I believe that life is a journey, often difficult and sometimes incredibly cruel, but we are well equipped for it if only we tap into our talents and gifts and allow them to blossom. ~Les Brown

A plan for this week didn’t make it to my week plans … Quite frankly, I had to write down today’s date and the day of the week in my journal this morning. Wednesday? What happened to the past three days?

The journey from Sunday to today included two devastating tornadoes in my home state + tapping into my gifts for wellness … allowing them to unfold into an openness to abide in the midst.

Finding portals to travel through through in the clouds of thoughts … in the midst of unbelievable devastation and miracles.

Reality doesn’t impress me. I only believe in intoxication, in ecstasy, and when ordinary life shackles me, I escape, one way or another. No more walls. ~Anais Nin

Right brain planning is a practice, of allowing space for ponder. To live free in a life — open and curious — unafraid {as much as it depends upon us} to live outside the lines of expectations. It incorporates artistic expression with a life focused outside the bounds — a place to explore {real work}.

It may be when we no longer know what to do, we have come to our real work, and that when we no longer know which way to go, we have begun our real journey. ~Wendell Berry

Right brain planning is a creative practice of abiding in the {varying shades of} light in order to see our way through.

In solitude we give passionate attention to our lives, to our memories, to the details around us. ~Virginia Woolf

I have been challenged to give attention to the details — to believe in living without expectations — because of the {chosen} deadlines {handwritten} on my calendar. Challenged by intense MS exacerbations, the details + distraction of preparation for the forecasted severe weather — and the aftermath — and the clashing of those realities with my intentioned deadlines for this week.

However … I am delighted to greet this Wednesday morning with ease and full of grace. Despite the sorrows of this week, there was always “enough” for the moment — enough in ways I never realized could exist. ♥

Do you have dreams to remember? to document?

Click here to receive monthly planning booklets.
Click here to learn more about these monthly planning booklets.

You cannot let go of anything if you cannot notice that you are holding it. Admit your ‘weaknesses’ and watch them morph into your greatest strengths. ~Neale Donald Walsch

Living with MS, with {mostly} undetermined amounts of energy and focus is my admission; it has become my greatest strength in ways I never could have imagined regarding a fully realized creative life and layers of structure + light.

We must be willing to let go of the life we have planned, so as to accept the life that is waiting for us. ~Joseph Campbell

This quotations was a {secret message} with great meaning when I spotted it on my journal page from last month; and again yesterday when {my} Magic Mandy shared it with me in a text message for inclusion in the June planning booklet. I was absolutely delighted when I read her message because it felt like a double-confirmation of being precisely where I am supposed to be.

I have felt behind … I routinely ride a roller coaster of debilitating fatigue and creative productivity due to MS. I am never quite sure when the next wild turn or plunge would occur. I was disappointed when I didn’t have the final details worked out on Wednesday of this week for a project I had hoped to launch in April.

But energy met inspiration and I am ever-grateful for love and home and the support of kindreds — and that baby steps count! Oh! And for creative apps! like this one from A Beautiful Mess!

Mandy is an extraordinary person; her presence in my life is magical. Our love and kinship is a rare treasure — and we are always dreaming up new concoctions!

This week I celebrate her {a-mazing} discoveries and ability to touch each of us in places we had {almost} forgotten about. ♥

Mandy’s book is available for pre-order here.

★ Each Friday, I create a small collage using a playing card and random elements. My mission is to creatively document the keywords, colors and.or lessons of each week; and create a visual mile marker of each week’s lessons} on Saturday.

Join me? What is something you want to accomplish? It can be a mini-goal or something you want to invest in weekly. Let’s share our images of what we are investing in our creative goals {art journal pages, cards {mini-art, index cards, etc.}! Use hashtag #my52cards on Twitter and Instagram, tag photos on Flickr my52cards …

You are also cordially invited to add your images to the Right Brain Planner group [link] … no rules//just a prompt//begin whatever week you decide

.: It was a week of roller coasters and amusement; art-full mornings and naps + rest in the afternoons. But this week was definitely a mile marker; a place in time where I didn’t agonize over what remains “undone” … Such projects prevent boredom and ensure a flow of inspiration for me — and fodder for my visual journals on Instagram + Flickr ~stargardener ★

Do you have dreams to remember? to document?

Click here to receive monthly planning booklets.
Click here to learn more about these monthly planning booklets.

We are ready to take a joyful leap into the vastness, trusting our newly expanded wings to hold us as we soar into a joyful flight of self-expression and fully realized creative life. We will climb and dive and climb again ~ the freedom and power of flight fills us with renewed energy and enthusiasm. Our joy will spread onto our journal pages and all throughout our lives. ~Becky Bowen Craig

 :: a prompt from this month’s The Art Journaler Community journaling prompts, “Taking Flight” … author, Becky Bowen Craig, included some marvelous journal prompts like this for week. It has been that kind of week for me … of joyful leaps and trust, of climbs and dives and climbing again. Of jumping off cliffs and building wings! I am grateful for love + home + kindreds in the midst of all that. It makes the trust part so-o much easier!

Flight was accomplished with daring soars and through rests in hidden places of comfort and light.

Reality doesn’t impress me. I only believe in intoxication, in ecstasy, and when ordinary life shackles me, I escape, one way or another. No more walls. ~Anais Nin

Letting go is the most essential aspect of taking flight … when we can release ourselves from expectations {ours and those of others} … and allow the winds of change to lift us — to carry us — onward.

… so that the only limit is the sky!

Do you have dreams to remember? to document?

Click here to receive monthly planning booklets.
Click here to learn more about these monthly planning booklets.

★ As a community project, The Art Journaler Community subscribers are posting our discoveries and ponderings — and we are linking theme-related blog posts here on a weekly basis using Mister Linky. If you are a The Art Journaler Community subscriber, please feel free to link your “Taking Flight” blog post here.

Are you a right brain planner?

Well, we have a template for monthly planning!

Subscribe to the Right Brain Planner {monthly subscription}

Want more details, Braveheart?

Each issue is a compilation of a month’s worth of inspiration + ideas + art journaled notations {photocopied} folded into booklet format — with added stickers and other planner ephemera — placed in a postal envelope and delivered to {amazing and creative} you once a month!

• themed motivation and articles
  
• photographic images//theme visuals
• hand-crafted collaged pages and
• hand-written notations + quotations
  
• stamped lettering + collaged word messages
  
• an art-full {month-at-a-glance} monthly calendar
• {creative} planning prompts + visual planning cards

Opt to keep the pages of this booklet together in its envelope or cut and tear away the images or syllables that speak to you — that seem to whisper your name — reminding you dreams do come true!

Feel free to create + add your own pages, adding paint and torn bits of paper + Post-it® notes and doodles and whatever else strikes your fancy, Braveheart! ♥

And let’s share images + blog posts using the hashtag #myrbp so we can collaborate across miles, state lines and international time zones!

Because we live outside the lines of “normal” and “should” … in a {no rules} practice of {catch and release} … embracing what facilitates ease; accessing {and releasing} what imposes should’s and shall’s — as much as that depends upon us.

The mission of Right Brain Planner is to provide visuals and practical ideas about art journaling, creative day planning, visual journaling — and {you belong} because you have been dancing to your own beat for longer than you can even remember, Braveheart! ♥

Click to subscribe to the Right Brain Planner — and if you are already a subscriber to The Art Journaler Community be sure to let me know that when you subscribe!

Because …

Here are some of the images from my collection of 2.5″x 2.5″ cards with my Instagrams. Which is a part of the bonus collection of art journaling ephemera I will enclose in your monthly planner mailings! So please be sure to let me know when you subscribe to the {right brain} monthly planner — so I can be sure to add special goodies to your envelope!

I have been experimenting with ways to offer a tangible {right brain} planner … To aid you in mapping your way to your personal Next, Braveheart.

And … I am ever-grateful for the input {and the requests!} for such an item — and I am thrilled to announce a monthly planner is available for subscription: subscribe to the Right Brain Planner

I was beginning to wonder when {if} this would all become a reality because I have been ready with this idea for over a month now. I have felt like a dragon-charmer with regard to coping with MS and its adventures//symptoms …

But, I also believe everything happens for a reason. And that dreams come true precisely when they are supposed to! ♥

Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
call to you like the wild geese,
harsh and exciting over and over
announcing your place in
the family of things.
~Mary Oliver

The theme for June is “Getting to Next” … and I cannot wait to share the details + images with you!!

Because the world offers itself to our imagination! 

and you have a place … you belong.

Because dreams do come true … And creatively noting + planning is a way to map our dreams, record our lists of want-to’s and need-to’s and dailies — and all the other syllables + visuals we need to remind us of what is unfolding within …

Click to subscribe.

*Subscriptions for June planners will be accepted through May 27th — BUT — my post office trips are on Thursdays. So-o … The first mailing will be on Thursday, May 23rd and second mailing will be on May 30th.

]]> http://www.rightbrainplanner.com/your-very-own-right-brain-planner-available-as-a-monthly-subscription/feed/ 2 http://www.rightbrainplanner.com/prep-for-my-week-9/ http://www.rightbrainplanner.com/prep-for-my-week-9/#comments Mon, 13 May 2013 11:15:30 +0000 stargardener http://www.rightbrainplanner.com/?p=18615

Do not despise your own place and hour. Every place is under the stars, every place is the center of the world. ~John Burroughs

My life focus is to live free of imposed rules, shoulds and realities. I view this as finding the proverbial OM while driving in rush hour traffic:

It is there — it merely requires intention. And cashing the check of the lifelong supply of grace, patience and creativity — and definitely a promise to myself to be detached, unencumbered!

Meaning: I make it my intention to deny the uncontrollable the right to control my life.

Some days I accomplish that with more tangible evidence than other days. But every day is a new opportunity to allow myself to explore the geography of my destiny …

Your soul knows the geography of your destiny. Your soul alone has the map of your future, therefore you can trust this indirect, oblique side of yourself. If you do, it will take you where you need to go, but more important it will teach you a kindness of rhythm in your journey.
~John O’Donohue

It is the discipline to note what is important, and savor the process of creating something art-full and of utility — tangible and intangible.

It is allowing space for how I feel and permitting something mundane to become art.

It is being committed to trying … one.more.time.

All of these lines across my face
Tell you the story of who I am
So many stories of where I’ve been
And how I got to where I am
~Brandi Carlile

Since I rarely ever know how I will feel on a particular day, last year in October I announced to my beloved rocket man that I didn’t want to make plans about celebrating “holidays” — especially the ones particularly associated with family gatherings, presents and Hallmark cards.

It became my goal to detour {purge} the expectations {and heartfelt hopes} of what I dreamed holidays would be like at this stage of my life.

What we experience and honor from our days {and relationships} depends more upon what we choose than what is offered.

I decided to cease observing this “holiday for mothers” — this day crowded and overflowing with sentimental {and.or gut-wretching} memories and realities. The holiday I used to host and put so much energy into via planning and work, love and expectation {both the “positive” and the “crippling” kind}.

But my main gripe about Mother’s Day is that it feels incomplete and imprecise. The main thing that ever helped mothers was other people mothering them; a chain of mothering that keeps the whole shebang afloat. Anne Lamott, Why I hate Mother’s Day

It has come to mark significant realities with {too many unanswered} questions, layers of grief and unchangeable situations; it also marks the anniversary of my last miscarriage before ovarian cancer.

The one in the striped shirt and I will spend today together. He is my writer-carpenter son and has promised me the entire day. A rare treat for us which will begin with one our weekend rituals, coffee and conversation. ♥

The reciprocating mothering-relationships in my life are numerous, and collectively the love and support and outrageous joy of these relationships have saved me.

Those relationships have given me strength to overcome the miscarriages of Life. The times I “tried harder” and did what was needed because of love — the times that have never worked out in a way that felt fair or just, influenced by love or compassion.

Those relationships rock my world in fabulous and empowering ways, Braveheart! Because, as I wrote last year:

The biology and heart-ties of our lives create opportunities. And sometimes — sometimes — it can also be a blender of emotion.

Thus, let’s join together to honor the Sacred Feminine and Nurturer within each of us. And promise ourselves to allow space and grace for self-acceptance, love and forgiveness.

Let us celebrate love and relationships that come from unexpected places — and all the wonder it inspires within.

You are loved, Braveheart. If today is not your favorite day, be assured you are not alone. ♥

Begin again. This time will be different because you are different, Braveheart.

yes is a world
& in this world of
yes live
(skillfully curled)
all worlds
e. e. cummings

The past two weeks have been intense with regard to remaining committed to my personal and professional goals. I have this amazing friend who answers my phone calls as if she was waiting for my call, as if she knew even before I did; she is faithful and kind, deliciously blunt and definitely a kindred.

I have called her more in the past two weeks than in the past … well, in a very long time. My productivity cycles are predictable; my MS symptoms {anxiety, mental fog, blurred vision, lack of mobility, pain, etc. etc.} are not predictable.

My direction? Anywhere. Because one is always nearer by not keeping still. ~Sebastian Faulks

So … When dealing with this unpredictability, I either run as fast as I can {arting, reading, clicking links, jotting down ideas, noting themes of my interest, etc} when my mind is clear and “on” — even when my physical body is “off” — or I crash {vegetate with Netflix, practice restorative yoga outside, sleep} because mental+physical are “off” … And somewhere in all of that I have to remember that this is my normal — to be open to inspiration.

We are afraid to believe we can accomplish what we dream of. And we resist talking about the fear.

We resist talking about {it} — the angst of pressing through the work, the issues of solitude, the depression of waiting {and chronic illness} — the cost of living a life we love. We play this game of “Chicken” as we drive faster and faster at what threatens us and pretend our hearts are not pounding our entire being.

Lying is done with words and also with silence. ~Adrienne Rich

We believe we are the only one to [fill-in-the-blank]. But we are not. Which is why we {need to} admit what we feel — write about it, confide in those we trust about our demons {doubt and unbelief} — and to be willing to abide in the midst of the dark places.

To abide — when all we wanna do is pull the proverbial plug on what energizes us simply because we “forget” that this dark, twisty stuff is all a part of The Process: a circle of growth, discovery and advancing in the direction of our dreams.

There are only the pursued, the pursuing, the busy, and the tired. ~F. Scott Fitzgerald

How I resist the urge to quit {not necessary in this order}:

• busy my hands with art or my body with exercise
• practice my version of contemplative photography
• experiment with photo apps with my iPhone | VSCO Cam™
• declutter my studio, my desk and.or my living space + gardens
• turn off the Internet
• turn off the Internet
• turn off the Internet
• journal + write + read + journal // repeat
• phone a friend; connect with friends online
• remember than “No.” is a complete sentence
• get rid of stuff I don’t like
• delete batches of e-mails
• close as many browser tabs as possible

Absence sharpens love, presence strengthens it. ~Thomas Fuller

In other words, I tell my dreams, “It’s not you, it’s me.” and “I just want to be friends.” Despite knowing I cannot actually {leave} what is woven in the fiber of my being.

My dreams are me. I cannot “lose them” … But I can choose not to hyper-focus upon them {myself} when I am tired and overwhelmed.

★ Each Friday, I create a small collage using a playing card and random elements. My mission is to creatively document the keywords, colors and.or lessons of each week; and create a visual mile marker of each week’s lessons} on Saturday.

Join me? What is something you want to accomplish? It can be a mini-goal or something you want to invest in weekly. Let’s share our images of what we are investing in our creative goals {art journal pages, cards {mini-art, index cards, etc.}! Use hashtag #my52cards on Twitter and Instagram, tag photos on Flickr my52cards …

You are also cordially invited to add your images to the Right Brain Planner group [link] … no rules//just a prompt//begin whatever week you decide

.: It was a week of reading + writing; compiling notes to myself on my personal Tumblr. I continue to {skillfully curl within my worlds} and remind myself of Truth, documenting my life via random images, collage and doodles. ☛ My visual journals :: Instagram and Flickr ~stargardener ★

Sometimes serendipity is just intention unmasked. ~Elizabeth Berg

I believe this to be true — so true. Especially since, for whatever reason, I just discovered the fabulous Kate and her calendar series — and the other inspiring artists who create amazing and colorful art-full monthly calendars! [Flickr Art Calendar Group] ♥

My intention has been to create monthly calendars for a postal mail subscription. Said goal had started feeling more like an impossible dream after two months of roller-coaster MS symptoms.

But this week, I scheduled time — an priority appointment — to create a calendar for May. Despite it being Day 6 of May! I have seen art-full calendar images on Flickr, but time is typically limited to viewing images — not for clicking through external links. {Because, well … you know what a black hole that can be!}

Life is full of surprises and and serendipity. Being open to unexpected turns in the road is an important part of success. If you try to plan every step, you may miss those wonderful twists and turns. Just find your next adventure-do it well, enjoy it-and then, not now, think about what comes next. ~Condoleeza Rice

So-o … I am in the process of embellishing this calendar … a right brain canvas of one-line journaling for one month.

P.S. If you are interested, you may download a digital version of this calendar here.

Perhaps all the dragons in our lives are princesses who are only waiting to see us act, just once, with beauty and courage. Perhaps everything that frightens us is, in its deepest essence, something helpless that wants our love. ~Rainer Maria Rilke

What are ways you see things setting themselves into an alignment you didn’t notice before? Even I copy these syllables from the prompts from Day 2 of Elora Nicole’s 30 Days to Finding Your One Thing … my breath is shallow as my mind races with answers! I have been moving through a mind field of resolutions, conclusions and declarations regarding issues that have {periodically} haunted me for decades.

Beauty does not linger, it only visits. Yet beauty’s visitation affects us and invites us into its rhythm, it calls us to feel, think, and act beautifully in the world: to create and live a life that awakens the Beautiful. Beauty is a gentle but urgent call to awaken. ~John O’Donohue

Beauty does not linger … but it remains within the unseen alignments, like notes on a staff creating a musical composition. A melody that lingers in the heart once its harmonic tones are heard; it becomes “our song” … music notes we recognize — tempo {and volume} determined by our intention and focus.

It is not because things are difficult that we do not dare; it is because we do not dare that they are difficult. ~Senaca

As color and doodles and syllables spread over journal pages this week, the core of my angst and sorrow revealed itself. It had to do with {home} + {the lack of my} contentment in the midst of being {unable to do “more”} … My admissions {which felt shameful and selfish} guided me onto a new path, a path leading to a vista with a healing perspective regarding the core of my suffering.

How does it feel to flex and stretch my wings, skills and talents never or little used; abilities packed away, hidden under layers of responsibility and conformity, buried under years of inattention, of efforts spent elsewhere and on others — neglecting the tender soul that resides within?
~Becky Bowen Craig

:: a prompt from this month’s The Art Journaler Community journaling prompts, “Taking Flight” … author, Becky Bowen Craig, included some marvelous journal prompts like this for Week Two, Spreading Our Wings

Timely as I busily pull feathers from my proverbial nest {decluttering; purging; releasing} … I don’t want to be comfortable in this place anymore or remain in the midst of uncomfortable realities I dismiss as “not that bad” — because minimizing does not reduce the destruction of someone’s rejection via their indifference or staged and scripted opinion of you or your situation.

You must not fear, hold back, count or be a miser with your thoughts and feelings. It is also true that creation comes from an overflow, so you have to learn to intake, to imbibe, to nourish yourself and not be afraid of fullness. ~Anais Nin

Minimizing and “trying harder” are a stage of grief; we don’t want to believe someone we love would intentionally mistreat us. We find it “impossible” to accept the death of something we want {so desperately} to live and to thrive.

But in doing so — in accepting what cannot be changed and spreading our own wings — we liberate ourselves from Befores and other situations over which we have not control or influence.

We live free, Braveheart.

★ As a community project, The Art Journaler Community subscribers are posting our discoveries and ponderings — and we are linking theme-related blog posts here on a weekly basis using Mister Linky. If you are a The Art Journaler Community subscriber, please feel free to link your “Taking Flight” blog post here.