I am smiling because something has clicked. My morning pages threw this at me. Life is both messy and magical. I have visual and emotional proof for that, and I bet you do too.
The magic and the mess (and the magic in the mess) tends to play out beautifully and constantly in the creative process. I glance around the studio and see evidence for this. Little piles of barely contained chaos in the form of collage pieces, half used paint tubes, and scattered brushes are the satisfyingly messy reminders and tools that help produce the magic in my art. Sometimes mess just needs to be mess for a while. Not every messy moment in and outside of the studio can be immediately transformed into something magical. Sometimes there is a lot of dancing around the mess before it transforms into magic.
And this morning I had this thought – what would life be like if I approached my daily life as a wife, mother, friend, sibling from that same open space of curiosity and trust in the messy yet magical process of daily living? What if I took my studio habits and way of framing things out into the other areas in my life?
The past 2 years have strikingly embodied the mess and the magic for me. Here’s some of what has been messy: leaving my career as an art teacher behind in Dubai and moving to India to start over, the passing away of my mother, a last-minute cancelled art as therapy workshop, panic attacks, Covid, a missing pet, and adjusting to a new city and community.
Here’s what’s been magical (in responsive order to the above messes): becoming more resilient and trusting as I begin building my art therapy career in a new city, feeling peace that my missing pet is fine wherever she is, increasing my capacity for love and joy, becoming creative in finding new ways to show and sell my expertise, learning how to inhabit my body more fully and befriend my experiences, become increasingly mindful, and beginning to thrive in a new community.
In each instance, mess did not instantly give rise to magic. It is the process of getting really messy, embracing the mess, and not running away from it that has gradually given rise to the magic. And it’s an ongoing daily practice and often a struggle. I remind myself that I’m not set on arriving at some specific destination, whether it is with my art, career, my family, or any other area in my life. Really, it’s about learning to dance between the mess and the magic and enjoying the interchange, and sometimes the transformation. So my friends…
Today as you are moving about your day and being presented with all kinds of different experiences, thoughts, and feelings I’d love to ask you, ‘what is both messy and magical in your life right now?’