Expression: Share

Musing…

“If you ask me what I came to do in this world, I, an artist, I will answer you: I am here to live out loud.” -- 
Emile Zola

There’s a lot of hype about sharing these days. With social media, we share easily, quickly, what is important, what crosses our minds, pictures of our lives, a documentation of sorts. Pieces of a story puzzle. It might not be anything extraordinary – doesn’t matter, seems that what matters is to share, to express something and ask to be heard, seen. 

Charise’s Turn:

I have been writing poems quietly, privately, for decades. When I returned to my high school for the first time in twenty years for a reunion, my former English teacher asked, “are you still writing poems?” She remembered how much I love words and phrases and meaning, and how I submitted an autobiographical poem for my college application essay. 

I gave my first public poetry reading April 9 as part of an arts program for veterans and family members. I said I’d do it before I had the poem -- part of an urge to get the voice of a military spouse out there. To ask to be heard, seen. Sometimes you just say “yes” before you’re ready and then you get ready through your own conviction. Turns out I was the only military spouse at the microphone, and so my "yes" made even more sense to me. With live music accompaniment I read what I had written for the occasion, "Countdown from Deployment". The applause was loud, warm, affirming, even though most everyone there had no idea who I was. A professor in the audience asked me to send her my poem so she could read it to her graduate students at Lesley University. The sharing goes on...

Get Fired Up:   

What creative stirring within you wants to be shared out loud? How long will you wait or wonder? 

Listen to your stirring and give it expression. 

www.coachingmoves.com

Expression: Blossoming

Musing…     

"The flower doesn’t dream of the bee; it blossoms…and the bee comes."   –Mark Nepo

Flowers open without forcing the buds. The force that opens the blooms and guides the stars guides you. You embody this force as you embody creativity; your nature is creative. Your most natural expression of your creativity comes out of who you are. Simply and profoundly, be yourself!  And a mosaic of creative expressions will flow with ease. You are an exquisite expression of nature.

Kate’s Turn:   

I remember when I was first told I was creative – I was 30 years old - I had never viewed myself in this way. Really? Are my pie making skills in the same creative category as the Masters of fine art? I remember when someone taught me how to identify images and metaphors in life. When I hosted 22 annual caroling parties because I love to sing. When I began taking watercolor classes because I’m  drawn to the light in that medium. When I began delighting in how I presented really good food – the beauty was as important as the taste. Now I see beauty everywhere, and my blossoming delightfully continues. Every spring I recite Wordsworth’s poem I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud whenever I see daffodils…such joy in all creativity. Now I realize that all along I was, and am, cultivating my creative expression. Creativity is no more limited to the fine arts than spirituality is reserved for people of religious orders. The truth is that we are creating all the time because it is our very nature. And, what’s more, I can’t help it….I’m just being myself! My eyes fall on what I love, and I immerse myself in it. But I’m not  always mindful that I’m expressing creatively just like I’m not always mindful of how I’m  breathing. The creative force is not me but flows through me….anchored and expressed in my unique spirit. A lifetime of unfolding, blooming, shining, dancing….

Rumi concurs: "We rarely hear the inward music, but we’re all dancing to it nevertheless." 

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Get Fired Up:

Take delight in being full of yourself. Take note of your mosaic expression, of how you’ve already blossomed. And risk to immerse yourself into the next joy-full blooming.

"And then the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk to bloom."  -Anais Nin

www.kroskalifecoaching.com