pink.
My own understanding has grown immeasurably since I began seeing myself in different stages of development. I’ve had to practice self-forgiveness when I realized how I was denigrating my younger self for not being more aware. There were so many hidden messages I had been giving myself that didn’t even come out until I began putting them on paper.
The more we can story our past experiences, the more we will be able to create the story of our future. Perhaps it will then be a story of the soul. Perhaps we will become more conscious of our soul lessons. If nothing else, writing out our stories brings us to a new level of awareness and understanding.
The whole point is to go deeper into our experience, remembering who we were in order to know who we are.
*Story-Me is an expression I came up with when I was fantasizing how wonderful it would be if I could listen to a person’s story, (meaning a sad, bitter or tragic one) and then reinterpret it for them – much the same way as I reinterpreted my own for myself in The Nancy Who Drew. Which is to say I took the experience of betrayal and punched so many holes in it – until the Light of the Soul came pouring through – and lit up my life!
Because we happened to move to New York City, and because my mother, who was from a small city in Central Illinois, was hungry for art and culture, I was exposed to the great museums when I was quite young.
To this day I am not quite sure how he did it. Though I have gone back to look at his work innumerable times, I have not been able to recapture the feeling I had as a child. I have also read about his life, his techniques, and interpretations of his oeuvre. But that initial and startling realization as a young person that a French painter from another century had the key to another world beside this one—or through this one—or at any rate co-existing with this one—though less readily available—has never been duplicated.
When you put your story out there, you are making a difference. Even if you don’t share it with anyone, you are changing the world because you have changed the energy in your room. You’ve changed the way your molecules vibrate. In opening up, in putting your story down on paper, you are putting it outside yourself. So it is no longer just inside you. And in that process, you are making yourself more real in the world.
We’ve also talked with a couple of artists who, aside from doing their own work, support others in taking up the brush in order to access a deeper part of themselves. Perhaps a hidden part, or a more real part, but definitely an aspect that has not been acknowledged or dealt with—the creative side, which makes all things possible. Whenever you dream that you can do something, you must do it. You need to make a start, and believe in yourself, and do whatever you can to keep that belief going, no matter what. Because we are all here to fulfill the dream of ourselves. A dream that I believe, we came in with at birth.
It’s all about sharing the light. If you have done the work of transforming your darkness into light, you will naturally want to share it, so that others may be inspired to share their stories as well, and we all may be encouraged to keep peering into our shadows, lighting up the darkness! Re-energizing ourselves and all we come in contact with—with the energy of lightness, the fire of creativity. So say it loud, and say it clear, because we cherish your radiance!
Quoting our very own Nancy Wait from her article “
I will be reading a radio play with my cohost Gary Moore called Mr. Woundid and Ms. Heeler at the Starbucks Cafe, which is about a meaningful encounter.
Then I will read aloud a story called Geo for George,
When I’m inspired, I create something new. Or I take what I’ve been working on, to a new place. I take it to a new level. It always feels like a higher level, or a deeper level. But even when I’m trying to express the depth of a feeling, I have this sense of having to reach higher for it.
