Quinn McDonald's Blog, page 101

Yellow Snow, But Nicer

WINNER of the Book Spine Poetry Contest. There were too many that delighted me–so I wrote the names of 10 wonderful entries on index cards and let my cat walk across them. The first and last ones he stepped on were the winners–Andria of DrawingNear blog and Paula in Buenos Aires, you won a copy of my book Raw Art Journaling! Books will ship when I get back from  teaching at Valley Ridge, the week of May 7.

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One of the delights I experience every spring is the blooming of the Palo Verde trees. The trees have tiny leaves and tiny yellow flowers on green branches supported by green trunks. Palo Verdes evolved to survive the Sonoran Desert by shedding leaves and small branches in the searing heat of the summer. The trunks and big branches do the photosynthesis work, so thy are green.

The trees’ tiny yellow flowers drop off the trees and create the look of bright yellow snow. A slight breeze will cause drifts of blossoms and for a few weeks, these yellow snow-like masses shift and drift on curbs and in corners.

The path to the library is lined with Palo Verdes and today was a perfect day for yellow snow–the nice kind.

–-Quinn McDonald is a naturalist who thrives on the Sonoran Desert’s surprises.

Filed under: Nature, Inside and Out Tagged: palo verde trees, postaday2012, Sonoran desert, Spring in Phoenix

Your Art Needs Your Time

Most artists have problems (at least some of the time) getting to the studio and getting creative work done. It just seems too much to pick up the pencil, sit at the computer, go to the quilting frame. And there is a pile of laundry. And you are working today till 6 anyway. The difference between successful artists and “wishing” artists is ritual.

Creating your own reality happens only when you take the time to do it.

If you work in an office, you have a morning routine. Whether you get up and shower or get up and exercise, have breakfast and then shower, you have a routine. And that routine is probably timed down to the exact second, either by time or by what’s on the TV or radio. It gets you out of the house and into the office on time.

Creating a ritual for art is exactly the same thing as a routine for work. A ritual legitimizes your effort, eliminates distractions and assigns a top priority to your artwork. As long as your artwork doesn’t have a priority higher than the laundry or watching TV, it won’t get done. And you set the priority every day of your life.

Your art work is powerful, but not powerful enough to overcome your resistance and drag you into your studio. You have to do the work. And that means shifting priorities. To art. Why is that worth it? Because art makes meaning in your life. It helps you understand yourself, your world, your journey. It’s also uncomfortable sometimes to face the meaning you make in art, so it’s easy to shove it aside.

The ritual doesn’t have to be complex. Decide ahead of time when you will do art. Choose a whole hour. Set a timer to ring 10 minutes beforehand to give yourself time to quit what you are doing. Make a cup of coffee or tea, grab the cup and head to the studio. No excuses. Once you get in the habit, it will first get much harder to meet your ritual. The phone will ring, the kids will demand your attention, a crisis will erupt. Keep to your schedule. In about a week, it will suddenly get easier.

Your morning routine works because your job brings in money and you have given it permission to take over your life. Give your art a chance, too. It brings meaning to your life. As the wonderful strip of paper that I found wrapped around a candle says, “What you do today is important because you are exchanging your life for it.”

–Quinn McDonald knows that each one of us has to make our own meaning in life. The act of creation is what makes a life.

Filed under: Coaching, Recovering Perfectionists Tagged: art ritual, doing your art, postaday2012, ritual

The Discipline of Sleep

When I”m overloaded with work, the first thing I do is cut my sleep short. Waking doesn’t require an alarm clock, I have cats who believe that first light means food, so lacking opposable thumbs, they wake me. The earlier the sun comes up, the earlier I get up.

Getting to the heart. © Quinn McDonald, watercolor pencil on paper. 2012, All rights reserved.

Trouble is, I’m a night person. I can easily work till past midnight, but not if I am up at first light, now happening around 5 a.m.

I cannot burn the candle at both ends any more. Sure, it makes a lovely light, but a lovely light is no longer enough. I need combustion to fuel the day. So, I’m forcing the discipline of an earlier bed time. It rarely works, but it’s necessary.

Self-discipline is rarely amusing or fun. But it is the heart of success, whatever your success might be. Without a good rest, without rich and complex dreams, we become shaky and weak. It’s harder to think, to plan, to appreciate, to imagine the future. It’s impossible to concentrate, do good work.

Unfortunately, I’m not one of those splendid people who can live on five hours of sleep. I need seven, and eight is welcome.

Knowing what you need and giving it to yourself is not self-indulgence. It is a discipline.

What discipline do you need to nurture yourself with?

—Quinn McDonald is a creativity coach whose energy drains without enough sleep. There is always a well that needs filling, isn’t there?

Filed under: Coaching, In My Life, Opinion Tagged: self-discipline, sleep

And a Tiny Burst of Joy

Yesterday, I wrote about the tiny, noticed, death of a dove. Today, I am doing something I love to do and hardly ever write about–I’m an ordained celebrant and I’m celebrating a wedding.

Weddings are expressions of hope and courage. We give up being just ourselves, and look to another as part of our lives. There is one paragraph in the service I particularly love:

“Remember that your relationship itself has a destiny, that your marriage is alive and needs care and feeding and support. Keep it young and fresh by bringing yourself fresh to your marriage over and over again.”

That’s a hard task–to keep yourself fresh and bring yourself fresh to someone you know well, and may not see in the same rosy glow as you did a few years ago. It’s the real challenge of a marriage–to create a fresh day and another chance.

Best of all, to perform this ceremony, I’ll have to hike up into the Red Rocks of Sedona, Arizona, to a small and secluded spot about a mile from the trailhead. Hiking into a marriage, hiking out again. It’s such a rich metaphor.

Of all the things I do—write, develop and run communication courses, create and teach journaling classes, coach clients in life changes and creativity—officiating at ceremonies feels most like a combination of all the others. It’s full of creation and energy and imagination, love and powerful growth.

If you are reading this and it has no photos, stop by again later in the day. I’m going to wait and choose to add photos for when I come back, so I can stay in the moment at the wedding, so I can stand in the circle of a new step in life with the whole wedding party.

--Quinn McDonald is a celebrant of weddings, a creator of rituals, and a participant in the sacred moments of other people’s lives.

Filed under: Creativity, In My Life, Nature, Inside and Out Tagged: celebrant, marriage, sacred ceremonies, weddings

A Tiny Death

During rush hour, while running errands, I saw a flock of doves touch down on the street ahead of me. This is a chronically busy street, and doves are usually good with their timing.

"Flight" reductive drawing, charcoal on paper. © Quinn McDonald, 2008.

As I got closer, most of the doves flew across the street. One of them turned toward my speeding car and lifted off. I felt the thump under my car and winced.

It was a small death, unavoidable (slamming on my brakes would have caused an accident, no way I could change lanes) but sad.

When I came back from my first errand, a group of people stood in front of the car. The dove had flown directly into my grill, and was dead, but stuck. The small crowd took photos with their cell phones. They asked me what I was going to do. I asked for volunteers to remove the bird. The crowd dispersed quickly.

I felt sick. Over the death of a bird. I also could not bring myself to touch the firmly lodged bird in my grill. I finished errands and drove home. I could not bring myself to clear the bird from the grill. I’m pretty tough. I’ve come across some pretty messy auto accidents and stopped to help. I’ve broken bones in Taikwondo and continued to the end of the match. I’ve had pets run over and taken them to the vet. But this one small life, these fragile wings stopped in mid flight undid me.

I still don’t know why. I’m not exploring why. I called my car mechanic, who not only removed the bird, but didn’t charge me for doing it. Afterwards, I sat in the car and cried. I had the car washed.

Every day in my city, in every big city, people are made homeless, are shot, are falsely accused, are beaten, suffer and die. And I’m crying about a bird with a bad sense of direction.

At the end of every blog post, I try to write a summary, draw a conclusion, explain a lesson. Today there is none. Not that I can see or know. So there it is–just a vignette. Sometimes we don’t understand it all.

–Quinn McDonald is a writer and creativity coach. She doesn’t understand much, but that which she understands, she is sure of.

Filed under: Nature, Inside and Out, The Writing Life Tagged: accidents, death, emotions

How to Clean Your Office

Some days you are the pigeon. Some days you are the statue. And some days you have to clean your desk, table, studio space. You just have to. Either that or plow it under and call one of those reality shows where Donald Trump shows up with 50 cat carriers and has a desperate housewife fire you and send you to rehab. I’m sorry, I don’t watch TV, so it all sounds alike to me.  Back to cleaning.

Here are some tough love tips for cleaning that worked for me today.

1. Don’t look back. I tried being serious about saving all those articles I’ll read someday. Then I realized that if I really had wanted to read them, I would have. In the time that I’ve collected the articles, I’ve read four books. So I’m not really motivated to read the articles. Toss them.

This is a perfectionism stumble. “If I were a really good X, I would read, file, remember, sketch, write, use this article, image, scrap of ephemera.” Deep breath. It’s a perfectionist thing. Toss it.

Yes, you will probably need it within 10 minutes of the trash truck vanishing down the street with it. Toss it anyway.

2. You won’t buy it anyway. Catalogs marked with turned-down page corners for storage, filing, clothing items. Largely waiting for a windfall. When windfall comes, will need something else. Toss catalogs.

3. Compare and act. Two of the items I wanted in the winter catalog are now on half-price sale. Pick up phone and order. Done. Move on.

4. Even if you teach, throw it out. I have a huge stack of magazines, catalogs, flyers that are “perfect” for that collage class that I’m not teaching this month. Or next. More stuff will accumulate. Toss it out.

5. Start where you are. Don’t try to catch up. More paper is mistakenly saved because you are scared to throw it out, for fear of forgetting, falling behind or forgetting. Unless it bank or tax stuff, make NOW your starting point. Easier and saves the nerves.

–Quinn McDonald wishes she would clean up more often. The desk has a nice wood grain she rarely sees.

Filed under: In My Life, Opinion Tagged: clean, clean office, clean studio, postaday2012

Ethics: Write and Wrong

A creativity coaching client of mine bought me an interesting ethics question. I asked if I could tap into my super-smart  readers/commentors for help, and got the green light.

Brilliant idea. Except I didn't have the idea first. As far as I know, here is the first place to use this idea: http://www.files.chem.vt.edu

Background: You are asked to review a book on your blog and on amazon. The author is someone you have known for several years, largely through websites and occasional emails,  but is not a friend. You feel you owe her (for a favor received) and agree. After reading the book, you realize that there are large parts of the book that seem to be more about marketing the author’s services than dealing strictly with the book topic.

Question: Do you review the book or decline, because you don’t agree with all that marketing?

Options discussed:

Praise what works in the book, ignore the rest. You aren’t a professional critic, you are just offering some help here for a favor received. (Will this damage your reputation?)

Give your opinion, exactly as you believe it. After all, a review is just that, not a promise of blog love. (Will this damage your relationship?)

Write the author, and say you can’t review the book, blame it on your schedule. (Are you OK with this story as a social lie?)

Write the author, and say you can’t review the book because you don’t agree with it, but assure her that her opinion is just different than yours. (Will this damage your relationhsip?)

Leave a comment:

What would you advise? You don’t have to choose any of the above, it’s just a way to give you some ideas about topics that have been discussed. The only request is to suggest only the course of action you would be willing to take yourself.

-–Quinn McDonald teaches ethics and loves listening to ideas about right and wrong. She believes there is very little black and white, and a whole lot of gray in real life.

Filed under: Coaching, In My Life, Opinion Tagged: ethics, honesty, telling a white lie

Imagine That. . .

It’s a phrase you hear often: Imagine that. It’s usually said in disbelief or astonishment. But it can just as well be used to create the path to success.

It's popular in the rural areas of The Valley to make fences out of ocotillo branches. The thorns keep pets in and coyotes out. Most of the time, the branches are dried and dead. Take a closer look at that one in the center. . . .

When we imagine a project, we often immediately think of the worst that could happen, or all the things that go wrong. That line of thinking can be useful for avoiding pitfalls, making mistakes, or building a Plan B.

Imagining success is also a way to start breaking in the path to success. When we imagine the end, the success, the satisfaction, it’s easier to put up with the wear-and-tear of change and progress. We know what success looks, tastes, and feels like, and engaging our senses also engages our imagination to solve problems, overcome bumps, and keep to the path we imagined.

Imagining success keeps us from running around in circles in the snowy woods

A close up of the center fence post shows that new growth is possible from an old branch. Imagination can spark your boundaries into new growth , too.

of “what if.” Imagining success keeps us from trudging along on the path, hoping a squirrel will run across the path, creating a diversion. Imagination helps the North Star of our goal stay in sharp focus, even when the harsh light of reality fades out the sky.

When you engage your imagination, engage all five senses. Include smell and touch. When you have fixed sense experiences as part of success, you will recognize when you are getting close. Sense imagination is fun, satisfying, and best of all, we can experience the thrill of success often along the way. Imagine that!

—Quinn McDonald has a vivid imagination and knows how to steer it. Most of the time.

Filed under: Coaching, Creativity, Opinion Tagged: living success, planning success, success

Feed the Inner Critic and it Will Stay

You’ve heard the story of the two wolves–the one you feed is the one that thrives within you. The inner critic (also your gremlin or inner lizard) works the same way. The diet for the gremlin is tied to a lifetime diet that starts in childhood.

You can stay in your prison. . .

“My parents never encouraged me,” we sigh, feeding the gremlin the “you can’t be enough because you weren’t nurtured” gruel.

“At home, the boys got all the attention,” we complain, giving the gremlin the sweet accusation that we aren’t worth the effort of love, attention, or praise.

“No one ever loved me enough,” we say, giving the gremlin a meaty bone of self-doubt to chew on for years.

The saddest (and funniest) childhood comment I’ve heard as a coach came from the client who said, “My parents gave me everything. They encouraged me and praised me. So I never learned how to deal with disappointment. I don’t have the ability to be self-critical.”

. . . or you can dance, even if it is in the mud. Or maybe because it is the mud.

Poor childhood. It can’t win. If we’re treated badly, it ruined our life. If we were treated well, that’s wrong, too.

Yes, I take seriously the grim stories of childhood I hear–stories of abuse, abandonment, loss. No one can take any of those stories lightly. They do cause damage. The sign of growth, the sign of change, the sign of reinvention is the willingness to admit that we can’t go back and change the past. It happened. Blessedly, it is also over, and in the past. The next step is yours to make and live.

You can hold onto that pain from the past, you can brandish it like an accusatory weapon, making it the magic wand that transforms your every tomorrow into the same sad yesterday. “Well, of course I keep choosing the wrong partner. . .my parents fought all the time, and I took that as my pattern.” “I can’t commit because my Dad cheated on my Mom; I don’t want to repeat that.”

Maybe it’s time to put down the past. Hugging the hurt to you, shaping the pain into your heart and making it beat in time to the sad rhythm of  the past will not repair either the past or your heart.  Waiting for your parents to come back and help you re-live your childhood and create a different outcome–well, it’s not going to happen.

Reliving your past over and over creates too much spinning and not enough weaving. The harder work is to take your present day skills, your present day image of what you want for yourself and build your own future. Give up the idea of making someone else wrong for your present by blaming it on the past. It’s so vastly overrated. Instead, be bold. Be risky. Be the person you wish you were and forge yourself into the person you want to be. It is hard to step away from the past. It is also wonderful to step away from the past. The past and the future are the two wolves within you. The one you feed is the one that stays.

–Quinn McDonald is a life and creativity coach who did not have an ideal childhood either. But she has the strong belief that if she had had adoring parents who lavished attention on her, she would never have grown a backbone and a colorful soul.

Filed under: Coaching, In My Life, Opinion Tagged: change, living through the past, postaday2012, reinvention, The two wolves

Finding Poetry on Book Spines

I’ve written a lot on found poetry. It’s a whole chapter in my book, Raw Art Journaling, and I love doing it as part of my artwork. It combines collage and creative accident, which is an irresistible combination for me.

One of my bookcases screamed for order yesterday. I have a horrible habit of storing books in the order I read them. This is not a well-thought out organization, although something that works for me in year-long segments.

After a year, the relationship of my life, the books, and creative activity begins to sift out only important ideas and I have to shelve books by topic.

So, to organizing. I picked up two books and looked at the titles and laughed. Smart books! Reading it from left to right it said, “The story of your life, solved by sunset.” My disorganization had created a type of found poetry on the spines of book. Book Spine Poetry. It was love at first read.

You have to use a dollop of imagination, because the titles don’t often start with words that tie sentences together. No matter. I scooped up another handful and shuffled them into another order. Mixing non-fiction and fiction creates even more interest, and before I knew it, an hour had flown by. No regret. Some books get used more than others. Some books have the names spelled out vertically on their spines. No matter. It’s still words.

Clearly this works best if you have a huge collection of books, but it also works fine in the library (a librarian will ask you what you are doing photographing books, make sure you have the answer prepared).

Here is some Book Spine Poetry, with the poem written out beneath each photo, each title starting with a capital letter, so you don’t have to squint.

“I could do anything: Distant healing, Beyond words. Shamans of the world.”

“The story of your life. Art from intuition, The 1,000 journal project.

Places left unfinished at the time of creation.”

“The Zen of seeing Signs of life. The desert smells like rain. Wabi-sabi simple.”

The dry grass of August, After the fire. The brief history of the dead? Saint Maybe.”

The odd woman, Wild mind. Resonate: Creating time, Courageous dreaming.

Want to play along? Photograph the books, put them on your website or blog, link to this blog, and send me the link in the comment section. Please don’t send titles you’ve made up, or ones without photos. The photo makes it come to life.  The fun is in using what is at hand. Have a big CD collection? Use those instead.

Oh, and even without checking,  I’m sure I’m not the first to discover this. So please, send links to other sites only if they show clever book spine poetry. Deflating proof that I’m not first or school-marmish declarations that you used this idea with your kids 30 years ago are acknowledged and not disputed, but will be deleted.  I’m looking for more book spine poetry, that’s the fun.

Final note that no one will notice:  The photograph that delights me the most (multiple delights will create a random choosing) will receive a copy of my book, Raw Art Journaling, but the link has to be your site. Links to someone else’s site gets too complicated. I’ll splurge for shipping to the U.S., Canada, Mexico, South America, UK, and Europe if it’s necessary. Winner will be announced April 30, book shipped when I get back from  teaching at Valley Ridge, the week of May 7.

–Quinn McDonald is easily delighted with found poetry of any kind. It makes being awake more interesting, more alive, more aware.

Filed under: Creativity, In My Life, Raw Art Journaling, The Writing Life Tagged: accidental poetry, book spine poetry, found poetry