Your Soul…
Re-examine all that you have been told…dismiss that which insults your soul.”
-Walt Whitman-
People will attack. You will be attacked. If you risk… growing, learning, laughing, loving or caring it is bound to happen that you run across someone who for whatever reason wants to hurt you. Sometimes they mean it, other times it is just there pain that pours onto your page like spilled paint. You can’t control someone else’s pain or attacks but you can control your response to the pain. With God’s help you can meet hate with compassion, hurt with humbleness and hate with grace.
Protect your beauty and your beautiful soul!
tr.v. dis·missed, dis·miss·ing, dis·miss·es
3. a. To stop considering; rid one’s mind of; dispel: dismissed all thoughts of running for office.
5. Sports
When You First Wake-Up!
When you first wake-up, in the morning, after a nap or in the middle of the night there is a quiet energy around you. A calm and peacefulness that if you carefully press into this moment you are able to write with clarity and truth. In these moments your inner critic is not awake. Writing or any art for that matter is a very self-involved task. Spending hours with your thoughts, your ideas, your words, your paint, your music is an act that by nature shuts other people out and forces you to focus inward.
The process of creating does not have to be isolating. Artist who publish and sell their works share their gifts for money but often giving words or paintings as gifts to friends is another way to involve them in your world. To let them know you care. Friends, family and loved ones who take the time to listen to your story ideas, help you edit are truly precious to an artist. Writer’s groups provide a community of reciprocal support. Their feedback is very valuable and a good writer’s group should be protected and gentle cared for. However, friends, family, your loved ones, are just happy to support you, to give you the gift of their time, those are the people you know care on a different level.
I also find when I first wake-up I am very humble, very hopeful. Like as I rested a quiet calm spread over me like a warm blanket; the ego went to sleep and hasn’t woke-up to remember all the bold, brash and boastful that I did or had done to me. The human mind amazes me. When you first wake-up you remember what is truly important, without your ego getting involved; able to appreciate people for the strength, their gifts and how we are all put on this earth to learn and grow. Remembering how to truly share. If you work hard you can stay that humble and hopeful all day long.
A musician must make music, an artist must paint, a poet must write, if he is to be ultimately at peace with himself.
What one can be, one must be.
-Abraham Maslow-
Art attracts us only by what it reveals of our most secret self.
Jean-Luc Godard
Kuwait City, KUWAIT
Christine Oastler is a freelance travel writer, teacher and artist, currently living in Mahboula, Kuwait. Born and raised in Kingston, Ontario, Canada, Christine obtained her Bachelor of Arts at Trent University and her Bachelor of Education from Queen’s University. Currently traveling around the Middle East she finds herself riding the odd camel and embracing a new culture!