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Posts by Miranda

Apr 23

5 Comments

Monday Post ~ April 23, 2012

“The richest source of creation is feeling,
followed by a vision of its meaning.”
~Anaïs Nin


This is the moment to deepen, or commit to, your regular creativity practice. Regularity — a daily practice, if at all possible — is key.

So what are your plans for creative practice this week? Given the specifics of your schedule, decide on a realistic intention, goal, or a milestone to reach for — and plan that time in your calendar. An intention as simple as “I will be creative for 10 minutes every day” or “I will gesso three canvases on Wednesday” is what it’s all about.

Share your intentions or goals as a comment to this post, and let us know how things went with your creative plans for last week, if you posted to last week’s Monday Post.

Apr 16

12 Comments

Monday Post ~ April 16, 2012

“Creativity belongs to the artist in each of us. To create means to relate. The root meaning of the word art is ‘to fit together’ and we all do this every day. Not all of us are painters but we are all artists. Each time we fit things together we are creating — whether it is to make a loaf of bread, a child, a day.” ~Corita Kent


This is the moment to deepen, or commit to, your regular creativity practice. Regularity — a daily practice, if at all possible — is key.

So what are your plans for creative practice this week? Given the specifics of your schedule, decide on a realistic intention, goal, or a milestone to reach for — and plan that time in your calendar. An intention as simple as “I will be creative for 10 minutes every day” or “I will gesso three canvases on Wednesday” is what it’s all about.

Share your intentions or goals as a comment to this post, and let us know how things went with your creative plans for last week, if you posted to last week’s Monday Post.

Apr 12

6 Comments

The Morning Centering Practice

Recently, I’ve been thinking about why some days are focused and productive, and others are just “busy” and unsatisfying. It’s the difference between driving the cart and having the cart push you along from behind. One feels way better than the other.

In working with clients and in examining my own life, I’m gaining new clarity on the importance of a morning centering practice. When I do my morning centering practice, I’m in touch with what’s important, what I want to accomplish that day, and the frame of mind I’d like to maintain. I plan the day, allot durations to each activity, and then work from my list. When I don’t do the morning practice, I jump right into “doing” — and am thereafter shadowed by a nagging feeling of being “off,” regardless of how much I get done. On those days, I tend to work in a state of reactivity, rather than proactivity.

What does a morning centering practice involve?

Here’s what my morning centering practice looks like, in an ideal world. In total, it takes about an hour to an hour and 15 minutes.

  • 5:00: out of bed
  • meditate for 20 minutes
  • make tea
  • record last nights dream(s) in my dream journal, if I remember anything
  • choose an Osho Zen Card for the day
  • read the day’s entry in Mark Nepo’s The Book of Awakening
  • review my list of personal goals and intentions for the year
  • creative visualization (Shakti Gawain exercises)
  • intention journaling
  • plan the day (in planner, assigning a time and a duration for each task, or adding them to the “batch task” block)

This might seem like a cumbersome list, but it flows naturally — each step building on the last, ensuring that the things I put in the day’s to-do list (the last step) are grounded in my larger intentions and values.

To create your own morning centering practice, brainstorm the materials and resources that help restore you to who you are. Whether or not you consider yourself a Buddhist, I strongly recommend a daily meditation practice. Meditation helps you remember that all of those thoughts in your head — the thoughts that stress you out, make you feel bad, or tell you what to do — are just the monkey mind. You can let them come and go without falling for the little snares they leave in their wake. The best (and cheapest) therapy going.

Making it happen

How does a mama get an hour or more to herself in the morning? At my house, she gets up at 5:00. There’s no other way to slice it. Sometimes (usually) at least one of my younger boys is up well before 6:00. But so long as I’ve completed the meditation portion of the morning routine, I can do the other parts with company. It’s not ideal, but better to do the practice than not. Much, much better to do the practice than not.

There are two important things that fuel the morning centering practice. The first is habit. If you get up every day at the same time and do your practice, it becomes routine within weeks. It’s just what you do. The second is going to bed on time. I’m naturally an early riser, but if I go to bed at 11:00 or later, it’s painful to get up at 5:00 — and too easy turn my phone alarm off and go back to sleep. I need to be vigilant about bedtime.

When I look back on the periods in recent years when I’ve been “in the zone” — when doing what I want to do has been less of a struggle — it’s been when I’ve maintained my morning centering practice. I can feel its value, like an inner compass, throughout the day.

Springboard to creativity

Following your morning centering practice with a window of creative work is an excellent strategy. You’ll have clarity and inspiration. If you have to take a break in there to get kids ready and off to school, that’s OK. But get a block of creative work done as soon as possible. If you can get your creative work done before any “day job” tasks on your plate, so much the better. All day long, you’ll feel great about having done your creative work first thing.

How about you? Do you have a morning centering practice of one kind or another? What works best?

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Apr 9

7 Comments

Monday Post ~ April 9, 2012

“The pearl’s beauty is made as a result of insult, just as art is made as a response to something in our environment that fires us up, sparks us, causes us to think differently. The pearl, like art, must be catalyzed.”
~Julia Cameron


This is the moment to deepen, or commit to, your regular creativity practice. Regularity — a daily practice, if at all possible — is key.

So what are your plans for creative practice this week? Given the specifics of your schedule, decide on a realistic intention, goal, or a milestone to reach for — and plan that time in your calendar. An intention as simple as “I will be creative for 10 minutes every day” or “I will gesso three canvases on Wednesday” is what it’s all about.

Share your intentions or goals as a comment to this post, and let us know how things went with your creative plans for last week, if you posted to last week’s Monday Post.

Apr 6

33 Comments

Miranda: When the Truth Hurts

Sometimes we hold onto an idea, an ideal, an intention for so long that it takes on the patina of something holy. We clutch onto this ideal with complete conviction, confident that any conflicting ideas are wrong, implausible, outrageous. Over many years, pressure accumulates underneath that ideal. And then one day, the ideal cracks open and reveals something more useful: the truth.

So it is for me in my navigation of motherhood and work. For all of my 21 years of being a mother, I’ve held onto the ideal of being at home with my children as much as possible. Early on, I had many fulfilling years of being at home with my kids fulltime. Slowly I built a freelance business that took off after my three oldest were in grade school. But then two more children came along, during years that were full of intensifying work stress and all that goes with being a creative entrepreneur. Still, it was essential to me that I be at home with my kids as much as I could. I somehow thought less of women who worked fulltime “by choice.” I relied on at-home babysitters and then part-time preschool to cover the bulk of my working time — except that there never was enough time. This meant long periods of working nights and sporadically on weekends in order to make it all happen. And while it’s hard to admit, there were too many times that I relied on the electronic babysitter to buy me some more time just so that I could get “a little more” work done. Working at home, and always being at home, seemed to mean that any time could be work time. I never managed to create the boundaries that I thought would reduce my stress level and help me be more present.

Figuring out how to work less, do less, and parent more has long been my struggle. I’ve written at this blog about the vortex of caring for young children, the difficult transition back to parenting after the work day, wanting to do less, enjoying the successes, and then adding more to my plate — things that I’m deeply passionate about, like becoming a creativity coach and opening a studio for all things related to creativity, well-being, and life design. With three different businesses to tend to, pushing the envelope took on a whole new meaning.

While I continued to heap ever more items onto the “things I’m doing” pile, my perennial plan was to be more active and engaged on the motherhood front. I wanted to have a weekly family project routine — but never managed to make it weekly. I’d get excited about a project and my youngest would get bored in five minutes and that would be that. I dreamed of being a mother like this one — more than dreamed; I intended it, for years — and that intention never materialized. I’ve been busy doing lots of other things. And yet I keep intending, as if somehow that intention could shield me from the reality that I was choosing something else.

So when do intentions turn into untruths? Stuck somewhere between “It’s the thought that counts” and “The road to hell is paved with with good intentions,” I refused to believe there was anything different I could aspire to. But isn’t the truth found in my actions, collected over the years, rather than my to-do lists?

Today, my kids are all in elementary school, high school, and college, aside from my very youngest, who turns four next month. On Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday, Liam goes to preschool until 3:30. He’s home with me every Monday and Friday. On those two days we do errands and go to Liam’s gym class and sometimes see friends. I try to spend some amount of time doing whatever it is Liam wants to do, rooms away from my laptop and iPhone. But it’s not a lot — not even the majority of the day. Most of the day, I’m working. Liam doesn’t mind in the least; he’s happy to watch his favorite programs or play Star Wars Lego for two hours — or more (ouch). He likes to be at home, and he doesn’t like to go to school. So I’ve told myself that this arrangement is for the best. A young child needs to be with his mother, even if she’s sitting at the table working. I bristled at my husband’s suggestion that we consider putting Liam in school five days a week. How dare he suggest such a thing? I’m not the kind of mother who would stick her four-year-old in school five days a week when it wasn’t necessary. It wouldn’t be good for him. Obviously!

Unless, of course, it would be good for him. During the past two weeks I have come to acknowledge the truth — I am not the mother of my dreams. Keeping Liam at home on Mondays and Fridays is not necessarily good for him. And it’s not necessarily good for me.

I can see how this might sound like a little thing. Two more days of school? Millions of four-year-olds go to school five days a week. What’s the big deal? Of course Liam will be fine. But it is a big deal. It’s a huge deal. The remains of the mother I’d intended to be is wrapped up in those two days. A mother who puts her children in front of her work. A mother who puts her children’s best interests ahead of her own. A mother who, after 21 years of mothering, wouldn’t shortchange her youngest child.

The truth is that I’m deeply passionate about my work. I want to do my work. I don’t want to do less, and I can’t shoehorn three businesses into mother’s hours three days a week. If I were able to find a school where Liam was happy, I wouldn’t feel quite so guilty about five days a week. In seeing this truth, in accepting what is, I’m facing what is real and true and me, instead of bowing under the weight of my own shoulds and shouldn’ts.

Aligning with truth rather than intention feels very much like cracking open. It isn’t a good feeling, yet — but I know that allowing the truth to unfold is the only path to an authentic life. And if I want to live authentically, fessing up to my self is surely the best place to start.

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Apr 2

5 Comments

Monday Post ~ April 2, 2012

“Everything we say signifies; everything counts, that we put out into the world. It impacts on kids, it impacts on the zeitgeist of the time.”
~Meryl Streep


This is the moment to deepen, or commit to, your regular creativity practice. Regularity — a daily practice, if at all possible — is key.

So what are your plans for creative practice this week? Given the specifics of your schedule, decide on a realistic intention, goal, or a milestone to reach for — and plan that time in your calendar. An intention as simple as “I will be creative for 10 minutes every day” or “I will gesso three canvases on Wednesday” is what it’s all about.

Share your intentions or goals as a comment to this post, and let us know how things went with your creative plans for last week, if you posted to last week’s Monday Post.

Mar 29

4 Comments

Carmen Torbus: The Artist Unique

Long-time readers of this blog — as well as those who are hooked up to the creative blogosphere at large — are likely acquainted with artist and mother Carmen Torbus. Last year, Carmen’s book, The Artist Unique, was published. It’s apparent — just a few pages in — that Carmen’s book is different from other hands-on guides in the “use creativity to express yourself” category. (If you don’t have a copy already, I highly recommend that you add this book to your creative toolkit.) I asked Carmen to join us for a belated stop on her book tour. Enjoy!

Q: What inspired your book? How did you develop your clear message?

The Artist Unique was inspired by the realization that something was missing in my artwork… me.

I was spending a ton of time creating. I was in awe of many of the mixed-media artists I was seeing in books and magazines and I was giddy about the art projects I was completing. I was so excited when my work came out looking as good as theirs, but they never really felt like they were mine. They were replicas. Knock-offs.

When I realized something was missing, I started exploring. I wanted to take inventory of all the little things that make me unique and then incorporate them into my work. I like to describe signature style as, “You, on canvas.” Soon after I felt my style was emerging, I developed an online workshop called Spill It. The class description was as follows:

Emotion.
Ink.
Thoughts.
Paint.
Words.
Sketches.
Poetry.
Writing.
Photography.
Intuition.

All the little things that makes you unique
will make your creative endeavors unique.
And in this workshop,
you will put all of those little things
that make you, you
on your palette
and Spill It onto canvas.
We will explore Mixed Media technique combinations to help you
discover and project personal creative style.

While teaching that workshop, I realized that there was more to this idea than a small online workshop and so the idea for a book was born. I wanted to stick to inspiration and techniques and encourage exploration. I did not want to write a book with step-by-step projects because I wanted to empower creative play and allow room for improvising, brainstorming, and light-bulb moments.

Q: What was the process of writing a book — expanding your workshop framework into a full-on manuscript — like for you?

It was interesting because I didn’t just pull from my own experiences. I really wanted the book to focus on the reader and empowering them to play and try new things so their signature style can emerge. To do that, I asked 15 artists who I feel have a distinct style to share one of their favorite techniques. I shared their artwork and the steps for using the technique. Then I used the technique in my artwork to illustrate the different outcomes that came come from using the same technique.

I also wanted to inspire the reader and give them hope that regardless of their skill level or where they are in their artistic journey, they are becoming a unique artist — just like the contributing artists. The stories of each contributor were a joy to share.

The process of writing and pulling all of the information together was a bit of a challenge for me. Truth be told, I don’t do well with deadlines. They paralyze me. Especially when they are months away. Once you have a contract to write a book, there are several deadlines set. There have to be. It feels like you have all the time in the world when a deadline is months or even a year out.

I’m a bit of a procrastinator. (Who am I kidding, I’m a complete procrastinator!) I do my best work when time is crunched. I prefer shorter deadlines if I have to have them at all. I did most of the writing literally a week or two before each deadline.

My publisher and editor were wonderful to work with. I highly recommend Northlight for any creative folks that dream of writing a creative book.

Q: What do you most want your readers to take away from your book?

Inspiration and the belief that they can develop their own style as a creative person or artist. My hope is that readers will take inspiration from the contributors and explore their creative desires.

Q: What’s on deck?

I’m not sure what’s in my future. I’m exploring a few options right now. And to be completely honest, the unsureness (is that even a word?) is leaving me feeling a little vulnerable and uneasy, but sort of free at the same time.

My dream is to encourage, inspire, and empower big dreamers to actively pursue their wildest dreams. I’m not 100% sure what the best avenue is for me to support my tribe, but I’m bound and determined to keep trying until I figure it out. I’m about to begin formal life coach training and I’m currently working with a limited number of coaching clients.

I’ve spent the last three months focusing inward, specifically on my health and happiness. Which has taken the form of regular exercise and a better diet, resulting in weight loss, feeling better, more self-confidence and an overall healthier, happier me. The best ripple effect of this happier healthier me is improvement in my most important relationships. I love it and it’s inspiring me to expand my vision and dream a little bigger — even to the point of incorporating health and wellness into my coaching practice along with a healthy dose of creativity.

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Please join me in wishing Carmen the very best in her future adventures. You can stay in the loop at www.carmentorbus.com.

Mar 26

4 Comments

Monday Post ~ March 26, 2012

“Nobody whispers it in your ear. It is like something you memorized once and forgot. Now it comes back and rips away your breath. You find and finger a phrase at a time; you lay it down cautiously, as if with tongs, and wait suspended until the next one finds you.” ~Annie Dillard



This is the moment to deepen, or commit to, your regular creativity practice. Regularity — a daily practice, if at all possible — is key.

So what are your plans for creative practice this week? Given the specifics of your schedule, decide on a realistic intention, goal, or a milestone to reach for — and plan that time in your calendar. An intention as simple as “I will be creative for 10 minutes every day” or “I will gesso three canvases on Wednesday” is what it’s all about.

Share your intentions or goals as a comment to this post, and let us know how things went with your creative plans for last week, if you posted to last week’s Monday Post.

Mar 22

Ellen: Play

The piece below, which originally appeared at the Open Studio Groton blog, was written by my brilliantly creative business partner, Ellen Olson-Brown. Enjoy!

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music noteIt’s Monday evening, and I’m writing this post from Indian Hill Music in Littleton, Mass., where my sons take music lessons. I love it here.

I’ve settled into a deep leather couch in the lobby, a bright, wood-beamed room ringed by practice rooms. From one room on my right, I can faintly hear the piano pieces my son has been working on all week. On my left, someone plucks the low strings of a standing bass, and from other rooms piano scales and the reedy hum of a saxophone stream out, slightly muffled. I’m so happy in this space, soaking in a sound soup that’s a lot like the pleasant cacophony of an orchestra tuning up.

The woman in the voice lesson directly behind me is working on a short passage, and after 12, 13, 14 tries, she hits the high note. It’s no longer a strained squeak, but a warm brilliant color arcing through the air and into my heart. I want to applaud. Or cry. Or something.

Actually, I know exactly what that something is. I want to go home and play the piano.

Every time I go to Indian Hill, I feel the itch to make music. I want to take cello lessons and bang on a drumset and sing really loud.

I was a band dork as an adolescent. I played in the concert band, the stage band, the pit orchestra, and, yes, the marching band. I had neither the natural talent nor the discipline for excellence, but I loved making music, on my own in a tiny little practice room or within a wall of sound high-stepping across a football field. Music was a joyful part of my daily life.

And then it wasn’t. Grad school and work and raising a family and adult responsibilities took up time and space. The love of making music never went away. Just the making part.

There’s a piano at home, a piano I walk by many times each day, a piano I sit at 5 days a week with my son while he practices.

A piano I dust more often than play.

But when I go home tonight, before I fire up the grilled cheese and tomato soup for dinner, before I open my laptop, maybe even before I take off my coat, I’m making a beeline for that piano. I’ve been chiseling away at Mozart’s Sonata in C major for 3 years now, and while I’m not quite at the point that Benjamin Zander of the Boston Philarmonic calls “one buttock playing” (oh, that video is a goody, embedded below, I think you should watch it!), playing the first, nearly mastered page of that piece gives me such joy.

Whenever I play, I walk away from the piano calmer, happier, more energized, thinking, “Why don’t I do that every single day?”

Is there a source of potential joy that you’re walking by every day? A set of paints? A box of yarn? Woodworking tools? Notebooks and pens? Clay? A cookbook and exotic spices? That guitar you haven’t touched in years? Your sewing machine? The Garage Band app on your new iPad?

Maybe tonight, before you start chopping onions, before you open the mail, you could play a little. Or play a lot.

But don’t forget to play.

Mar 19

4 Comments

Monday Post ~ March 19, 2012

“You finally do have to give something terribly intimate and secret of yourself to the world and not care, because you have to believe that what you have to say is important enough.” ~May Sarton



This is the moment to deepen, or commit to, your regular creativity practice. Regularity — a daily practice, if at all possible — is key.

So what are your plans for creative practice this week? Given the specifics of your schedule, decide on a realistic intention, goal, or a milestone to reach for — and plan that time in your calendar. An intention as simple as “I will be creative for 10 minutes every day” or “I will gesso three canvases on Wednesday” is what it’s all about.

Share your intentions or goals as a comment to this post, and let us know how things went with your creative plans for last week, if you posted to last week’s Monday Post.

Mar 14

8 Comments

Kathy: Simply Sick

Normally the kids are like me, strong like ox, but a nasty bug has been making its way around the community and they are stricken like chicken. They’re on the mend but it’s been almost a week of being completely off our schedule and normal daily rhythm. Like, not even getting outside. Kale’s looking a little grey around the edges but his cough is unsettling so inside it is for a couple more days.

Though it’s weird to see my normally screen-free kids veg out in front of with that glazed ‘sicky’ stare, I decided to surrender to the novelty of it; letting them do nothing at all other than quiet activities and naps while I dove into my projects in my studio while stopping every few moments to warm up soup, make more tea, and assist with many, many tea pees.

I have to admit I fought it at first and was grumpy, a little anxious even and concerned about the effect of not doing anything would have on the kids. But then I heard the sultry voice of Danielle Laporte say how life balance is a myth. The essence of life is fluid so it’s only natural that shifts in what needs to be tended to will unabashedly morph constantly. The best thing to do is to see these as opportunities for growth and to reassess what is important and needed in the family right now.

In the meantime I made sure the kids were lubed up with lots of liquids and did implement the bare essential rhythms; mealtimes and bedtimes and our Smokey Sunday pancakes (whipping them up smokes up the whole house — just to explain). I surrendered to life that happens, was reminded of the balance myth (which was a catalyst for reviewing some major life decisions), and saw an opportunity to tend to my own needs at a pivotal time in my career while the children’s growing bodies took on the necessary challenge to strengthen.

Do you want to share your bare minimum rhythm you adhere to even in times of crisis, transition or upheaval? Perhaps a little ritual? Please share in the comments if you feel inspired.

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Editor’s Note: Kathy Stowell is a homeschooling, simplicity parenting mother of two small kids, and a hobby farmer’s wife who blogs and offers Backwoods Mama Sew Camps over at Bliss Beyond Naptime, from which the post above is generously cross-posted. Kathy recently released The Bliss Filled Mama: Self-Care for Soulful Mothering, an e-book and audio recording on proper crafty mama care.

Mar 12

3 Comments

Monday Post ~ March 12, 2012

“Regardless of where and how you show your creativity, the most important and rewarding thing is to let it flow. Insert creativity in all aspects of your life from how you dress in the morning to what you dream of at night. And remind yourself over and again that creativity is your birthright, a natural part of who you are: A living entity on this Earth.” ~Danny Gregory



This is the moment to deepen, or commit to, your regular creativity practice. Regularity — a daily practice, if at all possible — is key.

So what are your plans for creative practice this week? Given the specifics of your schedule, decide on a realistic intention, goal, or a milestone to reach for — and plan that time in your calendar. An intention as simple as “I will be creative for 10 minutes every day” or “I will gesso three canvases on Wednesday” is what it’s all about.

Share your intentions or goals as a comment to this post, and let us know how things went with your creative plans for last week, if you posted to last week’s Monday Post.

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