Just finished putting together my November full moon dreamboard.  I started collecting images at the new moon and today I chose to assemble it.  Now the observant amongst you will have noticed that the full moon isn’t till Monday, but I decided to do it today for a couple of reasons: Halloween, and my upcoming birthday.

The combination of all three (the full-moon, Halloween and the week before my birthday) have resulted in a particularly powerful dreamboard.  There are quite a few recurrent images, as with last time, but in this instance they seem to be even more pronounced.  Will need to spend some time thinking this one over I think!

Here are a few more close up images…

To find out all about the Full Moon DreamBoard Circle, visit Jamie Ridler Studios!

When my husband and I were on our honeymoon in the highlands of Scotland, we visited Alex Mann’s studio in Braemar.  Towards the end of our visit we decided to buy a piece of his art – something that would help us to connect with the memory of our time spent there.  We bought a pair of small paintings called Moonlight Sonata, named after the music that Alex interpreted through the medium of paint.

Here’s a wee excerpt from his bio to help explain…

One of the turning points in Alex’s early career came while watching a concert by Louis Armstrong in London. “I went to London to watch the concert and afterwards, I painted him. His music was an inspiration to me. I decided I needed to put some colour to his music, in fact, I put some red into his trumpet in the form of waves of colour – because that is how the trumpet sounded to me”.

Alex became fascinated by the thought of trying to capture the sound of musical instruments in colour. He asked some fellow artists for advice and they all kept telling him that it was connected to the “atmosphere” of the event. Alex reflects, “It was very expensive going to concerts and so I bought a stereo and started listening to records. I talked to several people and they said to me that listening to a stereo did not give the same atmosphere. I started to think about atmosphere and what it meant; after all, I could listen to the same music at home on my stereo as I could in the concert hall – so what was atmosphere?”

His fascination with atmosphere became so intense that he started painting lots of different sounds. He painted an orchestra and tried to imagine the sound that each instrument made and how each one interfaced with the others. He looked at how musicians “see” music. He imagined violins as yellow waves, cellos as orange, brass instruments as having long flowing red waves and woodwinds as having short blue waves. His work started to sell and his first exhibition was held in 1950 in Stratford on Avon. Alex remembers one moment when people came into the gallery, looked at his work and exclaimed, “come and take a look at this – you can actually see the music”.

Here’s an example of his work:

So, what I thought would be interesting for our next project was if we could take one medium and transpose it into another.  You could do as Alex does and paint music, or you could photograph poetry, write collage, crochet choreography… the choice is yours.

I’d probably advise you to choose a piece of art, music, architecture, literature etc. that you feel particularly passionate about.  Love Stravinsky’s The Fire Bird?  How would it look as a painting?  Enthused by Christina Rosetti’s Goblin Market? Could you capture its essence in a photograph?  Moved by Gaudi’s Barcelona Cathdral? Turn it into poetry.

Transposing art from one medium to another requires us to make a creative leap.  Want to give it a go?  Hold my hand & we’ll jump together…

P.S. If you want to read all about the creativity circle, you can find the launch post here: Do You Dare

P.P.S. As last week’s prompt was our first, I’m still tweaking things.  Please do let me know if there are any changes that you would like to see implemented?  Was a week long enough?  Did you feel that you got the support you needed to join in?  If not, what would make the difference?  I look forward to hearing your thoughts & seeing your contributions!

Last week I launched the Less Ordinary Creativity Circle.  I was overwhelmed by the positive reaction it received, and I’m so looking forward to this becoming a regular feature on Less Ordinary.

Responding to the first prompt, the following people bravely shared their contributions, and I want to thank them all for daring to do so

Alison Day: A Love of Dance

Paddy Hare: Dammit Pen!

Steve Sherlock: His Touch & Two Left Feet

Joanna Young: Dancing Lessons

Jan Cartier: Staying Loose

And my own contribution: Take Your Partners, Please…

I hope everyone who joined in this time found that it was a good experience, and I also hope that, if you didn’t join in this time, that you’ll be feeling a bit braver next time

In the meantime, I’d like to encourage everyone to go and check out the contributions, leave comments and join in this celebration of creativty!

An audio version is available here: Take Your Partners, Please…

This is my contribution to the Less Ordinary Creativity Circle as a response to the 1st prompt of ‘Will you join the dance?’  If you want to join in too, you can find out all about it on the launch post, and you’ll find the 1st prompt here.

I have always loved this post by Joanna Young called Won’t You Join The Dance? On Purposeful Questions and Nonsense Poems.  In it she quoted a section from The Lobster Quadrille in Alice & Wonderland:

‘Will you walk a little faster?’ said a whiting to a snail,
‘There’s a porpoise close behind us, and he’s treading on my tail.
See how eagerly the lobsters and the turtles all advance!
They are dancing on the shingle – will you come and join the dance?
Will you, won’t you, will you, won’t you, will you join the dance?
Will you, won’t you, will you, won’t you, won’t you join the dance?’

When I was thinking of a prompt for our first Less Ordinary Creativity Circle, I instantly thought of this quote.  All that remains to be seen is if you choose to ‘join the dance’

As I outlined in the previous post launching the creativity circle, you can respond in whichever way inspires you and you can either share in the comments or you can share a link instead.  I’ll be having a go as well, so please do be brave and join in!  The dance floor is all yours

For a while now I’ve been pushing myself to be brave and to post my writing, share my photography, reveal my dreamboard collages and, just generally, to allow my creativity free and full expression.  It’s not been easy by any stretch of the imagination.  In fact, oftentimes I felt positively nauseous after having published a poem to the blog!

However, it’s been a truly liberating experience.  One which has left me feeling vulnerable, but empowered in some quite essential way.

As I was explaining this on Twitter recently, I suddenly discovered that there were many people out there who would like to share their creative self-expression, but who either don’t have a platform to share it on & a community to share it with, or are just feeling too scared to allow themselves to become that vulnerable.

So, after giving this some thought, I’ve decided to start a creativity circle.  One of the comments often left by my students on my tutorial feedback forms is that I managed to create a space where they felt they could safely contribute – a nurturing space, if you will.  This has also been the feedback from the conferences that I’ve organized for phd students delivering their first academic papers.

I would like to bring this quality into the Less Ordinary Creativity Circles.  Don’t get me wrong – I realize it’ll still be a scary thing to do to share your writing, your images etc.  But what you’ll find here is a welcoming, supportive community who are not interested in picking apart your creativity, but who are far more interested in building it up.  I do moderate comments here, and everyone who comments here for the 1st time is moderated before posting.  I know I have a lovely community of commenters here, however, I want to make it clear that I will not tolerate any less than supportive comments designed to undermine fledgling creativity.  Any comments of this sort will not be posted, so that everyone can share, safe in the knowledge that this is a safe place to do so.

I want this to be a space where you can strengthen your root system and begin to branch out.  I want you to take a chance on yourself.  To take a leap into your creativity & see what results.  I want you to embrace that part of you which feels vulnerable and I want you to know that it’s ok to feel apprehensive about sharing.  It’s not meant to be easy – the most rewarding things in life rarely are.

So how’s this going to work?  Well, most weekends I’m going to give you a prompt – this may be visual or a quote or an idea or a theme or even a combination of any of these.  It’s then up to you to respond to the prompt in whichever way feels right to you and share the results.  You can have a go at collaging, painting, photography, fiction, journalling, dance, poetry, whatever you fancy – the possibilities are, quite literally, endless.

You can either post the results in the comment box, or you can share links to where you’ve shared them elsewhere online: Flickr, RedBubble, DeviantArt, YouTube, Vimeo, your own blog etc.  Occasionally, however, we’ll go prompt-free and I’ll just give you free reign to share whatever you’ve been working on.  I won’t be closing comments (I never do, anyway!), but if you want the full benefit of the support and encouragement that the community can offer, then it’s probably best that you post your contribution within the week.

I’m planning to put together recap posts so we can highlight and celebrate everyone’s creativity, and I’ll be doing that towards the end of the week.  As this is the first time I’m doing it though, I’m going to have to play things by ear, and see how it all works out, so I may need to make adjustments to the schedule etc.

I’ll be posting the first prompt later today so we can all get going straight away. Exciting, isn’t it?

So one question still remains… Do you dare?

PS If you’re still a little nervous about accepting this invitation, watch this fabulous video on vulnerability:

Vulnerable Is Beautiful from Rachael Maddox on Vimeo.

I’ve decided not to add any words to this collection of photos, other than to say that it’s a study of the sacred space that I’ve created in my home.

I’m happy to answer any questions you may have about the creation of this space, or about any of the items within it in the comments

Do you know Deborah Koff-Chapin’s Soul Cards?  She creates each one using a technique she calls TouchDrawing, which results in some extremely beautiful images.  I bought SoulCards I and SoulCards II a wee while ago now, and I use them almost every day.  I absolutely love the look, size and feel of them, and I frequently find that the cards that I choose hold a resonance for me unequaled by any other oracle cards currently on the market.

One of the things that I particularly like about these cards is that they don’t come along with a booklet detailing each card and imposing a meaning upon each image.  Instead, the information that accompanies each pack encourages you to respond to the card you have selected from your own subjective perspective.  In this way, any reading that you do are intrinsically relevant to your own life path and your own understanding of your place in the world.

The way that I use them is to shuffle the cards thoroughly while focusing on whatever issue, relationship, question seems most pressing at the time.  I then cut the deck, thus selecting one card, which I then search for on the soul card gallery pages (1 & 2).  Once I’ve found the corresponding image I cut and paste the image into a document, before printing it off and then (non-virtually!) cutting and pasting the image into my moleskine.  Having done so, I then free associate with words using the card for inspiration, writing the results alongside the image.

I’ve found this to be a hugely empowering method of spiritual practice, as I’m not using it to foretell the future, but rather to gain a better understanding into what I feel about something.  It’s a way of accessing my thoughts on an issue in a way that bypasses all of those barriers that we create around our psyches.  It helps me to find meaning and wisdom when confronted with the frequently bemusing everyday.

I define this activity as ’spiritual practice’ because I believe it allows me to connect to the divine in a meaningful way that is carried out consciously, but without expectation.  I don’t second-guess the card selection, just like I don’t undermine my interpretation of the card, or my thought process surrounding my understanding of its relevance, by trivialising its importance.

The results are often private; however, if I’ve chosen a card which I believe pertains to a relationship with someone who would appreciate & understand this practice & my reading, then I’ll share my reading with that person.  I’m always surprised just how powerfully positive people’s reactions are when I do this!

Do you incorporate something similar into your day?  Do you have a spiritual practice that you’d like to share here?

Speeding homeward,
close-quartered commuters
converse about finance & folly.
And
I
zone
out.
Their talk travels
from humdrum to hubub
and back again,
without ever. truly.
finding. home.

We arrive at a station
submerged in suburbia;
fluoresecent lamplight
refracts & diffuses
through raindrops scattered
across the pane dividing
platform from train.
And just for a moment

I am entranced
by the fall of yellow
light through speckled droplet.
Golden points spreading out,
defending against descending dark,
mesmerizing me with
Midas possibilities
of a life richer
than this.