Chaos

Color play: Golds, Bt Sienna, Ultramarine Blue & Dioxazine Violet

For the past year I have been doing a daily online course through DailyOM - A Year to Clear.  It's a lovely slow drip that helps people learn to tackle the mess. Soon you see that the real treasure it offers is this:  It guides you, in equal parts, to put in order your outer life and your inner life.

It's been enlightening.

I'm on day #337/365.  I realized this morning that even though I started this course to find a way to deal with the chaos of a huge, several-years-long house remodel and the never-ending mess, that in addition, what I needed to learn was to *allow* chaos into certain parts of my life. 

I need to let my studio stay messy - so that I can see the things that inspire me and so that it's easy to maintain a creative practice. Because I could not impose order on the house, I had imposed too much order on the studio. I have found a better balance now: There is one area of neatness and visual peace, with another area behind me that is a working space where I can leave the supplies and inspirations out and create on the fly. This has helped my creative practice enormously.

But there's more.

As I explored more deeply, I found that 'chaotic' was a part of myself I have kept punched way down and locked away. This class was another attempt to eradicate it from myself completely, when really what it needed was to come out and play.