Moonday Experiment-- Unleashing Your Wild Creativity

Moonday, just after the full snow moon last night.  If this is the first you've heard of it, let me explain.  This marks week 9 of the Moonday Experiment, designed to help me, and whoever else wants to play, to take a little time out on Mondays to celebrate the moon by doing something creative and/or wild despite the dominant culture's referendum on Monday wildness.  Moonday is a day (or just an hour) to let loose creatively-- throw caution to the wind and be creative for creativity's sake-- ie. wild.  The comments here are meant to be a place to share creative impulses and/or inspirations, meaning you can share your own art or links (poetry, visual art, stories, dance, etc.) or the art of someone who inspires you. 

 

Image by Catrin Welz-Stein-- I adore her haunting, dream-like illustrations.

Personal update:  I seem to be in a 'bubbling' phase-- not a lot of output, but lots of connections happening in my mind and body.  Consistently giving myself permission to just have fun in the realm of art seems to be shifting something internally.  We'll see if it ends up influencing my writing.  I've been excited to get feedback from some of you saying that Moonday is helping to open up your creativity.

Last night while walking on East 11th Street,  a friend and I came across a large pile of bright blue Encyclopedia Americanas with gold embossed eagles on their fronts next to a pile of garbage bags surrounded by the dirty melting snow.  I picked one up from the top of the pile.  Skin to Sumac.  Copyright 1975.  There are articles on Stream of Consciousness, Sonic Boom, Squaw-fish Squid, Stained Glass, Stalin... I can't wait to chop it up and make some collages based entirely on words and images beginning with the letter S.

I wrote about how collage helps me out of creative ruts and puts me in touch with my subconscious (also in the Encyclopedia Americana) back when no one at all was reading this blog.  If you're interested, you can read it here.

So, join in, please?  Post a poem (it doesn't have to be one that you wrote), a link to a story, art you made, art you love-- or play the stream of consciousness game, a verbal form of collage. Write down the first 10 words that come into your head when you read this word:  fruitcake

Happy Moonday!

Moonday Salon-- Post your Creative Thoughts

This is week 8 of the Moonday Experiment.  A close friend of mine who actually reads my blog was confused by Moonday.  She thought that there was only one Moonday post.  So that means I haven't been clear enough.  Moonday is my weekly response to Monday.  It is me zapping the "do! do! do! go! go! go! hurry hurry hurry!" chant in my head with a different energy, Moon energy. Its a way for me to honor the intuitive and creative on a day that is known for being all about business.  As I'm an artist who does my level best to do something creative every day, I use Moondays to do something-- at least a tiny little something-- uninhibited and for sheer love of the thing, without a thought to whether or not its good.


I've been encouraging people to participate in the experiment by sharing their creative ideas and outpourings in this supportive space in the comments.  There haven't been many takers yet, but the ones who have shared something have been incredible and so much fun.

This Moonday I will be dancing at the Metropolitan Building at 7 PM (its free if anyone happens to be reading this and lives in NYC) with Dunya Dianne McPherson's Dunyati Alembic.  The Alembic is meditative dance, Sufi practices translated for performance.  Our director's instructions are simple but challenging: relax and breathe.  Our job is to stay inside of our bodies, and not to think 'is it good, is it bad, do they get it?'  just stay with ourselves and let the dance unfold.  It feels profoundly healing to dance in this way with witnesses, and our hope is that its also deeply relaxing to watch. We've gotten some great responses that indicate that it is.

So that fulfills the Moonday quota!  And this completely unedited post does, too. 

I'd absolutely adore it if you'd join in.  Post a link to your site with your artwork/videos/poetry/etc.  Share some writing-- a thought, a poem-- in the comments-- it can be a quote that inspires you, too.  Or a link to some art of any kind that inspires your own creative freedom.

That seems to be the theme bubbling up in me today.  Freedom.  Inner Revolution.  So if you like, answer this question:  When do you feel free?  Where are you?  What are you doing?

Happy Moonday!