~So I am a new blogger and reveling in it, thus posting a lot each day. I am also just revelling in the process of writing again. It’s an outlet I had let fall to the wayside for many years and I find myself revelling in the written word once more! “Yay!!”

~I have just recently figured out (I think) how to make my paragraphs appear on the blog as I compose them! “Another Yay!!” Now back to revelling in writing. When I was younger I had dreams of becoming an author when I grew up. I wrote a lot… Poems and short stories, and I always did well in non-fiction writing for school, and some of the fiction writing in fact. When I was around 10 or 11 I won a student writing award for a profile I wrote about an Anchorage area school principal and got to go to a Student Writing conference.

~Later on in College, before I dropped out, I finally decided on Journalism as a major. Life threw me some curve balls and somewhere along the way I stopped writing. I have had a lot of conversations with my friend Laurel, she’s a professional artist who makes a good living at it, about creativity. We both agree that the act of creativity helps one to get in touch with the Creator (or Creatrix, I think that’s the feminine form anyway). I have come to believe very strongly that Creative work, both physical and intellectual, is a very important part of being a whole and healthy person and it is so sad that our society does not emphasize it.

~I can remember working in Child care with an after school program and doing some of the kids arts and crafts activities, and thinking to myself that every workplace in America should have some sort of arts and crafts activity in the break room! Does anyone remember perler beads? They are those little round pipes of plastic that you put onto a sort of pegged shape and then you put a sheet of wax paper over it and iron it and the beads melt together. They are cheaper than therapy and darn therapeutic, or at least they sure were for me.

~Any act of creativity helps to feed the soul and so often in our lives we devalue these creative acts and treat our hobbies and crafts as silly little somethings. Or we place roadblocks in our own way for no good reason. Just because you can’t draw a photo-realistic portrait DOES NOT mean you “can’t” draw! Just because your sculpture looks more like a lump instead of a Lion DOES NOT mean you should give up! Instead of asking does it look “right” ask yourself am I having fun, am I enjoying this creative act, am I feeding my soul?

~Whatever creative stuff you do, and you might be surprised at what you do for fun that is darn creative, revel in it and don’t let it go.

Peace,

Pax