Freedom to Make Choices Every Day!

Freedom to me was escaping from an 8-4:00 ‘job’.

I loved teaching high school, but I was locked into an established schedule. Be there, parked, mailbox checked, classroom doors opened by 7:45 for that first 8:00 class. Five classes of 28 students each every day, a 45 min lunch break, a homeroom, possibly study hall duty, and afterschool activities, left little time for choice. This was ‘busyness’ at it’s finest. ‘Off’ time was preparing for new projects, new class activities, creating examples, compiling inspirational images for lessons, grading the results. Remembering to breathe.

After school, I’d walk my LaGrange neighborhood for at least 45 min a day, just to get back to myself again. It is a beautiful area, Victorian homes, lots of trees, even though it is a highly populated city just outside of Chicago. As I briskly walked, I’d roll over & over the same thoughts of ‘freedom of choice every day’, ‘freedom to create art, take walks whenever, spend time in the sun, gaze at the stars’, ‘freedom to create from a place of inspiration that I would allow myself the time to incubate, create, & nurture’.

True heartfelt ‘creativity’ that comes from the soul, can’t be raised up in an assigned 30 min a day. It must be allowed to develop over a chunk of time given to daydreaming, playing with media, seeking wonderful accidents. It’s not coming in when you are creating ‘production’ work, meeting deadlines, or pushing for the next show, class, or on demand performance. It comes with Breathing, pausing, not thinking so much as feeling, not creating ‘art therapy’ over some built up emotion, but going deeper into soul expression. This is what I call the Magic Place.

This is what I seek to present in my Wabi Sabi classes. It’s so much more than surface stuff. It’s the Freedom to be totally original, break away from what everybody else has done, and find yourself again and again. You deserve this! This kind of freedom recharges a body, rejuvenates the soul, immerses the mind in centering your attention on the immediate experience. It’s a timeless place that balances out the ‘busyness’ of life.