I read this on a post-it note some months ago and am still laughing about it. It's just too true. In my life, for example, I have many moments of peace and openness. I revel in the appreciation of both small miracles - like having a good hair day - and humongous displays of magic - like walking again after paralysis, which happened to me after a discectomy went haywire on an operating table in 1997. I study the lessons of my spiritual teachers like Byron Katie, Eckhart Tolle, and Abraham, and experience the joy and freedom that these teachings gift my spirit.

And yet I fear. Many things. I fear that I'm getting older and wrinklier in a society that values youth and immaculate beauty, and that I have 87 bills on my kitchen counter and exactly $87.00 in my bank account to pay them. I worry that Tinky's health is in decline and I'll not know how to go on living without her. I worry how I look in a pair of jeans, how I'll face an increasingly challenging body with no health insurance, and how Oprah will know which eye to look at when I'm on her show (I have a wandering eye that makes photography and television an almost impossible thing). And yes, when sitting in traffic on the freeway, bumper to bumper in the summer heat with my AC working overtime but not nearly pumping enough wattage to remove the sweat from my upper lip, the tide pool under each armpit and the Amazonian river running down my thighs, I want to smack someone. Hard. And for good measure I might just want to dole out a few atomic wedgies while I'm at it.

And then I hear the voices of my teachers in my head. They attempt to soothe the writhing, suffering creature living inside me. "Accept the present moment as if you had chosen it. Make this now your friend." And when I follow this advice I feel much better. Sometimes I even fly. Which makes me marvel: why do I so often get lost in anxiety? Why do I paint dire pictures in my head when I could be creating enchanting ones? Why am I driven to smack the snotty waiter who not only brings me the wrong food, but when I point this out to him, treats me with disdain as if I'd ordered incorrectly, as if I was inconveniencing his very life, as if I was single-handedly responsible for his bad haircut, his strained relations with his father and the incessant hair-ball hacking of his prize-winning Siamese cat? I just know he's spit in my chipotle chicken salad when he returns to set it on our table, so it sits pristine on my plate. I lose my appetite. And now the entire restaurant needs a smack.

What to do? I cannot turn my back on the teachers in my life. Their messages of love and consciousness are a life-line, creating a capacity for joy and hope I didn't know I had. Is this what consciousness does? Is this evolution? A series of lessons which make our old patterns and habits increasingly distasteful until we release them, allowing them to remain untouched like a spat-upon chipotle chicken salad?

Perhaps. But I don't think I'm up for sitting under the Bodhi tree or scrubbing floors in an East Indian ashram in order to attain enlightenment. So maybe this is my task. Maybe life is my dharma, in all its cellulite-inducing anxiety. And if so, how can I pass this test and move onto the next phase? Can I please just study hard, take an exam, and graduate? When does the struggling end and the consciousness begin?

When I was in college I didn't really care about learning. I cared about grades. Give me the syllabus, the books, the schedule and let me at those exams. I aced every single one and when the paper or test was turned in, I promptly forgot everything I'd studied. On paper? A model student. In reality? A short-cutter, a side-stepper, just lookin' for the grade. Not exactly what a University has in mind when it dreams up the competent, courageous students it will one day offer up to society at large. And yet, this is what I did with my college education, and what I'm dangerously close to doing now with my spiritual education. Just tell me what's expected of me, let me memorize it, regurgitate it back to you and then I'm outtie with my 4.0. Only one problem. Spirit doesn't care about test scores and GPAs. Spirit cares about learning, experience, growth.

I just hate that. But I admire it, too. (Maybe Spirit needs a smack?) And in the deepest recesses of my heart, I want to BE it. To live out the poetry in my veins, to touch the essence of the intangible within a life incarnate, to dwell in harmony with my own body, with my state of mind, with my world at large, these desires are bigger than my fears and more powerful than my need to smack.

And so I chafe. I chafe at the cellulite on my ass and my disparaging reaction to the cellulite on my ass. And then I remember that my ass is temporary, that my soul is not. And I wonder. Does my soul have cellulite? Does it care how it looks in a pair of jeans? Does it strive for a 4.0? Or is it possible that my soul is glorious and generous, that it loves me just as I am, no matter where or how I am, and that it draws to me the things, events and circumstances I need in order to become the very glory and generosity dwelling at my core?

But let's back up a moment. What is a soul, really? I've read various definitions, most of which leave me feeling like I'm playing with liquid mercury: touch it, and it shifts, splits, changes. It refuses to be pinned down. Take Webster's, for example. There are a total of fourteen definitions of soul. For the sake of this book, we're going with Webster's #1 which reads: soul - the principle of life, feeling, thought, and action in humans, regarded as a distinct entity separate from the body, and commonly held to be separable in existence from the body; the spiritual part of humans as distinct from the physical part. When I refer to soul, I am referring to the part of us that organizes and guides our life principle, an entity existing within and around us, the part of us immune to the need to smack.

I believe someday science and Spirit will meet. A day will come when researchers will discover proof of the soul, or at least physical evidence of something larger than our perceived reality, contained within us and around us. We'll then be able to chart and graph the various messages and meanings encoded within our being. Until then it's hunches, intuitions, guesswork. And in frustrating times, smack-work.

But life in motion begs the question: if soul is the grandest part of ourselves, yet the most subtle, how, then can we live according to its bounty?

Last week I notice lumps - quite a few of them - on Tinky's chest. A stab of fear pierces my heart. Tinky is the eight pound Chihuahua who single handedly saved my life in 1998. She brought light and hope into a very dark hour, helping restore a life devastated by paralysis, emotional bankruptcy and financial ruin. She asserted herself as my guardian, a winged sentinel determined to fly me to safety to the shores of healing. What will I do if she's sick? We have no money to cure her. What will I do if she's suffering? What will I do without her? She's not like other dogs. All that ball-throwing, stick-chasing, ear-tousling, lap-sitting, kissing, hugging, rolling around the floor together? We don't do that. I've done that with other dogs and I watch my friends do it with theirs. Tinky is more like an elemental. She's not into laps, doesn't like being held. She's not much into the games and pursuits of other dogs. She's a guide, watching over me, perched on her bed by my feet, guarding. But those lumps? They make her a dog, a very real flesh-and-blood Chihuahua. With a lifespan. With lumps. I of course was aware this moment would come. From the day we met I knew we'd have to part, and that the emotional price would be a blood-letting. But this right here? It's too much. Who will I be without her? I haven't a clue and I don't want to find out.

"Love what is" Byron Katie would tell me. But I don't love those lumps.

So last Wednesday, after noticing the lumps and needing to do something to distract myself (with nothing and no one on hand to smack), I'm trying to sort my art studio. I'm arranging and rearranging and nothing works. None of the items I need to pack up for storage fit the boxes I have on hand. Papers fall from my hands. Boxes topple, their innards strewn across the studio floor. I cut my finger on a pair of dull scissors. (Have I ever done that? Even running with scissors in kindergarten?) Those lumps on Tinky's chest have moved to the back of my throat and nothing's getting past them. I can't swallow food or tasks or hope. I can't stomach reality, have no appetite for optimism. I start with a fear that Tinky has tumors and then spiral into the fear that I'll be powerless to change her condition and then I just plunge right into the ugly pit of depression and loss.

For a day and a half, nothing can pull me out. I'm down there wailing and moaning, doing the Swing Low Sweet Chariot routine with my tin cup banging on the iron bars of an emotional jail cell. When Joseph and his Technicolor frock were thrown into a pit, a band of Ishmaelites dug him out. Me? I hear the voice of Abraham, their wisdom a hand held low, my very own sweet chariot offering rescue. "Look to your emotions. They will tell you how close - or far - you are from Source. Feelings of depression indicate distance from your true self, your source of power. Feelings of joy and enthusiasm herald alignment with that same source."

The message resonates with me. And while I cannot jump the chasm from feeling helpless and sad to feeling strong and joyful, I can grasp the hand of wisdom before me. I climb out of the pit and go to the one place where wise women have been going for eons to search out wisdom and enlightenment: the bathtub. In the warm, steamy waters I feel strong enough to face the facts: I love Tinky. She has lumps. Some day she will die, but not today. I don't know when, but I haven't even been to the vet to figure out what exactly is going on with her body. I'm not certain the lumps are malignant, but I'm moping and fretting and suffering while Tinky sits patiently beside the tub, staring up at me through twin, brown pools. Alive. I could be snuggling her, hugging her, relishing our time together. Instead I am tortured, and in the tub of reason I realize it's voluntary. I do not have to indulge the thoughts that create the suffering. I have options.

And that feels good. Well, better anyway. These options create a tiny space in me un-choked by fear and I crawl inside it. I think this is what Eckhart Tolle is talking about when he encourages us to live in the now. When embracing the now, and only the now, all the anxious ‘what ifs' settle down and take a nap. The brain gets a little quieter, even if life does not. In the quiet, I ponder. Can my teachers be believed? Is it possible that my very soul is creating these circumstances, orchestrating these events? Am I, on some soul level, calling to me what I need in order to manifest the glory and generosity residing at my soul's core? Are these lumps my doing?

And now I feel the need to smack myself. How could I do this to me? But wait. A voice inside my head. Is there not some gift in this situation? As ridiculous as it feels, I begin reviewing the potential benefits of being confronted by suffering.

#1 - I cannot think about the past, because it pains me to think Tinky and I won't have those moments again

#2 - I cannot think about the future, because I cannot bear the thought of Tinky not being in it

#3 - Number one and Number two lead me directly to...The Now. And haven't I been saying that I'd like more peacefulness in my life? Haven't I been asking for a deeper understanding of presence? Wasn't it me, just three weeks ago, spouting off to a friend that I intend to love more, even if it means loving the ugly and unlovable?

Humph. If there's ever been ugly, these lumps are it. And unlovable? I'd say that's me right about now, chock full of resistance. In this realization, I begin to soften. Toward the lumps. Toward myself. Compassion swells inside me for all that I reject, for the circumstances I deem unfavorable, for the people and events I judge as wrong or bad. I consider that maybe - just maybe - my intentions have been heard and I'm being offered the reality that will create what I've said I want.

I get out of the tub, dry myself off. I scoop Tinky in my arms and carry her upstairs to my bed. We lie for a time on the red duvet, human and dog. She stares at me, as is her habit. I swear she believes I am her charge, and is determined to provide me safe passage. As sleep begins to beckon, her liquid  eyes blink more and more slowly, until her breath evens out long and low and I know she's drifted into some enchanted land for guardians, full of journeys-end dreams. I turn to look out the window: a tiny patch of blue looks back, its heart a thousand white pieces. And I am reminded of the quote I read by Yehuda Amichai: "Behind all this, some great happiness is hiding."

I think it's us.

I'm working on a new project today, much of the palette inspired by India. I'm fascinated by the people, places and customs of this stunning country. If I ever get there, I'm going to celebrate "Holi." See the colored pigment dust in the photo? The people of India go around throwing it on each other all day long in celebration. You can read about Holi here. What a wonder! And an excuse to throw color? And walk around myself like a technicolor ghost? YES!

Friends, Romans, Artisans, lend me your rears. I mean ears. Rear end I have enough of. All the same, this is a bit of a proclamation. Thought I'd let you in on a little secret of mine: I've started plurking on a new writing project. It's kinda dishy and fun, but the title is all hush hush for now. Let's just call the project "Diamonds in the Rough."

Inspired by the emails, letters and blogging comments on my site that credit me with a "real world" perspective on spirituality and consciousness, I've decided to put my thoughts into a book, bits and pieces of which will inevitably show up here. Like this one, my first attempt at chapter one. It's just the rough draft, but since the whole point is owning up to all the coal and grime that's part of being a spiritual diamond-in-the-rough, I present it here unedited, with all its jagged edges.

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Chapter One

"I meditate. I light candles. I practice stillness. Still I want to smack someone."

I read this on a post-it note some months ago and am still laughing about it. Yanno, it's so true. In my life, for example, I have many moments of peace and openness. I revel in the appreciation of both small miracles (like the opening of a sunflower) and humongous displays of magic (like walking again after paralysis). I study the lessons of my spiritual teachers like Byron Katie, Eckhart Tolle, and Abraham and experience the joy and freedom that these teachings gift my spirit. And yet I fear. Many things. I fear that I'm getting older and wrinklier in a society that values youth and immaculate beauty, and that I have 87 bills on my kitchen counter and exactly 87.00 in my bank account to pay them.  I worry that Tink's health is in decline and I'll not know how to go on living without her. I worry how I look in a pair of jeans, how I'll face an increasingly challenging body with no health insurance, and  how Oprah will know which eye to look at when I'm on her show (I have a wandering eye that makes photography and television an almost impossible thing)...and yes, when sitting in traffic on the freeway, bumper to bumper in the summer heat with my AC working overtime but not nearly pumping enough wattage to remove the sweat from my upper lip, the tide pool under each armpit and the Amazonian river running down my thighs, I want to smack someone. Hard. And for good measure I might just wanna dole out a few atomic wedgies while I'm at it.

And then I hear the voices of my teachers in my head. They attempt to soothe the writhing, suffering creature living inside me. "Accept the present moment as if you had chosen it. Make this now your friend." And when I follow this advice I feel much better. Sometimes I even fly. Which makes me marvel: why do I so often get lost in anxiety? Why do I paint dire pictures in my head when I could be creating enchanting ones? Why am I driven to smack the dumb-ass waiter who not only brings me the wrong food, but when I point this out to him, treats me with disdain as if I'd ordered incorrectly, as if I was inconveniencing his very life, as if I was single-handedly responsible for his bad haircut, his strained relations with his father and the incessant hair-ball hacking of his prize-winning Siamese cat? I just know he's spit in my Chipotle Chicken Salad when he returns to set it on our table, so it sits pristine on my plate. I lose my appetite. And now the entire restaurant needs a smack.

What to do? I cannot turn my back on the teachers in my life. Their messages of love and expanse are a life-line, creating a capacity for joy and hope I didn't know I had.  Is this what consciousness does? Is this evolution? A series of lessons which make our old patterns and habits increasingly distasteful until we release them permanently? I dunno. I don't think I'm up for sitting under the Bodhi tree or scrubbing floors in an East Indian ashram in order to attain enlightenment. So maybe this is my task. Maybe life is my dharma, in all its cellulite-inducing anxiety. And if so, how can I pass this test and move onto the next phase? Can I please just study hard, take an exam, and graduate? When does the struggling end and the consciousness begin?

Years ago, when I was in college, I didn't really care about learning. I cared about grades. Give me the syllabus, the books, the schedule and let me at those exams. I aced every single one and when the paper or test was turned in, I promptly forgot everything I'd studied. On paper? A model student. In reality? A short-cutter, a side-stepper, just lookin' for the grade. Not exactly what a University has in mind when it dreams up the competent, courageous students it will one day offer up to society at large. And yet, this is what I did with my college education, and what I'm dangerously close to doing now with my spiritual education. Just tell me what's expected of me, let me memorize it, regurgitate it back to you and then I'm outtie with my 4.0. Only one problem. Spirit doesn't care about test scores and GPAs. Spirit cares about learning, experience, growth.

I just hate that. But I admire it, too. (Maybe Spirit needs a smack?) And in the deepest recesses of my heart, I want to BE it. To live out the poetry in my veins, to touch the essence of the intangible within a life incarnate, to dwell in harmony with my own body, with my state of mind, with my world at large...these desires are bigger than my fears and more powerful than my need to smack. And so I chafe. I chafe at the cellulite on my ass and my disparaging reaction to the cellulite on my ass. And then I remember that my ass is temporary, that my soul is not. And I wonder. Does my soul have cellulite? Does it care how it looks in a pair of jeans? Does it strive for a 4.0? Or is it possible that my soul is glorious and generous, that it loves me just as I am, no matter where or how I am, and that it draws to me the things, events and circumstances I need in order to become the very glory and generosity  dwelling at my core?

to be continued...

You know how you can talk about a thing and it sounds really good to your own ears? You might even spout off to friends or family about this thing, encouraging (harassing?) them to try it. Maybe you even consider yourself somewhat of an aficionado about this thing. Then BLAM! You actually do the thing you've been talking about and it takes on a life of its own, totally surprising you, and, in the end, teaching you once again that you really know nothing?

 Yeah, that's how I feel about art right now. I've been preaching the virtues of staying open and responding to What Is, in the context of both life and art, then a few days ago I sit down to collage with Mernie and I end up painting a page-spread turquoise, white and red, but not in a very intriguing nor compelling way. I stared at the pages. "Lookin' a lot like the French flag to me," I mumbled, thinking how nice it'd be to skip the painted pages all together and just go on to something else. But my own words hung in the air: "Just put some paint down on the page and then respond to What Is. Don't plan. Work with your impulses and at every stage ask yourself "what does this call for next?"

I was spouting advice I'd heard Teesha and Anahata say - advice I had taken at their workshops. Advice that had been very good to me, in more ways than one. Both Teesha and Anahata are a bit guerilla in their art: they simply start somewhere (anywhere) and begin cutting, pasting, painting. At each stage they respond to what's on the page, allowing the art to unfold, to tell its own story and take its own direction. I, on the other hand, can get so knicker-twisted when making a piece of art, I'm almost defeated before I begin. So hung up am I on a certain idea I have in my head that if I cannot see my way through to the "how" of creating what's in my mind, I quit. Quitting before you begin? Not so good for art-making.

So the advice of starting somewhere -anywhere- and letting the piece unfold at each stage was a life saver for me. It's changed the way I create, the way I write, the way I compose. It's had such a positive impact that it won't leave my head as I stare down at those garish red, white and turquoise pages I'd like to destroy or abort. "Work with What Is. Let the canvas tell you what's next." I'm looking down at my patriotic looking pages and am just not up to lighting firecrackers. But Mernie's sitting next to me and after spouting off this advice for the past hour as we prepared the studio for a day of collaging, I can't simply abort now. Damnit. I'm going to have to walk my talk.

And thank gawd for that particular peer pressure, for I did forge ahead, allowing the piece itself to dictate my next steps. And what can I say? I was thoroughly surprised (and pleasantly, I might add) to discover the piece telling me its own tale.

I wonder how many times this happens in art. We forfeit new and compelling wonders because we insist on going with what we know, what feels comfortable.  And how often in life do we forgo a new experience or friendship because of the persistent need to control? It baffles me how often I stand in my own way.

How often have I robbed myself of surprise and delight because I'm certain a work of art should look this way, or a friend should act that way, or the world should be other than it is? I swear it all goes back to the same rule: Curiosity over Judgement. When we judge a thing as right or wrong, when we label art or life as "good" or "bad" we cut ourselves off from all that might be. We fence ourselves in...in a little space we consider "right." But when we stay open, curious like Alice, allowing ourselves to observe and respond to each moment as it occurs, then we have a fence-less field in which to play, wander and wonder. 

I know. I know. It all sounds so simple, and then you're in front of a red, white and blue French flag of painted paper and you want to hurl technicolor frog legs. Or you're standing in line while the new 7-11 store clerk counts out eight dollars worth of pennies and you're thinking that gouging your eyes out with thumbtacks would be more pleasurable than one more minute in line. Or your friend calls for the fifth time to cancel dinner plans. You reach for your curiosity and find only judgment. You reach for your compassion and find only a petty, angry pride flexing its Tony Soprano muscles.

But you have a choice. I have a choice. Which way will we go? Upstream full of resistance and the illusion of control? Or downstream full of ease and possibility? I know one thing. I'm awfully glad I chose downstream to let this French (freak) flag fly!

 Now somebody be kind enough to remind me of this next next time I'm standing in line at the 7-11. That'll be me with the package of thumbtacks.

When I drove up to the Kennesaw house, after traveling cross country for days on end, this is what greeted me. This. Cornucopia. Of a house.

One year ago, w hen I pulled from the driveway headed for ,Taos this is what the house looked like.

It's an old cedar home and the interior has always been cedar-lined, decorated in dark rusts, greens and umbers. In the last days of May 2008, having just completed a huge moving sale, (which included nine hundred and eleven auctions on ebay, which made a small dent in our personal and business inventory) we pulled out of the driveway eager for home. Silas and I had three greeting card lines to conceive, design and deliver and we couldn't wait to get back to the studio. Mernie was staying in Kennesaw, and to relieve her boredom and revive her sense of joy, she started remodeling the house.

It all started with a hail storm. One dark and stormy night, winds blew in from the North, and they blew hard. They huffed and puffed and blew our roof down. Or at least a few shingles. At any rate the roof had to be replaced which got a home repairman out to the house, which got Mernie's jaw to flap open when said repairman pronounced, "You're lucky this house hasn't fallen down around you! Half the wood's rotten!" Over a year later, the siding, decks and roof have been replaced, it's been painted, and half of the interior has been redesigned and updated. On top of it all? The explosion of joy that is the color. Mernie admits to going a little over the top with it all. But there'll be no apologies. Over the top is where she lives. (Can you imagine how popular this has made us with our Pine Tree Country Club neighbors? Oh yeah. It's that good. Think six o'clock news.)

Mernie says "don't look too close! The carpet still needs replacing, wood floors are going down and the painting has not been finished!" So there. 

My personal favorite--the washroom! Finally a cheery place to do laundry! I can't help but feel joyful every time I'm in it.

Have I mentioned that Mernie has been in our small Taos adobe for weeks? You'd think it could feel crowded and tense with three humans and three dogs and a Houdini mouse in such a small space (especially given the relations of all involved) and you'd be right! But now that we've settled into a routine, things are smooth sailing and we're finding creative ways to enjoy ourselves and each other. We're all back to work with a healthy dose of plurk mixed in.

With business and household duties out of the way, Mernie and I sat down yesterday afternoon for a little mother/daughter collage activity. We haven't created or painted together in over ten years. And as I shared with her some of the techniques I've learned at workshops and through my own risk-taking (mistaking) I really heard myself clearly, as if listening to me with someone else's ears. As we painted, drew, cut and glued, it dawned on me that the "rules" for art (in this case, collage) are the same for life. Well, when I say "rules" let me clarify: rules are the codes by which one operates if one wishes to BE DELIGHTED, and enjoy the creative process, regardless of the results. (But the results are almost always better for having followed the rules. It just works that way.) 

 
"To know delight, you first must be delight."©Angi Sullins 2009
This is the piece I made while contemplating the rules of delightful creation

Rules of Art, Life and Delightful Creation

rule #1 - start where you are! 

Pull out your materials and just play with them. Be inspired by colors, textures, patterns. Delight your senses. Then choose a starting point. Pick a color that moves you and put the paint down.

rule #2 - play spontaneously

Once the paint is down, sort through shapes and figures, faces and places, pull out the images that feel most connected to the colors you've chosen. Instead of intentionally creating a vision from your mind, spontaneously make choices and let the images guide themselves into a story. Let them talk to your right brain and bypass all the anal-retentive "have-to's" of the left brain.

rule #3 - respond to What is

Regardless of what stage you are in, respond to What Is, rather than what you have in mind. Give your creation a little room to create itself. When one arrangement feels dissatisfying, try another, move things around until they feel harmonious. Pose them upside down. Look at your overall composition from multiple angles. Get a new perspective.

rule #4 - fuck ups are fun!

Really, they are. Oh they don't feel so fun when you've worked eight hours on a project and then splashed black ink on top of it, resulting in an ugly smudge in the middle of your lovely Victorian landscape! Then when you relax and let go - after some chocolate and red wine and an ever so teeny bitch session about how you want to pull your eyeslashes out and how you'll never buy black ink again and why doesn't anyone put the LIDS back on the BOTTLES ever ever EVER - you begin to loosen up and play again and suddenly the black smudge resembles an old oil stain, the exact kind you'd have found on a cool Victoriana steampunk engine.

Loosen up. I think maybe all great art and life comes from this one rule. Ultimately, fuck ups are invitations to surprise ourselves with our own brilliance. Think of the students in an art college I heard about recently that requires its students, after every assignment, in each class every year of their schooling, to burn their art. Yup, after completion and critique, all the art is burned to ash. As painful as it sounds, the school turns out incredibly grounded students ready and willing to risk-take, to take themselves and their art loosely, prepared to greet a new genius each day.

 rule #5 - love the process, not the art

Of course it's ok to love your art. But it's counter productive to hate your art, to despise or degrade your results. If you keep your mind continuously flowing with What Is, however, you really give yourself a gift. It keeps you in the moment. And when you finish your piece (or in the best of circumstances, when it finishes itself and nods to you with a wink) it feels stunning to have taken the journey, to have been timeless, dancing with the muse. If, when all is said and done, you feel less than thrilled with what emerged, - and this is the kicker! - allow the result to simply be. what. it. is. 

It's your judgment that creates the dissatisfaction, the misery. Allow your art (your project, your life circumstance) to be what it is. Allow that creation to be  a creation. It's not a measure of your talent. It has naught to do with your worth. The joy of being a creator is in the creating. Move. Start another project. The results will change. And, once you've honed a skill (if that's your choice), even if you are a master, results will often vary. If your results don't vary, if they aren't creating eyelash-tearing, chocolate-eating, red-wine swilling meltdowns you're not taking enough risks. Risk takers inevitably encounter defeat, dissatisfaction. But only on that same risk-taking road do they also meet surprise, thrill, joy, and bliss.

rule #6 - at the end, begin again

I read a poet laureate's work recently that said "All of life is saying goodbye." Our world is built on change, on the life,/death/life cycle. Breath in. Breath out.  And in our art we find, as in life, our end is our beginning. After the blooming of a really great project, I discover the seeds of the next project germinating. Open up. Receive. You've created, birthed and are being called by the great wheel once again. Move on. Don't get too attached to any triumphs or too depressed over any defeats. Just move.

Until. It's time to be still. You'll know it when that time comes upon you. Writers call it "Writers Block." Other artists call it "The Wall." No ideas come. Creativity comes in fits and starts, it stutters. Some days it has Turrets and screams obscenities at your self confidence or barks nonsense at your blank page. Just be still. Once again, "allowing" is the cure-all. Don't fight it. In fact, in your stillness, take a walk, look at the sky, watch a candle, court nature, both inner and outer. The seeds for the next project are there. They just need your field to lie fallow so they can settle into the ground. Be that ground.

rule #7 - feel free to break any and all rules. even these.

In the name of joy and wild abandon, make your own rules!