Graphics

One of the things that helps me write is to find a theme that over time I can build on and use to tuck ideas into. 2008 was mostly about get­ting my feet wet, test­ing direc­tions and get­ting acquainted with you and you with me. In 2009 I’m going to focus on giv­ing you a foun­da­tion and then help you build on that foun­da­tion through­out the year.

Before I get into the details I want to tell about the graphic above, it’s my new Twit­ter back­ground. Why is that impor­tant? I’ve been want­ing to do one for quite some­time and as usual started out seri­ously design­ing, until this morn­ing when I revis­ited what I had done yes­ter­day. Look­ing at it I real­ized it was waaaay to seri­ous, it didn’t really say much about me. So scrapped it and started over. This time I took a “I’m gonna have fun” atti­tude, and since I love comic illus­tra­tion or sto­ries told graph­i­cally I used Comic Life together with some pho­tos to design the back­ground. The point is I had fun and more impor­tantly I showed up in a way that put a part of me out there that many don’t see.

That brings us to themes…several years ago I became acquainted with the writ­ings of cul­tural anthro­pol­o­gist Ange­les Arrien. She spent many years col­lect­ing the wis­dom of peo­ple all over the world and she found that when every­thing was put together a com­mon theme sur­faced that pro­vided a fun­da­men­tal base for liv­ing. She iden­ti­fied four arche­typal paths or ways for help­ing us nav­i­gate change that are based on cen­turies old shamanic tra­di­tions prac­ticed by indige­nous peo­ple and how they man­aged change. The mas­ters of change among indige­nous peo­ples were their med­i­cine men, chiefs, shamans, and teach­ers, the rec­og­nized the con­stant nature of change and took on the role of sup­por­t­ively guid­ing their com­mu­ni­ties through life events instead of deny­ing them. Arrien calls for a recon­nec­tion to the four arche­typal paths com­mon to all peo­ples they are, The Way of the War­rior, The Way of the Healer, The Way of the Vision­ary and The Way of the Teacher. Expanded they boil down to:

* Show up be vis­i­ble and empower oth­ers through exam­ple and be present to your life invest in your­self
* Pay atten­tion to what has heart and mean­ing to your life
* Tell the truth with­out blame or judge­ment be authen­tic in brin­ing your life gifts to the world.
* Be open by not being attached to out­comes so that we may have bet­ter access to our own wisdom.

The first step

The first and most impor­tant thing we as artists need to do to not only sur­vive the cur­rent shifts but also emerge as lead­ers is to SHOW UP. Show­ing up means start­ing that blog by putting the nur­tur­ing and empow­er­ing nature of your gifts out there for all to see. A strong part of this is self– invest­ment because with­out it we are blind. When I designed the Twit­ter page above I decided to show up, by be authen­ti­cally vis­i­ble in a way I have exposed I also invested time in doing so because it rein­forced my presence.

Show­ing up will also put you above the crowd of peo­ple who can’t seem to show up, it will place you in a posi­tion to lead and lead with author­ity. Because you will be one of the few who chooses to be present.

So in the com­ing weeks we will talk more about show­ing up with your blog will look, we will build the foun­da­tion using the “Four Fold Way” above together with prac­ti­cal and cre­ative ways start build­ing the struc­ture of your house. We’ll also talk more about each ele­ment can help you over­come your fears and empower you to claim your spot.

How are you going to show up? What are your fears? Will you show up with me?