My hubby and I are on vacation and right now we're  in the town of St. George Utah and visiting the various national and state parks in the area. Yesterday we went to a place called Snow Canyon State Park and today we are going to the world famous Zion National Park.

I am definitely a mountain and earthy girl - Virgo all the way- so I'm pretty blissed out to be hanging out in my beloved red rock desert hiking and exploring and communing with the earth spirits.

The little colored pencil drawing I did today is pretty reflective of the happiness I am feeling. I just love how the energy of the land flows through me and energizes me, leaving me juiced and jazzed and at the same time totally content. It's been a busy and stressful last few months so I've been desperately needing a big jolt of nurturing mama goddess energy.

Considering the look on this girls face it looks like I found it!

Even though I've been doing intuitive art for about a gazillion years now it still always amazes me how taking a little time to put some color on paper can take me into a much deeper and more alive relationship with myself. I just feel whatever my experience is in that moment on a whole other level.

This piece is a painting using watercolors that I have in a little travel watercolor kit. I'm away on vacation and am in one of my favorite places in the whole world which is the Southwest desert area- Nevada, Utah and Death Valley in California. I have a pretty strong relationship with the land in these areas and I always feel like I'm more empowered and in touch with myself when I am there. So this piece kind of feels like a bit of a self portrait -me as nature girl who is connected up to the animals and the elements and feeling her spiritual oats!!

Goddess knows why I have green hair... it just felt like the right thing to do. And the zig-zag crack in my forehead has shown up in a couple of my other paintings. I think it IS related to my intuition opening up a bit more. Or it could just be a symbol that I am completely losing my mind. Which are probably one and the same thing!!

I love how this one felt to do. Even though I have no idea what it is. If I had to identify it I would say that it looks kind of organic- like a flower or plant from another planet. But it was very absorbing and relaxing to create it.

I do enjoy letting the pencils or brushes just lead me. It really is fun and takes the pressure off tremendously to not have to TRY to make my drawings represent anything real. If I were actually attempting to paint a specific flower.... like a rose or a tulip... I would have way too many opportunities to be worried that it wasn't turning out exactly right. Whereas if I am painting or drawing something that doesn't even exist on this reality plane no one can tell me I'm doing it wrong... unless one of those aliens from that other planet happens to show up here one day!!

And painting and drawing like this always feels like true creation to me because I'm actually making something that has never existed before!! How cool is that!!

I have the great good fortune to be surrounded by many, many amazingly creative people. People that are bursting with creative energy and ideas, talent and enthusiasm. Friends and colleagues who are living wondrously creative lives and by their example are serving as a creative catalyst and an inspiration for me and everyone who knows them. They spark me with a wondrous sense of creative possibility. Their unflagging devotion to the goddess of creativity is a source of heartfelt encouragement and an ongoing blessing in my life.

I admire and respect these people tremendously.

And most of the time I feel like I am a member in good standing of the "live your life creatively" club. That I belong and am one of them.

Most of the time.

Oh oh...Where did all my friends go?

But there are other times when I feel very much on the outside. Like I've been cast out. Excluded. I don't quite measure up. In those moments it looks like those friends are rapidly passing me by. Leaving me behind.

Maybe they are getting more attention. Or coming up with more brilliant ideas. Or actually manifesting things that I have been dragging my feet around for longer than I care to admit.

During these periods those people in my life who are usually angels of creative light mutate into denizens of discouragement and darkness. They turn on me. They undergo a frightening transformation into demons and monsters who torture me with their brilliance. They laugh at me from their lofty pinnacles of originality and genius. They turn their back on me as they frolic together in the land of ease and creative flow.

But of course, they haven't changed at all. They are still the same lovely and generous souls they always were. The only thing that has changed is a certain frothing neural activity in the dark corners of my brain that looks and sounds like "You're just not good enough, talented enough, creative enough."

The only demon that has wormed it's way into my psyche is not a person at all but a painful state of mind that I know only too well.

I have been unceremoniously abducted into the anti-creative netherworld and swallowed up by the demon of ( drum roll please)... toxic comparison.

Comparison is not the devil...except when it is.

Comparison isn't inherently a negative thing. Comparison is simply a process of differentiation. It's acknowledging how one thing is unlike another.  When it becomes deadly is when that differentiation carries a value judgment with it. It's saying that not only are these two things not the same but one is inherently better than the other. It's creating a system of hierarchy. Which includes things like scarcity and competition.

When applied to creativity it leads to the assumption is that there's only so much creative goodness to go around. That some people got it and some don't. When you are in the jaws of that particular demon you are utterly convinced that you are for sure someone who DON'T... got it. And that way of thinking can lead to a whole world of psychological hurt and  trouble.

If you keep your eyes closed and your mouth shut you'll have no trouble painting at all.

In a recent blog post I talked about how I ask that my intuitive painting students not make any comments on each others work, which includes positive comments, because what we are doing is trying to refrain from judgment and a judgment is a judgment even if it's a positive one.

But another reason that I ask people to refrain from saying nice things about each others work is because of a phenomenon that I call "painter envy" that regularly happens in the studio when people paint together in a group. Of course they invariably look around at each others paintings. And they start comparing. And not in the value neutral way of simply noticing how each person is uniquely themselves.

Oh no. This kind of comparison looks and sounds like "Oh my god. Look at how beautiful that painting is. She really knows HOW to paint a bird. My birds always look like dead, scrawny chickens no matter how hard I try. And I have no color sense at all. I'm positively ADDICTED to fluorescent orange and everyone knows that is just a hideous, stupid color. Her colors are so ELEGANT and refined and flow together so well.  I can't believe I still paint like a 4 year old after all this time. She obviously came out of the womb knowing how to paint and draw. I can't even......"  and on and on.

This is another BIG reason I ask people not to make comments. Since the comparison is going on in people's minds anyway... since they are already trying to convince themselves that their creative expression is deficient or wanting in some way... hearing a positive comment about someone else's painting when no one has said anything to them just underscores the belief that theirs just doesn't measure up.

If someone says something nice about Nancy's painting then Jill automatically assumes that hers is a piece of crap. And vice versa. So not saying anything at all is a way to help create an atmosphere where we are not throwing gasoline on that particular raging fire.

My friends are back but my creativity is taking a break for a while.

When we are pinned to the ground by the toxic comparison demon it effectively stops our true creativity dead in its tracks. To be creative we need to feel safe. And valued. We need to feel like our creativity is good enough just as it is.

Without that confidence and trust in ourselves we tend to shrink and hide. We tend to find ourselves feeling blocked and stuck and paralyzed. The creative ideas just don't flow. The creative river goes deep underground to a place where we can't find a way to access it's limitless creative goodness. And we can totally convince ourselves that it's dried up and gone forever.

I find that I am the most vulnerable to the negative comparison blues when I'm already feeling low or sad or scared about something else in my life. When I'm feeling overwhelmed or stressed, tired or drained I don't have the resources necessary to put that particular demon in perspective.

So when I sit down and try to do something creative and the words won't come or the paint is not flowing joyfully onto the paper, when it looks like my artsy friends have all of a sudden attained creative rockstar status and left me behind in a heap of dejected inadequacy, I try to remember that what I need at that moment is some kindness. And a cup of tea. Maybe a nap. Or a good cry.

And to also try and remember that this too shall pass. My feeling of being a creative has-been is not anywhere near the truth and is no reflection at all on my intrinsic creative worth. It's just that I'm at a low ebb of my creative cycle. And what I really need is to curl up with a good trashy book and let someone else do the creative heavy lifting for a while.

And maybe take another nap.

This is another one of my pieces that I did with colored pencils which are a total godsend because they are so easy to just whip out and use when I don't have a lot of space or time to set up my paints.

First of all, I have no idea what this drawing is about. It's totally mysterious to me. It's definitely one of those images that comes from someplace in my psyche where my dreams live. And I really love it when that happens. It feels like I'm tapped into some other dimension where things don't always make very much rational or logical sense.

I am enchanted by the feeling that I get when something like this comes through me. I totally dig the element of surprise. It's like I have no control whatsoever and because I am not trying to hold onto control something that I could never have even thought of is born through my trusting in my creative process. I'm simply channeling or downloading an image from some place other than my normal, every day brain.

I also have to be very careful to allow paintings or drawings like this to just be what they are without second guessing why certain things are appearing.

For example, the dead rat that is held in the beings left hand kind of freaked me out. I wouldn't necessarily have chosen that as an image I would want to portray because I have all kinds of weird and negative associations with rats. But this is one of those times I have to remember that when I am creating from an intuitive place, what shows up is really none of my business.

My job is to just keep my hand moving and surrender to the creative flow.

Today's a busy day...in fact it's going to be a busy weekend. I'm co-facilitating a new workshop with a friend of mine we're calling Death Rehearsal: A Playfully Reverent Exploration and Artful Preparation For the Final Curtain Call where we will be using creativity to explore our feelings about death and dying. I know it sounds like it could be morbid, but it's really not. First of all, we're planning some really COOL creative exercises, including painting a cardboard casket together as a group. And we'll be writing and dancing and making music. And we actually anticipate laughing quite a bit.

And even though I also think it's going to be pretty intense I am hoping that I will get some sense of that spiritual truth that knowing we are going to die, someday, and facing that knowing head on can actually allow me to be more fully alive now. I'll let you know how it goes.

So a lot of my creative energy is going into creating the workshop. And I'm also planning on taking some photos of the art projects I'll be making during the workshop. Which of course I can post here as my creative every day commitment.

In the meantime, I was able to take a few minutes and make this little sunburst doodle sketch.Which is a pretty cheery little thing considering I'm going to be spending the weekend hanging out with the Grim Reaper!!

Whenever I am painting or drawing I often don't start out with any particular idea. I just start moving the brush or the pencils and let the drawing or the painting  lead me. It's relaxing and nerve wracking at the same time to create in this way. Relaxing because the pressure is off. I don't have to worry about performance anxiety since it's not really "me" doing it anyway. I'm just following where the brush or pencils are taking me. So I can't take any responsibility or blame for what shows up.

It's nerve wracking because I never know what the heck is going to happen. Oftentimes I'll be in the middle of something and thinking to myself "Now where in heaven's name is THIS thing going." And believe me, a lot of weird stuff shows up in my artwork.

This particular drawing is a case in point. I have no idea why this woman is headless. And I certainly don't know where the dress came from. It looks to me like a cross between one of those push up bra sundresses women wore in the 50's and something out of an old space age cartoon series I used to watch as a kid called the Jetsons.... which I'm sure most of you reading this blog will never have heard of because it's a cartoon about the future but it was on the air in the stone age of my childhood!

It's a good reminder that I don't have to understand some thing in order to create it. And that it's enough to just have fun and to play and to create a totally meaningless piece of artwork!

Today I played around with watercolors in my sketchbook. What showed up is another one of those images that is puzzling to me on a lot of different levels. Although its certainly not the first time THAT has ever happened! I've been going through some serious dental trauma the past month ..... lots of dental surgeries, lots of pain, lots of limitations... and I've actually been kind of depressed. Feeling old. Feeling powerless around GETTING older and missing my younger body. Grieving for that time in my life when other things might have been hard but I wasn't dealing with so much in terms of PHYSICAL limitations.

And then this girl shows up. All happy and shiny and joyful. A veritable flying love machine.

I know from experience that the paintings don't always reflect what I think I'm feeling. Or my current mood. Sometimes they touch into something deeper than my current story or drama about my life. And sometimes they give me what I most need at the time. And today, I was needing a bit of carefree love and joy.

Thank you flying heart lady.

I love Mexican and Southwestern folk art and Day Of The Dead stuff. My house is just filled with all kinds of art and figurines that depict those lively skeleton figures. In fact, here's one of the altars that I have in my house. I was so happy to find a Day Of The Dead Madonna.... she's one of my prized possessions!

This is also the time of the year when there are Day Of The Dead celebrations all over the place.... at least here in the San Francisco Bay Area. So the whole thing is kind of on my mind. I thought I would try making my own goofy skeleton figure, again using the colored pencils. I think it's a he although you can't always tell with these guys.

When I draw or paint I have a bit of an idea in mind but I always try to be open to the surprises at the same time. So I kind of liked it when a halo showed up on this figure, and I was also intrigued by the obvious throat chakra, which I associate with creative self expression.

I do feel like my creativity is really opening up on a lot of different levels. And maybe he/she was a saint when they still had skin on those bones?  The thought of that makes me smile (-:

I am participating in something that Leah Piken Kolidas of Creative Every Day has developed which is called Art Every Day Month that she hosts during the month of November. The commitment is to do something creative and then post your latest creation on your blog. Today my creative juices are manifesting in a blog post about.... what else! Creativity!!

I have spent the greater part of my adult life devoted to studying the mechanics of creative flow. What stops it? What keeps it going? How do we block it ? How do we keep it alive?

And I think the main thing that gets in the way for most of us is a need for approval. Wanting attention. Wanting to be told that we are valued and valuable. Wanting to be loved for our creative gifts.

Looking for creative love in all the wrong places.

Now, I have talked in other places on my blog about how important it is to get outside validation in order for our creative gifts to thrive. That we need people who see us and get us and who believe in us to cheer us on and keep the fires of our creativity burning.

So it's kind of a paradox. We do need it. But we get in trouble if we try too hard to get it. Creative support is essential for our creative survival. And yet focusing all of our energy on getting that validation will shut our creativity down faster than you can say "oil pastels."

What often happens is that we get confused. We put things in the wrong order. We try to do the thing that we think will get us the approval, instead of asking for a celebration for who we already are.

What we need support around is the act of being creative. Not the creation itself. The message that we need to hear is that our creativity is valuable. That our creative efforts are worthwhile.

The creations are just a byproduct of the creative force running through us. And that creative juice is what we need to have applauded and acknowledged.

Your mother was right this time ...sometimes it really IS best not to say anything at all.

In my intuitive painting classes I try to work with delineating this issue in the following way.

One of the things that I ask people to do is to not make any kinds of comments at all on each others work during the class. Lots of art classes include some kind of critique process which is supposed to help people make a better creative product. I have some serious doubts about how well that actually works but since in my classes we are not putting our attention on the outcome at all, the critique model, which usually focuses on what needs to be improved, doesn't really apply anyway.

But I go even further than that. Often in my classes people only want to say good things. They see these amazingly alive creations appearing on the easels all around the room and are moved to oooh and aaahh over what is being born.

And I ask them, in the service of the intuitive painting process, to not make these kinds of remarks either.

Why? Well, there are a lot of different reasons. But primarily, what we are trying to cultivate in the intuitive approach is less dependence on the judging mind. And a positive opinion is still a judgment, even if it feels a lot better than being told something along the lines of "Your painting sucks!"

The problem with judgment of any kind is it takes us away from ourselves. It cultivates an atmosphere where we stop trusting ourselves and get focused on the judgment, either recoiling from bad judgment and feeling hurt and ashamed or leaning in towards a positive judgment,hungry for more.

There have been a couple of times when I've watched one of my students happily painting away, totally engrossed in their own work, completely engaged and not caring at all about the outside world and someone who has conveniently "forgotten" the only rule that I have will say to that person "Oh. I love what you are doing. That is just so beautiful. I wish I could paint like that."

And the painter will all of a sudden get pulled out of their creative flow. The focus shifts to the outside. The connection with the creative stream gets interrupted. It's like a pebble or sometimes a boulder has been thrown into the works. And the desire and craving for more of that praise and attention automatically gets kicked up.

It takes a lot of effort to not be influenced by someone else's opinion. We are automatically impacted by what other people think about us. So that's why I ask my students to refrain from offering any kind of evaluation, no matter how positive, at least while they are in my studio.

You mean I still haven't learned this one?

One of my favorite aphorisms is that you teach what you most need to learn. And I am well aware of how that operates in my own life. I am fascinated, driven, OBSESSED with how creativity works and finding ways to make the creative process more free and joyful and effortless because that's what I struggle with in my own life.

Because I have been working at it for so long however, I can often kid myself into thinking that I'm much further along the path to creative enlightenment than is really the case.  And I had an interesting experience with that this past couple of weeks.

I wrote an article that got a tremendous amount of buzz. Probably more  than anything I had written to date. People were commenting on it more. I was seeing it getting mentioned on other people's blogs. And I liked getting the attention. But I was also puzzled by it. I couldn't qualitatively see much difference between this piece and other things that I had written.

So I went to my husband who is my biggest fan and supporter. And also capable of giving me incredibly useful and helpful feedback on my writing and creative ideas.

I read the article to him and asked him what he thought about why it had gotten so much notice. And he told me what resonated with him and what he liked about it. But he also said something that of course I already knew but because I was in the middle of it couldn't see clearly.

What he said was "You know, you're trying to figure out what was so special about this article so that you can make people notice you again. You're trying to find the magic formula. And first of all there isn't one. Second of all, even if there was, you can't really duplicate it. If you try and do that you will be twisting yourself out of shape and trying way too hard which will cause you to lose touch with your creative source. Which is where all this stuff ultimately comes from. All you can do is write."

I count on him for his often wise counsel but I must say that I also really hate it when he's right!

The gift that truly keeps on giving.

One of the authentic ways that creativity manifests in the world is in the desire for an audience. It wants to be seen, applauded and celebrated. But it primarily wants these things because it wants to be of service. It longs to be used and appreciated for what it has to offer. It is a gift and it wants to be given.

This is the place where things get wonky because this desire for the gift to be received can be twisted into focusing all of ones energy on just getting attention. The artist forgets that the gift is just that... a gift. And as much as you might want a gift to be appreciated your job is just to give it. To make the offering. The rest is really not up to you.

I WANT the gift to be received. I can't MAKE the gift be received. That's why it's so important that your creativity be first and foremost for you. You have to write or paint or sculpt or dance or make music because YOU get something out of it. It has to feed you before it can ever be food for someone else.

So enjoy the feast! And invite those people who you know can appreciate what you have to offer so that you can have a big creativity party. With your muse as the guest of honor!

AND...... If you are looking for a way to jumpstart your creativity in 2010 come and join me at my Wild Heart Expressive Arts Intuitive Painting WeeklongCreativity Extravaganza Retreat in Northern CA in January! More details HERE!