THANKSGIVING: GETTING CREATIVE IN THINKING ABOUT THE GREAT SPIRIT

HAPPY THANKSGIVING TO THE GREAT SPIRIT IN ALL OF US.  These  outlines of turkeys were derived from my 2010 volunteer work with Bhutanese seniors at the Clarkston Community Center and then used with my creative writing class at the Georgia Tech Language Institute preceding the Thanksgiving holidays. (drawings by Hallelujah Truth)

Happy Thanksgiving Pilgrims! Hallelujah for the JOURNEY! I am so happy to be here with you all, seeing what we can declare about our OWN TRUTH! I believe in the power of each individual's creativity. I believe the ART each one of us  makes PULLS us FORWARD. Our own ART HEALS and CREATES MAGIC in our lives! Peter London, author of No More Secondhand Art: Awakening the Artist Within, declares, "The prime work of art is to join heaven and earth!"

JOINING HEAVEN AND EARTH IN CREATIVE WRITING CLASS.  This photo captures the magic moment as students move from the teacher given assignment into the "mystery" of themselves. (photos by Hallelujah Truth, aka Ruth Schowalter, Instructor of English as a Second Language at GT)

Heading into the Thanksgiving holiday, I decided to jump into artmaking with my creative writing class. I wanted BIG THINGS to happen. Using construction and origami paper, pens, scissors, and glue, each student was asked to construct their own artistically rendered Thanksgiving turkey. To prevent complete and utter shutdowns (which occur when people who don't draw are asked to produce something from nothing), I provided some simple and fun drawings (above) as possible starting places.

After receiving the assignment and art making materials, the students paused. There were moments of inaction resulting in my worry that they might not move forward. Creative acts have their own timing and energy. Patience must be practiced to give each ARTIST the opportunity to determine his or her own direction.


After the moments of uncertainty passed, there was a flurry of activity. Pens and pencils were moving and paper began flying. I watched in awe as the students ascended into a whir of creativity!


After fifteen minutes had passed and the students were fully engaged in their creation of a Thanksgiving turkey, I talked to them about the writing part of this holiday assignment. I wanted them to practice writing from a different perspective and gave them three writing options:


OPTION 1: You are the GREAT TURKEY SPIRIT of THANKSGIVING. You are filled with beneficence and a sense of well-being! You want to express gratitude to all of humanity for the GOOD that people bring to this EARTH and one another.


OPTION 2: You are the TURKEY to be slaughtered for everyone's Thanksgiving dinner.  You want to express your feelings about being the food that feeds everyone on this day in the United States that we give THANKS. What are your last words before you die and your body nourishes the people who are giving THANKS?


OPTION 3: Your own idea written from the perspective of a TURKEY.


I have not seen the final results of this assignment yet. I asked students to post their artfully crafted turkey images and writing on the unique blog each one has developed for this creative writing class. I invite you to visit their blogs and see for yourself where this Thanksgiving holiday assignment has taken them on their creative journey!

EMBRACING MY INNER JACKSON POLLOCK

FULL EMPTY HAPPINESS

DREAMING WITH FREEDOM

HOPE IN THE DARK DESERT

SNAKE SLEEPING WITH LAVENDER

THE CHOCOLATE OF HAPPINESS

CREATORS OF THE GREAT TURKEY SPIRIT! In this photo, two other blog writers are represented: A SMILE AFTER THE RAIN and MY MOTHER'S LAP.

THE REWARDS OF TEACHING CREATIVITY ARE MANY! Here I am in the middle of happy students! Thanks to Vanessa for taking this photo!

CONCLUDING THOUGHTS (excerpted from Peter London's book, No More Secondhand Art: Awakening the Artist Within. 

Suppose life is a journey, an endless, surprising odyssey in which we may move from naivete to wisdom, from self-consciousness and awkwardness to grace, and from superficial knowledge to profound wonder. The infinite menu of possibilities that life continuously displays before us may be viewed as an invitation to embark on this adventure through varied and unpredictable terrain. The artistic process is more than a collection of crafted things; it is more than the process of creating those things. It is the chance to encounter dimensions of our inner being and to discover deep, rewarding patterns of meaning.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS:  Many thanks to my creative writing students for their willingness to embark on a creative adventure with me into the unknown terrains of their own creativity! Your gift of attention, action, and individual journey inspire me! Gracious thanks to fellow SPIRITUAL ART PILGRIM, Karen Phillips, who in recent weeks has reminded me of Peter London's book, No More Secondhand Art!

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THIS PILGRIM WAY

THANKSGIVING GUEST BLOG BY MELISSA TIDWELL

MELISSA TIDWELL, SPIRITUAL WRITER

Introduction by Hallelujah Truth  HAPPY THANKSGIVING WEEK PILGRIMS! It is the time of year to openly express our gratitude about being here on this beautiful planet. It is also a very good time to address the question of PILGRIMAGE—OUR JOURNEY HERE NOW.

Hallelujah for finding fellow pilgrims while we pursue our own individual JOURNEYS! In the spring of 2010, I connected with the writer, Melissa Tidwell, at the Artist Conference Network (ACN) weekend in Atlanta, Georgia. During this weekend, we artists delve deeply into our hearts and minds and cultivate a vision statement to guide us in our work. At the completion of the ACN weekend, I knew I had met a soulmate. It is with great pleasure that I offer you Hallelujah’s first guest blog, THIS PILGRIM WAY, written by spiritual art pilgrim, Melissa Tidwell.

THIS PILGRIM WAY

Spiritual practices move us from one place to another, from our habitual stances of fear and reactivity into a longing to go deeper in the mystery. Some practices use stillness to do this, while other practices achieve the same thing with movement. Pilgrimage is a practice that is about moving our feet along a more or less fixed route so that our spirits can be set free to take in the holiness around us.

Going along these paths worn smooth by the feet of other pilgrims, we can see what they saw, breathe in the same air and stumble over the same rocks. Our process is unique to our experience but also part of a bigger pattern, tradition, history, some of which we can only guess at. And this seeing that we are not alone gives us courage to undertake the arduous parts of the journey, face the emptiness of the desert before us or in us.

This pilgrimage need not be formal, like the tradition of San Juan de Campostelo, following a path across Spain that thousands of pilgrims walk every year. A pilgrimage can be the walk through the year, tracing the path from season to season, watching the leaves turn or the butterflies arrive. Holidays are a lovely way to mark the passage of time, and most of us have a built-in calendar of personal holy days that we recognize as we tramp through the year. The anniversary of a loved one’s death can be one such marker, a day of remembrance. Other days can carry a lighter touch, as my own personal ritual for the opening day of baseball season is about more than the game but also about the eternal recurring hope that this is the year.

Some of our ritual observances can grow stale of course, especially those that are accompanied by commercialized excess. We can try to breathe new life into the old ways, invent new forms, refuse altogether to participate. But the art of being a pilgrim involves the continual putting of one foot after the other, of being exactly where we are, not skipping ahead to the end or sitting stuck by the side of the road.

In my family, there are certain foods that must be present at holiday meals, like special cake baked for Christmas, but more than anything the iron clad requirement that potato salad be served for every important gathering. Even at Christmas, when this summery picnic food seems in some ways wildly out of place. But we have to have it, and it has to be made to exacting specifications, down to a sort of ritual blessing that must be uttered when mixing it. At times it seems like so much trouble, but it is also a comfort and now I can’t imagine not having it. I have puzzled over it, wondered about its origins in our class and cultural context, poked around the edges of it as family myth and lore. It’s an oddity, a symbol, a sign, the sort of things pilgrims carry with them as a key to this deeper life we seek, rich with the past and the heart of always becoming.

What is your pilgrim path about? What clues or tools do you carry with you? What special points along the way do you observe with ritual or special attention? If you aren’t sure, maybe it’s time to begin seeing yourself as a pilgrim, being attentive to the path, and marking the way with little feasts of joy and remembrance.

“I’m curious and hopeful at every bend.” -Melissa Tidwell
photos by Halllelujah Truth

ABOUT MELISSA TIDWELL, SPIRITUAL ART PILGRIM

Melissa Tidwell, a spiritually focused writer, was born in Augsburg, Germany, and grew up on military bases around the world. After residing in Nashville for more than a decade, Melissa “pilgrimed” her way to Atlanta in 2010.  Currently, she is seeking a publisher for her spiritual memoir, How Janis Saved Me.

In response to my question, “Who are you spiritually?,” Melissa responded thoughtfully, “My spiritual pilgrimage at times has been a process of fleeing from an oppressive orthodoxy towards a wider understanding of the spirit. Curiously, the path seems to be leading me in some ways right back to where I started.”

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