Reminding Myself of the Dream
By focusing on drawing Mary Magdalene every night, I now feel strong in the habit of drawing and writing. Not every night comes with a great drawing or blog post, and only once in a while I create something I really love, but staying committed means a lot to me after 7 years of minimal practice.
Whenever I draw more elaborately, adding shading and refining the drawing, it takes at least 2 hours. But quick drawings like this one take only 15 minutes and are as satisfying. I could always fix it later if I decided to use it for a painting. But that’s not the point of these drawings. Some of them might ultimately become paintings, but for now, they are just actions that remind me every day to practice a creative spirituality of the heart.
I am building creative spiritual muscle.
The Magdalene has been a constant in my life for many years now. I cannot be the regular spiritual person who speaks with a certain language or blesses audibly in conversation. For me, it would not be natural to express myself that way, so I don’t do it. Instead, I learn everything I can, and become present in conversations as much as I can.
Sometimes this is not easy. If I’m not feeling well or just am too tired, I find that I have a difficult time really participating in a conversation. Sometimes think all these years of not writing and working like a normal person left my brain without the connections I relied on in the past.
It was part of my practice to welcome people in my studio, listen to them and help them identify resources to help them. Because I believe people can realize their dreams if they really dedicate the thinking, hands-on work, and dreaming power of their mind to their idea, I would support someone until the change took place. People always find their way, but it’s nice to not feel alone in the process.
In a way, I am accompanying myself right now. I am myself supporting myself to get from where I am to where I want to be, and drawing and writing are the symbols of that ultimate dream. And what I truly want is very simple: I want to live in freedom creating art, enjoy life fully, and share with interesting, loving and fun people. Yes, I want to quit my job again and be a crazy artist working in my studio, travel when I want, sleep when I need. (This time the quitting will be called retirement or “early-retirement”…) I want to let those parts of myself that were flourishing when I had to stop, come back to the surface and take shape. And I want to explore fully what a creative spiritual practice means and how it manifests.
Once this process progresses in all the different areas I want to cultivate, I expect to be free and ready to work on my art fully, and perhaps be able to help more people in the future. I am, I believe, following the Magdalene’s guidance by paying attention whenever something useful and interesting comes across, and rebuilding and reconnecting my mind to create a new and more interesting future.
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