the
art of being female
august,
2005
To fear your own creativity is to fear your own magnificence.
Greetings!
Blossoming beauty. Since the last issue of the art of being female, my past few weeks have been filled with the beauty of life blossoming forth.
From wildflowers in Lassen Park and Mt Shasta to the idea of emerging reality in the must-read book "Presence", by Peter Senge, et al, to China Galland and her fabulous quote about the Wisdom which lies ready to blossom in every female, I have been deeply attuned to the emerging nature of reality and to awakening to true beauty, which by the way happens to be the play-with practice for August.
What wants to emerge through us into being is always waiting for the opening...it is up to us to say yes to it, to nurture it, and to give birth to it.
What wants to emerge in this art of being female is the idea of blossoming into what we already are...powerful vibrant wise beings. We are vessels for the creative spirit and yet we carry our own uniqueness that infuses our creativity with every idea and intentional action we take.
As you enjoy this month's issue, please keep this idea in mind:
Creativity is not about art but rather artistry, the artistry of being fully human. It is by being fully who you already are, that you become that which you long to be.
With blossoming gratitude,
Julie
ps - please pass this on to any Wildly Creative Women (and Men) who might enjoy it by clicking on the link at the bottom of the page.
In August's Issue:
A vacation in the mountains was just what I needed for renewal...renewal of my own being as well as the renewal of my relationship to the world at large. Everything we do is in relationship, whether to our selves and the relationship we have within, or to others and the world around us.
My partner Jeff and I spent ten wonderful days hiking, swimming, sleeping, reading, and celebrating renewal. We both celebrated our 49th birthday on the trip, with 49 being an auspicious birthday for sure. It is believed that every 7 years of life, a redirection and release occurs. So with 49 being 7 x 7, this birthday signifies a new beginning for each of us, and for me the question of what wants to emerge for this new phase of my life.
As we hiked in Lassen Park and on Mt Shasta, I was taken by two things...the delicate place our Earth is in right now, and just how much we are loved, by all that supports us. To receive this love, we don't have to do or be anything other than what we already are...we simply must be open to it and let it in.
Hiking back from Squaw Meadow on Shasta, I felt the presence of the Feminine. It was both a presence of sadness as well as huge love. There was this sense that Nature is at once both feeling the pain of us, the human species, believing we are separate from her, as well as fiercely and completely loving us.
How do we begin to heal this separation from the natural world in which we live? By noticing, through our experience, our relationship to all that surrounds and supports us, and by opening to the entirety of all that exists. Maybe this sounds difficult or even impossible, but it is really very simple...because it is the natural order of things. The way there is through the body and through our awareness of what we feel when we are deeply rooted and grounded in our body. The way there is by steeping ourselves in our the natural world, Nature, that which wants us to know Her.
Take time this day, this week, this month to be in the middle of the river of life, right in the middle of the matter of life. Drink it up, immerse yourself in the real world in which you live, and let It inform you of what is true for You and your relationship with It.
W hat wants to emerge through you simply needs an opening from you. That opening might look like surrender, or perhaps an invitation, or maybe even a clear intention to be in relationship with the Whole, the entirety of Life. And when you open to this relationship, what wants to emerge might even feel like Wisdom arising.
“There is a goodness, a Wisdom that arises,
sometimes fitfully, sometimes gently, sometimes
awkwardly, sometimes fiercely, but it will arise to
save us if we let it, and it arises from within us,
like the force that drives green shoots to break the
winter ground, it will arise and drive us into a
great blossoming into the aliveness of it all, into
that part of ourselves that can never be defiled,
defeated, or destroyed, but that comes back to life,
time and time again, that lives – always – that does
not die.”
~ China Galland,
The Bond Between Women: A Journey to Fierce Compassion
This wisdom
"arises from within us,
like the force that drives
green shoots
to break the winter ground"
or wildflowers
to emerge from
the rocky soil
found above timber line...
This quote by China Galland is a beautiful expression of the Wisdom of the Feminine arising in us all, if we will simply find a way to acknowledge it and invite it into us and through us.
g reat books shake up your world in some way...change you so that you are never the same again once you turn that last page.
In keeping with this month's theme of "the emerging", two books I highly recommend are:
The Highest Goal, by Michael Ray.
Michael Ray, along with Lorna Catford and Rochelle Myers, created and taught the famed Stanford Creativity Course.
"Ray came to realize that his creativity course was helping people discover what he calls their highest goal" -- the one force that gives real meaning to your life, that speaks to the very core of your being. "It's what makes you feel connected, motivated, and sustained. It has nothing to do with worldly success or achievement, but Ray found that all of the successful people in his course had a sustained connection to it. In fact, it was what they ultimately attributed their success to." (from inside jacket of "The Highest Goal").
Having trained with Michael to teach this famed course, which is the basis for Wildly Creative Women courses, I know first-hand the incredible impact that this very creative man has had on business over the past 25 years. This book is a treasure to read and re-read.
Presence, by Peter Senge, C. Otto Scharmer, Joseph Jaworski, and Betty Sue Flowers.
"Presence" is a book that will make you think way beyond the last page. In each moment, we are in relationship with the world around us, but so much of the time we forget. "Presence" will open your eyes and heart to why this is so important. Everything we do is in relationship, and "Presence" allows us to see how understanding this at a deep level might impact our whole world.
By the way, Michael Ray was interviewed and quoted for this book. The authors acknowledge the contributions Ray has made to understanding and accessing personal creativity.
I hope you enjoy both these reads.
Nineteen beautiful women came to participate in the Wildly Creative Women mini-workshop held at Julie's Coffee and Tea House in Alameda on August 6th. We spent our time together in the beautiful back garden patio of this coffee and tea house. There, we explored the nature of Wild Creativity, did some fun exercises, and talked about the importance of creating community for women, a place where we can come together to talk about our passions and desires, what we want to create in our lives, and how to access the wild creativity that is in each of us. I had a wonderful time and want to extend a thank you to everyone that came, as well as to Julie, the proprietor of this wonderful coffee and tea garden. I experienced true beauty here...something I speak of in August's play-wiht practice.
If you are interested in having me speak, or teach a mini-workshop to your group, please contact me. I love what happens when amazing women get together!!!!!!!
If you haven't had the chance to try Julie's Coffee and Tea house, head there next time you are craving a delicious cup of coffee or tea or a wonderful pastry.
Julie's Coffee and Tea Garden, 1223 Park St, Alameda, 94501 510.865.2385
Our
community is growing!
Please pass this newsletter on to any women or men you think might enjoy or
benefit from receiving it by clicking on the link
at the bottom of the page. Thank you!
Beginning this fall, Creative Wellspring, Wildly Creative Women's parent company, will be teaching an exciting new dating course to women directly affected by 9/11, Welcome to Your Dating World!. Based on many of the same personally empowering concepts from the famed Creativity course at Stanford, this course is the first of its kind!
Partnering with Tuesday's Children, an incredible group of people who have come together to serve the families directly affected by 9/11, and Stillpoint Consulting, Creative Wellspring's course allows women to design their own dating world, and provides tools on how to be in a place of conscious choice and action as they enter into and maneuver through a new phase in their lives.
Wildly Creative Women is proud to offer Welcome to Your Dating World! to you this Fall in the East Bay.This course will empower you to enter the dating world and world of relationship from a place of conscious choice and action. Armed with a clear intention and many tools to help you stay on a path of authentic love, your new dating world will look nothing like your experience of the past. The course will be taught by Julie Daley, CPCC and Julie Saltonstall, CPCC, both certified coaches and trained to teach Creativity in Business.
Details will be announced soon, but interest has been incredibly high already. Therefore, if you are interested in this course, please contact Julie Daley as soon as possible.
Course Calendar
October:
• Welcome to Your Dating World - 6 weeks (evenings)contact Julie for details and to register
Course Listing
All courses, both corporate and open-enrollment, are based on Creativity in Business, a course taught at Stanford Graduate School of Business for 25 years. Please contact Julie, if you are interested in having me design and teach a course for your company. Courses for both women and men are offered through Wildly Creative Women's parent company, Creative Wellspring.
Corporate Offerings:
• Introduction to Wildly Creative Women - 1 day
• Wildly Creative Women in Business - 10 weeks
• Creativity in Business - 10 weeks
Open Enrollment:
• Introduction to Wildly Creative Women - 1 day
• Wildly Creative Women in Business- 10 weeks
• Welcome to Your Dating World - 6 weeks
Each month a new play-with is offered as an addition to your practice of the art of being female.
Playing-with your experience is the basis of the "creative cycle of self-discovery" used in Wildly Creative Women's coaching and courses.
Play-with for July: Awakening to True Beauty
This practice play-with is about developing your awareness with the physical world around you. Be curious as you do this play-with. Notice how your experience changes as you heighten your senses.
Beauty is a much-aligned word these days. We see it so often in the context of advertising where women and men are bombarded with messages that they aren't beautiful without the help of cosmetics, fashion, and plastic surgery. All of these messages try to inform us of our supposed "lack of beauty". Many of us no longer believe we are beautiful, and have forgotten how to experience our own true beauty. The experience of beauty and what it does for the soul has been all but forgotten. In my experience, when I am tuned in to these messages, I am cut-off from my own inner sense of sacred wholeness.
In this practice, true beauty awakens the experience of wholeness and completeness. It awakens a sense of oneness with everything. When we experience beauty in our world, we connect with the radiant wholeness of life. This experience of beauty mirrors back to us our own completeness and our own internal beauty. This mirroring is in effect an in-the-present-moment "remembering" of our own sacredness. And awakening this connection to your own sacredness is then reflected back to others and makes you irresistibly beautiful on the outside.
This practice of awakening to true beauty follows last month's practice of developing your sensual awareness because it is through your senses that you will connect with the beauty of the present moment.
1. Take a moment to close your eyes and re-experience a situation in which you were in touch with beauty, a beauty that made your entire being stop and take notice. Perhaps you were out in nature, listening to music, watching children play, or in connection with others at work or in community. True beauty is everywhere and anywhere. Remember this situation in your mind's eye...every detail of the sensual sensory experience.
How did you feel? What were you sensing? What thoughts did this experience bring forth?
Re-awaken the experience in your body.
2. Now that you have reawakened this sense of beauty within, notice where in your body this experience feels most alive. Simply notice and have an awareness of the feeling inside you that the experience of beauty creates.
3. Take a beauty walk. Allow yourself to walk in the present moment, to soak up all that surrounds you. Step through all of your senses, one at a time, including your sixth sense, that of intuition. What do you hear? see? feel? taste? touch? intuit? If you begin to go to thinking, just gently remind yourself to be in the experience of your walk. Notice if and when the same experience of beauty arises in you, that you re-awakened in the earlier steps. Feel this beauty inside and just notice how it radiates back to the world around you.
4. Create beauty. Give yourself an hour or two to create beauty. This might be cooking a beautifully nourishing meal, taking the time to have an intimate conversation with someone you love, sharing yourself with others, creating a piece of art through dance, song, or any other medium that calls to you, Trust yourself to know what beauty is wanting to emerge through you.
5. Acknowledge the beauty you see in others, whether simply to yourself or out loud to the other. If you do tell them, notice how your acknowledgement of their beauty is received and how this acknowledgment feels inside of you.
6. Acknowledge the beauty you feel within you and see in your own face and body...really acknowledge this beauty. Notice if any statements of judgment arise. Notice if it is easier to acknowledge the beauty in others than in yourself. Remember, if you can experience beauty it is simply a reflection of the beauty inside you.
7. Take time each day to show gratitude for the beauty you feel inside and outside in whatever form is meaningful for you.
8. Keep updating your own image and story of who you are and what it means to be beautiful. Share this with the world in any and every way you can think of. This world needs big heaping doses of your beauty!
Follow the steps of this practice at least once a week for the next month. Take time to reflect upon your experience, whether through meditation, journaling, or conversation with another. Find another woman, or man, to practice with you and share notes on your experiences.
I would love to hear from you about how your practice went. Remember, the point is to play-with your experience.
coming in September: Dialoguing with Desire
About
Julie:
Julie
Daley holds a design degree from Stanford University.
A Certified Professional Coach, Julie teaches Creativity in Business, the
famous Stanford Business course in many varieties.
"Julie is remarkable in her ability to uncover the inner layers
of creative forces."
~Nancy Mongan
Check
us out at:wildlycreativewomen.com
Powerful
Personal Coaching and Experiential
Courses
are
available to re-awaken you to your natural power within.
