Gloriously Moving Forward

Ready? Set?
Here we go, bravely heading into 2012!

You’ve been on my mind since last week.
Many thoughtful, appreciative comments came in on The Realm of You. What an intelligent and capable group of people you are.

Here’s part two:

How to Gloriously Rule your Realm in 2012.

Yes, this year will be turbulent.
That doesn’t necessarily mean destructive, although some concepts and systems will be destroyed, and others will be created. That’s just life on Earth though.

LIGHTENING UP
‘Lemmings’, the image above, is from Vancouver artist Rachel Gourley.
She creates elements in polymer, then photographs them in selected sites. The images are her art form.
Artist and historian Rachel Carren calls Gourley’s work ‘an Andy Goldsworthy approach with polymer’, and a playful, exploratory edge. She’s using secret knowledge in her work. Gourley is one of my mentoring clients: I’m excited to be working with her. When I opened this image, I burst out laughing, what a hoot! How delightful! She’ll have a website very soon, after Susan Lomuto’s Artist Online course, and I’ll send you all the link.

Back to you. Secret knowledge? Yep. LIghtening up.
You can actually have fun during the remaining 363 days of this year. How? Why?

Because of all you did last year.
Because you have your own secret knowledge.
Because you showed up yesterday, Jan. 1, ready to go, with hard-won and glorious willingness.

Transformations this year will come directly from your creative nature.

I’m not saying this to make you feel good, though that may happen.
I’m reminding you of WHO YOU ARE.

Look at yourself. What a great design!
Quirky holographic mind and big heart.
Clever hands and capable body.
Unique ideas. Curious and playful.
Sense of possibility and how things connect.
You’re designed for creative action.

Creating feels good to everyone. You LOVE having creative jobs.
Why?
Because when you approach things creatively,
you’ve FINALLY gotten the individual parts lined up right, and set them working together.
You’re supposed to do this, like a Ferrari should go fast or a virtuoso should play the right instrument.

You’re happiest and you work best when you see your life as creative opportunity.
Every event in your life is offering itself to you this way.
I guarantee it.

THE NEXT STEP
The next step is easy. Pull last year’s lessons into your creative approach

You have built-in SECRET KNOWLEDGE of how to do this.
Secret mostly from you, because you were probably told not to believe it about yourself.
That’s why we’re having this little chat.

Secret knowledge shows up at the crossroads of your conscious and subconscious minds.
Creative types spend a lot of time at this intersection: they put up market stalls, start gardens, invite friends, get married.
You know how it feels here. Things are a bit easier, kind of exciting. Giggling in the background. Getting things done flows here, with less effort and more glee.

You lined the parts up, and now light can shine all the way through.

Here are some examples of what I mean.
Tell us where you’ll act on these in a creative approach to your life.

• GET PLAYFUL

Everyone knows that playfulness and creativity are linked, and we crave a more creative life: yet we think adults should give their playfulness up. It is possible to be brilliant and playful and successful though. Practice a lot, if this is hard right now. Find a kid or a puppy, a book or movie. You’ll get better as you remind yourself how. You have a sense of humor: this is the year to relax into it.

• ENGAGE PARADOX

The universe is too complex to think we can sort out contradictions. The yinyang symbol is a circle first: then is both black and white simultaneously. Seek out paradoxes. Gently hold both / all aspects, see what happens. No wrong answers. Hint: it’s not what you think. The yinyang makes sense to you because you can see it from a bigger perspective. 2012 will be full of paradox. It’s the universe winking at you. Wink back.

• DO THE UNEXPECTED

Practice this one too. At least once a day, notice a habit and deliberately be unexpected instead. Write with your left hand. Lie on the floor and put your feet on the chair. Walk backwards around your yard. Juxtapose elements out of context. Make yourself laugh. Get radically simple. Neuroscience can now show you pretty pictures of your brain making new connections and increasing your ability to think more widely when you do this.

• RISK CONFIDENTLY

You’ve got vast extra smartness below your conscious mind, like an iceberg but warmer. Confident risk means even if your analytical mind can’t say why, your smart holographic mind knows exactly what to do, because you have lots of extra information. Scientists have shown this over and over. So trust yourself.
An example: The island nation of Samoa and neighboring Tokelau this year voted to skip December 30, 2011, and be the first countries in the world to celebrate the new year, rather than the last. Nothing bad happened, other than more tourist money. This leads right into-

• IGNORE UNREAL LIMITATIONS

Know the difference. Limiting your self-identity to what was given to your country centuries ago may not be effective.
Limiting your spending on materials when you don’t have much money for them is effective. Deciding that therefore you aren’t an artist because you can’t make anything because you have no materials is not effective. Ditto for tools. Ditto for processes. If Gourley accepted polymer as only a jewelry medium, we wouldn’t be looking at her image of an art installation in the Canadian Rockies.

• TRUST THE BIGGER PICTURE

Which you can’t get your conscious mind around, and that is as it should be. As a marvelous illustration, a woman in Sweden lost her wedding ring 16 years ago in her kitchen. They found the ring this year, tightly fastened around a carrot in her vegetable garden. Apparently it fell into the compost, was dug into the garden and a carrot seed grew up through it. You really just never know, so don’t invest too much energy in a small picture when you can inhabit a bigger one.

• ACTIVATE YOUR COMMUNITY
• GET PERSONAL WITH PRAYER

You know what these mean to you. In giving you receive, in receiving you give.

CREATIVITY

Creativity is to art as transcontinental flight is to a nice airport.
The power and the magic are in the flying.
Not in which airport you’ve landed.
Do not confuse the two.

To put it another way:
Creativity is your ability to move, not the footprints you leave.
Love your footprints, but don’t confuse them with loving to dance.
As you master your dance, your footprints become more purposeful and personal. You are mastering your dance itself, not the making of intricate footprints.

GLORIOUSLY RULING means accepting your natural creative design and using your own secret knowledge.
Everything flows from these: the most practical, pragmatic actions to the most sublimely mystical.
I have total faith in you.

In my own news: I’m no longer teaching polymer classes in the US.
I continue to offer retreats and master classes in creative development, like the 2012 Milagro Hacienda, and Creative Sanctuary Masterclasses – in fact, Rachel Gourley will be working here with me in a few weeks.
I am gloriously heading back to my studio, after fifteen years of turbulence…
These things I tell you? They come from decades of intense personal experience, and there’s more.

Also I’m expanding my mentoring programs.
At this time, I have room for three new clients. We do phone or Skype sessions, so you can be anywhere. 90 minutes long, usually weekly. They’re $150 each, and you get a discount for five paid together. People have found them effective. You might too.
When you are interested in truly honing your creative approach to your art, career, and life, and making 2012 your most fruitful year so far, contact me.
505-301-9142, or victoria@toryhughes.com
Work with me individually if you want effective help getting your natural creativity gloriously active again.

Aaaaaaaand we’re off!
Stay in touch.

Tory