Friday, December 05, 2008

Even though I'm enjoying Mike's laptop in the absence of my old desktop, it's just not the same. It's got different quirks and it's Windows Vista where mine is Windows XP. And I don't have access to the many files I keep on mine, very disconcerting.

Ah, is that a UPS truck I hear that just pulled up? Not mine, but my neighbor's delivery. Shoulda known, since my dogs weren't barking. Gus hates the UPS guys. One of their drivers kicked him in the head a couple of years ago, so it's no wonder. I saw it. He told me they're trained to do that with unleashed, barking dogs. Poor Gus, and it was my fault.

They did deliver my gift to myself yesterday. It's a picture by Jack Vettriano called "Back Where You Belong." I found it several years ago when I was reading Julia Cameron's The Artist's Way, and assigned a quote from that book to it: We greet this artist self as we might greet a lover at the end of a long and costly war. It's in the personal prayer book/journal I mentioned on 11/21.
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The theme to several of my dreams lately has been my psyche trying to bring together the extreme masculine attributes (domineering, angry, dictatorial, knows everything, arrogant, unwilling to show weakness, ignores own mistakes, blames others, feels superior, out of touch with feelings) and the extreme feminine traits (victimized, depressed, begs or schemes, knows nothing, shut down, emotionally numb, overwhelmed by own feelings, unwilling to show strength, makes excuses or obsesses about mistakes, feels inferior) to heal the split that has occurred (caregiver burnout being the major culprit) and bring me once again to wholeness, which will restore these attributes: creative, relaxed, inviting, curious, attentive, drawing from experience and self-wisdom, owning feelings, flexible, learning from mistakes, feeling equal. This bringing together of the opposites is so delightfully depicted in this painting that I get good feelings just by looking at it.

My artist self is making her way back, she just isn't persuaded yet that it's a safe, nurturing environment where her creative juices can flow, and in which she can begin to paint, but she's beginning to get comfortable here again. Stay tuned. . .

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