If there is a sense of reality, there must also be a sense of possibility. ~ Robert Musil
Being open to possibilities opens up entire worlds of potential for you. It's a delicate balance between what is and what could be. While you dream it's important to stay in touch with reality, to not gloss over things with an idealistic sense or lie to yourself about the realities of a situation. Having a healthy understanding of "how things are" allows you to change them, but first you must accept & acknowledge the hard truths in order to be effective with the work.
Dream a Little Dream
Sun enters Pisces (2/18, 6:31 am EST). The bright Sun cools it's heels in the sign of Pisces. Mutable Pisces is fine to go with the flow, but isn't too keen on being motivated. This is a great time to tune into your dreams & the deeper currents of your intuition on a wider scale though. Nurture & bring to light those things that matter to you, paying them some loving attention!
Embracing Possibilities
Celtic Tree Month of Ash begins (2/18). This energy encourages you to tap into your idealistic vision. It's a necessary step to dream before you do to have at least a little direction. Ash encourages you to follow your inspiration, the creative intuition of your imagination. Trust in this process and let your dreams inform you on your purpose right now. The energy of Ash also reminds you to call upon your roots and stay grounded in the moment, it bridges the gap between the physical & the spiritual underlining the importance of balance between the mundane & the etheric.
Slippery Slope
I get the niggling feeling that I'm trying to use my creativity to put other things off, it's weird & uncomfortable, especially given what it means. It's easy to become obsessive about creating and put my insomnia into overdrive. It's also dangerous as the slippery slope is hard to recover from. I tested it out last week and I could see myself trying to fall into an old pattern after only two days...yikes.
A Little Focus
Last week my queue was full and not much has changed. The listing queue isn't quite getting smaller yet, but I'm at least making more progress each time. I'm considering a new approach but it will make for a lot more delays and I don't know how I feel about that. All these changes are reminding me that I'll need to update a few systems to reflect how I'm currently working which is something I had been avoiding as I'm not a fan of change.
My Temari notes are still tugging at me to be finished, however I've prioritized finishing a project that's nearly done & my obsessive desire to design over it. I can't believe I'm jumping into designing either, it's the funniest thing to me given how I've avoided it for years.
My patterns are still waiting patiently, especially as I have turned into the pattern scribe for My Kinda Thing. Since attention to detail is my thing, it's super easy for me to put together patterns even if it does take time. It's also a fun way to practice my pattern writing skills as I make sure to have everything clearly writ. I'm thinking that after I get caught up with the shawl & temari notes I will focus on getting my other patterns that are waiting to come to life in order. However, I also got some inspiration from a designer friend of mine to make my patterns better, so before I release more I'll be updating my template! Plus I'm thinking of updating the Eyelet Bow with a few more yarns for more diverse examples.
The shawl I have been knitting, partially in order to de-stash is nearly done! I'm thrilled to be heading towards the final few inches, and even more thrilled that for once I won't have to block a shawl! Most everything else has faded into the background as I focus most of my time on this shawl.
I've been okay with keeping up with all of my Instagram challenges, but I could most definitely do a bit better. I'll have to remember that 3 challenges is a bit much and requires a good deal more planning & finageling.
Finally I'm working on getting better at "parking" my ideas instead of trying to chase after them down the rabbit hole Alice Style.
Back to Work
Last week I made what feels like my formal return to blogging. While I have tons of drafts in my Evernote, they're just that. I've heard a writing coach refer to Evernote as a blog post graveyard to which I can personally attest! I'll still be making attempts to get what drafts are finished up, so that will add covertly to my blog, but I'll definitely be announcing those posts too so you won't easily miss them!
With all the work on my studio I've been contemplating my relationship with focus. For the most part I never single task, even though I tell my clients to do so...it's easy to not do what you know you need to be doing. Some of it is unavoidable, afterall children need attention, as do pets, and sometimes they need attention more often than not. One of the biggest hurdles I have is having a mobile toddler. She loves snuggles and touch screens, so she'll crawl onto my lap then rather inconveniently try to play with my tablet or phone.
So focus seems like an anathema to me at times. Then wanting to do all the things, getting idea after idea with the smallest prompting, and just in general my obsessive thinking. But at other times I'm able to marshal legendary amounts of focus, which poses another problem, not wanting to stop. Which is where my timers come into affect.
Thanks for the Love!
As you know, if you've been following me for any decent length of time, I'm all over Instagram and lately I've been there more while I have been participating in a bunch of challenges. I thought I'd add something new to the blog & newsletter though by sharing (at the time of my writing) my most popular post there for the week! This week it's one of my #Periscope announcements. I'm sure it's the #WIP state & that stitch pattern because who doesn't love crocodile stitch?!
The life of a creative is not any one thing, it's a combination of creativity & inspiration, chasing dreams & ideas, and wrangling them forth into reality. It's connecting with emotions and putting them on display to speak out while we remain silent, and the vulnerability of exposing your inner world to your outer one. But it's also full of disappointments as things don't quite come into form as you'd hoped & wild goose chases when ideas lead nowhere.
In the comments below, share with me...
- What's something you've been dreaming about creating?
- What sort of things are you inspired to create?
- Do you ever work on multiple projects at a time?
Thanks for tuning in to this week's "What's Up Wednesday?". Make sure you come back next week to see what's going on in my world! And if you haven't yet be sure to join my newsletter and connect with me on your favorite social media!