Lots to say...

Last Christmas I was able to make gifts for my loved ones. I usually pic one person per year do do a BIG gift for. This last year my Dad was the BIG gift recipient. I had been promising that I'd create a painting for him and his wife for years...I'm glad I waited. This is the first painting (above) that I have done with my dominant hand since I'd gone through CJEA training. It is amazing how different my dominant hand paints when it knows, at any time, my left hand can jump in. My right hand doesn't exert the control it once did in creative endeavors and I am pretty pleased about that...so I think I will give my right hand its expression for my next exhibit.

On another creative note, I was FINALLY able to spend some time doing a project that has been in my mind since the fall intensive of 2007 when one of the CJEA participants brought a Soul Collage deck to share. Since then, I've had the urge to give some shape and texture to my 'inner family'. It is shocking how un-visual I am as a visual artist. I can't seem to conjure up an image in my mind. I have to create it in order to SEE it.

(from top right: Higher Self, Inner Child, Fun Gal, Nurturer, Whole Self, Muse, Critic, Protector, Introvert)

This deck has been very helpful when I am having an issue about something and need a certain aspect to speak up and, perhaps, have a dialogue with another aspect. I plan on making another suit of cards that represent 'the nine emotions' from the "Sound of Feelings" CD by Jesse Allan Cooper to be done with the Dancing on Paper exercise.

I Recently came across a book while at Powell's Book Store in Portland entitled: FOCUSING by Eugene T. Gendlin, PH.D. I love how books pop into my life EXACTLY when I need them. This book goes through a six-step process on getting past the mental aspect of a problem and into the 'felt sense' of it...much like Creative Journal Expressive Arts does. I finished the book yesterday and will start reading it again tonight. My goal is to use both of these processes in tandem...somehow. This new tool has been really helpful in getting to the core of an unidentifiable feeling that crops up quite frequently in this new journey I have been on in merging my life with my future husband. I use these tools in random moments when I an wanting to stuff a feeling and I don't have the ability to journal. One such time popped up when I was watching a movie with Jason: HENRY POOLE IS HERE. One scene really hit me in a profound way and I was stuffing down the urge to have a balling session. I can't explain the process, but let's just say something SHIFTED and I feel a bit different for having allowed that process to unfold. I don't know if anyone else will think this is a profound movie, but I highly recommend renting it. (Write me and let me know what you think of it when you see the movie)