Of creating me, and art along the way!

Creating is exhilarating. It’s terrifying. It’s exhausting. It’s empowering. And, it’s more than all of that.

One of my paintings proclaims, In the image of the Divine, I create.

A more recent one is bold enough to edit that a bit and assert that, In partnership with the Divine, we create.

I’ve been hanging, lately, even more in the deep waters of creating. It feels like all the different layers are happening at once.

From the Big Why? which is a lot like inspiration, through whatever combination of words and images work in any given step, to the whole different processing pattern involved in all the tech-y magic of setting things free in our world… it feels like all the feels at once.

Then there’s the bit about deadlines which I prefer to think of as target dates, though the academic and the journalist who lurk inside me are not convinced!

Monday night was such an event. WIP Wednesday come early!

A WordPress page. Not War and Peace by any means, but a big project for me nonetheless. And one I care deeply about.

The easy part was basically done when I dove in again. By that I mean the copy.

That left details like fancy boxes around this piece or that. Links to things which didn’t all exist yet. And all the things my Muse kept adding.

Then, it all disappeared. The whole page. Really!

When I started breathing again, I tried to re-open the page from the beginning, causing the elves to send a terse message along the lines of…

This item has been deleted!

Trust me when I tell you that I had been perfectly fine with not knowing this was a possibility!

It took a while longer for the breathing to begin again. I was utterly clueless… and figuratively, if not literally, desperate.

My go-to persons to ask were otherwise engaged, so I summoned my inner reasonably current self and googled how do I… on my phone.

The third suggestion which appeared was composed of words I actually understood, so I started there.

It worked!!!

I got my page back and I learned two new things along the way.

• HOW to get my page back.
• I CAN DO THIS!

In and of themselves, these are really cool things to learn, in case – you know – it happens again.

Beyond that, though, there’s better news.

You see, what I was working on was something which matters a great deal to me and to the way I feel called to matter in this world, now.

So, why am I telling you all this?

Not because I was pretty pleased with myself, though I was. Not even because I learned some new things, which I love.

Instead, I’m putting this on the line because it’s a decent example of one of my favorite things… modeling.

The journey in which we let others see us grow and learn instead of hiding or seeming, however unintentionally, to shame them and blame them for not knowing. For having questions. For trying desperately to protect themselves from the often scary adventure of trying.

Granted, a recipe for something yummy and soothing would have been easier and I might have chosen that except, well, I’ve been watching the news.

I am convinced that this is a time of great change in the world my girls are growing up in and it seems to me that it’s going to take all the people who want the future to work for more and more of us to get through this.

So, I have a question. A question for you!

What do you want enough to head out into the forest of more-to-learn, of challenges like tech issues and visibility and mattering?

I really want to know.

And I can help. Stay tuned…

ps… the Muse has decided the studio needs some work to make space for our new ways of mattering. (It may take a few more Wednesdays!)

pps… if you haven’t joined the blog list yet, now would be a great time, with all the newness afoot. Just take a deep breath. Pretend the pop-up thingy isn’t annoying. And sign up! You are welcome, here!