Back to Basics

Write the Year: February for Everyone & an Inspiration Leap Date 2/28

I don’t watch a lot of t.v., but when I do I often binge. I enjoy shows that make me laugh or feel light-hearted (nothing being killed or blown up) which leaves me with very few choices, so I can often go back to something I love. Last Friday I watched: Better Humans, Better Dogs with Cesar Milan.

Have you ever watched Cesar Milan?

📝🖍February 28th Get Ready for an Inspired Leap Year with a Creative Lunchbreak 1 - 1:45pm EST (free for yearly subscribers) $15

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I’ve written a lot about him. Partially because of my love of dogs, largely because he teaches Americans about the reality & power of energy on national television through and for dogs, and lastly, because a friend of mine met him before he got really big, and said he is who he appears to be — which led me down a small rabbit hole of interviews on him several years ago and I had learned that it was his love of dogs that brought him back when he was knocked down hard by life.

In an interview, the reporter asked him what all of his success had taught him. I remember the turning look in his eyes when he responded: You don’t learn from success, you learn through your failures. That was a quote (here is one full interview from 10 years ago ) that I tucked into my pocket.

I hadn’t watched an episode in years, but last Friday night he popped up on Hulu, so me and Ahonui (pup in above photo) snuggled in one night and watched all about dogs. In one episode, Cesar chided a pit-bull owner for being too indulgent.

“But I love them,” the owner whined.

“You are rewarding their anxiousness which is creating danger for them and other dogs,” he responded in authority but without judgment.

I watched him in another episode of a three-dog chaotic house, where we walked back outside to breathe, “to make sure nothing goes wrong, my energy has to be..” he either said impeccable or perfect. His eyes let you know that the chaos on the house was beyond, and teetering on dangerous. It reminds me of the a closer definition of esoteric ideas of being desire less, his having calm assertive energy doesn’t feed the fire of that which he is looking to neutralize. Reaction feeds it.

When he took one of the dogs back to his training center, the dog was not responding to his commands.

The producer, off script said, “Did you just say that dog is not responding to you? I have never seen that.”

To which Cesar responded, “There’s a first time for everything” and went back to focusing on the dogs.

Later off camera, he alluded to times that he has his own spiraling energy, but that he has “to control my own feelings, because I am not going to put that on my dogs. They are looking to me for direction, How can I lead them with out calm, assertive energy? No doubt around my pack. I am responsible for guiding them.”

Hold that thought.

Let me share with you another thing that I indulged in that I hadn’t thought about in years,

Austin Kleon

& his collaging. Austin does a mash-up of writing and art that helps my type A-ness break the lines. He might have been one of the reasons years ago when I started having some journals with pencils and markers so I could all the sudden switch up the words and textures. Have you ever tried it? Surprisingly fun, especially if you think of your self as a “writer, but not an artist” EVEN MORE FUN if you think of yourself as neither.

[Example of Blackout Poetry & collage from a few years ago.]

I needed an example of how to break the lines of the page, and I still benefit from the reminder.

Cesar’s pet parents (as he called them) needed and example of how to create structure.

Being human is the basic balance of opposites to create a joyful life.

In this interview below (which I really enjoyed), Austin mentions how he used to tell everyone he is just another artist like them…but at some point he needed to “step up” and realize, that he did have a huge newsletter community and readership. That he did have a lot of people following his work, and although he doesn’t believe in “claiming the guru status over” (my paraphrasing) others he does believe in expanding his life and his capacity.

To that point, I ask you, in a back to basics way…where are you being asked to step up? There is a natural evolution we are all set to group into a leadership role whether with our pets, our work, our family and most definitely our purpose. We all have one.

It’s such a great question when you look at it from expansion and personal growth, like Cesar has for his sense of responsibility to that which he loves — I mean, then growth and dreaming bigger become a multiplication for all involved.

Here’s the interview if you are needing something for your inspiration diet.

Art advice with Beth Pickens

While all this is happening, I am finishing The Way of Integrity and a phrase in there made me want to collage, I felt an upswell of joy. Incidentally, I was 100% influenced by Kleon popping into my feed which is why an inspiration diet is so important for creatives!

I intentionally acknowledged the joy and tilted my head to listen. I remembered a journal I was gifted years ago that was apparently waiting for this moment. The image that got me moving, was to create a river, but when I sat down with the magazines it was all auburn and fire orange orchids that called to me — so I followed, razing of the page for the flowing of the water. Unfettered inspiration and intuitive listening will have you making last minute turns toward revelation if you let them.

📚That’s how life works when you let go and let it lead you.

🎧🍎Another inspiration snack: Did you listen to the podcast about one degree turns? If not and this is making your curious. Listen here.

What does this all boil down to?

Make space to create & follow your joy. It’s a necessary ingredient to living a life vs being run over by your days or to parallel the metaphor — being jumped on by anxious dogs pleading for your leadership.

As Yogananda says:

All who are willing to snatch time from the greedy material world to devote instead to the divine search can learn to behold the wondrous factory of creation out of which all things are born.

It’s time to make time.

Get out your pencils. Read the poem. Write the short story. Buy the good coffee. Light the candle.

Your life is waiting,

Kate

Want to do it together? Meet me and make the leap for the year —

📝🖍February 28th Get Ready for an Inspired Leap Year with a Creative Lunchbreak 1 - 1:45pm EST (free for yearly subscribers) $15

We are going to get into a creative mindset, come with pen, paper and some kind of markers or crayons. We’ll get quiet to hear the whispers of the Muse and then write and create. You’ll leave empowered and inspired. Pass it along or bring a friend!