Below I share a very simple, process oriented, visual journal page from my Creative Inquiry Journal. It emphasizes an abstract, tactile and sensory approach that is very helpful in moving stuck energy. I hope you enjoy it and give it a try using whatever art materials you have around the house. It's not about making art, it's about freeing up your ability to express yourself in a visual way. If you are interested in trying it for yourself, check out my free Intro to Creative Inquiry to get you started.
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We are in an unprecedented time of challenge, during the global pandemic of COVID-19. Never in this lifetime have we been so profoundly unified with the world through our shared adversity. Yet this world has known adversity since the beginning of time. So what then does this opportunity afford us that we have never had available before?
First of all, it has shown us that through these modern technologies, we have the means to connect with other like-hearted souls around the planet at all hours of the day and night. We also have the means to continually distract ourselves from the discomfort we feel, which itself has the potential to be a powerful agent of change for ourselves and our world. Now, a tiny organism seems to threaten our freedom and our ability to live life as "normal". We are so accustomed to being fed both sides of duality, the "good" and the "bad", and pitting them against each other. But what if we don't have to swallow the stories we are being fed, hook, line & sinker? What if the gift here is the opportunity to sit with our discomfort and our assumptions about our lives and ourselves, rather than taking the myriad bait being offered to distract us from a deeper calling? Can you hear that tiny voice? Can you feel that yearning in your heart for a more authentic way of living? I can. So, I am using my Creative Inquiry process to explore another layer of my own inner terrain, with the intention of awakening to a deeper and vaster level of compassion and understanding. Will you join me? I have offered a free, online, mini-course to introduce you to this process, so that you too can explore how this crisis can be used for your own growth and transformation. I know there are many offerings out there right now to help get you through this challenging time. They are a blessing and a gift for so many souls who are in distress. Yet this is for those who feel called to go a bit deeper, I invite you to use this time for your own soul's awakening. Join me in this free, mini-course by going to Creative Awakening - Intro to Creative Inquiry. Deep Blessings to all of you at this time, ♡ Jeanette
How do we awaken our dormant capacity to speak from our heart rather than our highly conditioned mind? How do we allow our eyes to see past this world of illusion to reveal a radiance that our human vision cannot possibly comprehend? How to we find the courage to share these revelations with other like-hearted souls who can understand our impassioned pleas for discovering a new way to live together, which does not stem from our divided beliefs? For me it has entailed long periods of creative, introspective reclusion AND times of joining with others for deep and vulnerable sharing. It has required lonely years of relative isolation and the courage to reach out to find others who just may understand what drives me to continue this personal path of spiritual+creative inquiry. I haven't succeeded in a worldly sense, so my mind is quick to judge me a failure. Yet something deeper and kinder continues to encourage me onward, knowing that it is of benefit, even if I cannot see the outcome. That is why TheCreativeEmpath exists, to give us somewhere to find each other. To give us a place to touch each other's hearts and souls. Perhaps one day there will be a place for us to touch each other in a more embodied way as well, but for now this etheric platform has been a lifeline and a saving grace for this woman living in a remote place, surrounded by oodles of wild open space, but not a lot of spiritual souls seeking conscious awakening. What do you long for? I really want to know. I invite you to share what your true voice and vision have to say to those of us who have the ears to hear and the eyes to really see you. One day soon it will be time to test these wings that I have been stitching and sewing and piecing together from the fragments of my life. One day soon I will discover how well they fare in the human world out there. Will they keep me afloat above the harried world below? This time, will they free me from the shackles of my own limited beliefs about who I really am and what is really possible?
I know that reality is what is right now and is not limited to what our physical senses can perceive. My journey has at least taught me that much. But I also know that my humanness, which still remains quite tangible, feels the changes that time and space seem to impose upon it. That humanness knows that when the spring winds come this time, I will be as ready as ever to make use of them. One day soon I will live in the trust that my life is held by a force far greater than the material security I have been taught to have faith in. I have lived this way before, but I had not yet cleared out the catacombs of my own unconscious mind. I had not yet danced with my demons and sang with my angels as I have in these last years of creative reclusion. I feel "one day soon" within me as a palpable substance. It is not in the future, but right now, right here. It is a curious sensation to feel the future in the present. To be right here and sense the potential of the universe that is not yet now, although it is.......... It is time to go back to how I first began sharing my inner journey in this virtual realm. It is time for me to return to sharing my writing and art in deeper offerings that seek to stir the souls of like-hearted travelers on this path of inner exploration. For I would rather connect deeply with a few than skim the surface with many. That is just how I am. That is who I am. For years now I have been exploring and experimenting with this process of Creative Inquiry, which for me involves uncensored painting and writing, somatic processing and spiritual self-inquiry. It is what I do with every single expression that comes through me, whether it be a quick journal entry or a finished work of art. All involve this deep process of healing and growth. I can't seem to do it any other way, though I have tried valiantly to just make some pretty art that I think people will want to buy! We will find each other and we will not be afraid to look into our own darkness to heal. We have been hiding in the shadows for so long. We jump at the slightest sound, afraid that they will find us. But they stopped looking a long time ago, when they realized it was easier without us. Yet our hearts have been yearning for each other. We have heard rumors of an odd one here and a strange one there. We have caught glimpses in the moonlight, but we could not bring ourselves to go looking. We couldn't venture far enough out of our own places of hidden safety to find the other ones who were like us. It's okay, we needed the time alone too. We needed to clear up our own inner voices before we tried to hear one another. But we have reached the end of what we can do alone. Our wounds were created in relation to others and our healing must be done the same way. We don't have to hurry. We have time even though it may not feel like it. We know how to listen inside now. We know how to walk with the fear without making it our enemy. It will take time to remember how to trust each other again, but we are guided and supported, for this is the most important work of all. It has become clear to me that it is time for me to walk away from my training and focus on healing trauma and turn fully toward this creative process that inspires me so deeply. My work with people will still utilize all of the neuro-somatic based experience and training I have, but our entry into the healing & growth process will be through the door of uncensored creative expression. My own path of healing was derailed so often by avoiding my greatest creative potential in order to not disturb my sleeping dragons that were chained safely in the catacombs of my unconscious mind. Yet their dungeon was my very own body and so it was impossible for me to heal my own symptoms without poking them inadvertently and waking them up. And so the years of self deconstruction began......and seemed to go on forever. Yet in time my somatic reactivity lessened as my creative doors opened wider and wider. As grateful as I am for the valuable trauma therapy modalities that helped me heal, I know that without kind counsel who was also willing to always allow my current artwork, journaling or creative experiments into the session, it would never have reached the source of what ailed me. My current mixed-media pieces are a symbolic way of reconstructing myself in exploratory ways. I no longer have to rely on what I have been told is true about me or who I must be. I am free to explore and experiment to see what is true for me. And yes, perhaps the collar bone really is connected to the shin bone in some of us! As the air picks up a chill and the Aspen leaves turn to fire, I feel an unusual reluctance to go back into my creative den. Usually I am more than ready to retreat from the busy outer world and take refuge in my inner world where the voice of Spirit is more clear. Yet this year my travels and activities have lit a bigger fire that wants to keep exploring the world.
Not until Bear Medicine literally walked across the road in front of my car, in broad daylight (something that rarely ever happens in this part of the valley), was I willing to honor the inner call tugging inside of me. For me Bear medicine is part of my maternal lineage from England and reminds me of the creative, feminine power that lies within us. Many years ago now, Bear medicine first made her physical appearance walking across a trail I was hiking on with my husky. I was awakened in the middle of the following night by the call to write an entire story, which is something my mother used to do before her death decades ago. I knew she was helping me and my first, mythical story about my own healing journey poured forth all at once in an inspired rush. This is what happened to her all the time, but never had I experienced anything like it before. Once again I allow this Divine, Creative, Feminine energy to flow through me unrestrained. Yet now it is in the form of images on my stacks of handmade paper from my past career as a papermaker. It is time to bring together all of the inspiration and experience of the last 2 decades into this Creative Awakening process. It is my way, my journey, and it is what I share with all of you who are fellow travelers on this inner exploration. I acquiesce to this powerful force within me and trust it is time for the next leg of the inner journey to begin.
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Jeanette AmlieWelcome to my Painted Journey. I invite you to join me as I explore this process of intuitive painting, uncensored writing and somatic awareness. This work is calling me out of my Spiritual/Creative Closet. It is a passionate adventure in re-discovering why I am here and I know that by sharing the journey we will grow and learn together! ♡ Jeanette To be notified of my new posts via email please sign up for my newsletter below. Don't worry, I won't spam you or share your information and you can unsubscribe at anytime.
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