REVERB11: THE SOUL FOOD OF A CREATIVITY EVANGELICAL—GOING DEEPER AND WIDER AND SHARING THE PROCESS

THE UNIVERSE AM I. Soul Food is BEING here with YOU. (Art by Hallelujah Truth)

REVERB#11 PROMPT(December 10): SOUL FOOD. How do you nourish your soul? What activities are essential nutrients for your soul’s well-being? (Carolyn Rubenstein’s blog, A Beautiful Ripple Effect)

It is early morning--6:00 am on Saturday, December 10--and I am feasting on my SOUL FOOD. Surrounded by my watercolor paints and paper, micron-pens, a light wave of patchouli incense flows over me, as Donovan croons his sutras on the Bose. The red Christmas lights warm this cold winter morning as Donovan repeats the words NIRVANA, NIRVANA, NIRVANA. He sings, “with no obstacles and no fear liberates herself from illusion, now to realize perfect NIRVANA.  This is a typical “awakening” for me at the table of my SOUL FOOD. I am comforted by the fact that Chiboogamoo is up in bed drinking his Gingko tea and reading the latest New Yorker.

At the table of my SOUL FOOD, I am fed by the GREAT MYSTERY! I invite the UNKNOWN to visit me through my creativity. Recently, I began developing a mission statement for this SOUL BLOG of mine. In my JOURNEY, I look for ways to “clarify” my intentions around my creativity. Why do I have a presence in the blogging community? What is the purpose of Coffee With Hallelujah?  This is what I have come up with so far:

My mission is to be a joyful pilgrim in awe of the great spirit as I go deeper and wider in my journey. I connect and share with souls across generations who seek well-being and wisdom through playful artistic and scientific expression.

COSMOS EYES. I am fed by CREATIVITY. I believe we SEE the TRUTH through our understanding of the COSMOS.  ART EQUALS SOUL. (Art by Hallelujah Truth)

Like any food, SOUL FOOD can be shared. Sharing ways to go deeper into one’s own creativity FEEDS me (I have been called a creativity evangelical)! As soon as I had cultivated this mission statement for my creativity blog, I brought the same activity to my creative writing class at the Georgia Tech Language Institute. What a glorious way to enact my mission statement of “sharing with souls across generations”! How thrilling it was to see my students write on the top of a blank sheet of paper: WHAT IS MY TRUE PURPOSE OF LIFE? (activity adapted from Steve Pavlina). I felt their energy consolidate. They hunkered down and became committed to penning their visions of self. Here are two results from this class activity:


A Venezuelan student, Vanessa, on her blog, Embracing My Inner Jackson Pollock, developed this mission statement:

No space is left unpainted in the unstoppable and dramatic representation of the subconscious. An 18-year-old naturally seeking the creation of a complete atmosphere through strong and rapid brush movements with no frame limiting the canvas of life. Innovation, depth, passion…Experiencing chaos within order.

Another student from Saudi Arabia, Fahad, wrote on his blog, Hope in the Dark Desert: I am the hope in the dark desert. I never give up. I always believe in God. I always believe in myself. I always know I WILL DO IT, but I just don’t know when. His mission statement:

I am here to expose myself. I am here to learn. I am here to think. I am here to thank. I am here to make mistakes. I am here to learn from my mistakes.

Universe Am I. (Art by Hallelujah Truth)

Shine ye spinning orbs of light

Shine ye crystal starts so bright

All ye harmonized by love

Set in motion, moved by love

Homo sapien am I no more

Beyond Beyond I soar the universe am I

From Donovan Sutras, Universe Am I

That's Coffee with Hallelujah!  I will continue to share my SOUL FOOD with you and I ask that you share your SOUL FOOD with me. Let's feast together at the table of LIFE! 

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS: Thank you Gwen Bell for the 3-month course, Align Your Website, and for being true to yourself and calling. I am so glad to have met you online last year during #REVERB10. Great appreciation to Donovan for his beautiful album, Donovan Sutras, which I have been in love with since the late 1990’s when I discovered it. Your lyrical voice and words have melted into my life. Creativity Writing Students thank you for your willingness to explore the mystery of yourselves and to "try on" something new. As always, thanks Chiboogamoo!

SOUL FOOD. Coffee with Hallelujah (photo by Chiboogamoo)

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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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