Tag: Creativity

The Ananda Leeke Show Launches June 30@8pm

Posted by on in Creativity, Uncategorized2 Comments

Radio

Great News!  The Ananda Leeke Show, an online radio program that celebrates creativity in everyday life, will launch on June 30, 2009, at 8:00 p.m. (EST) on Talkshoe.com: http://www.talkshoe.com/tc/15820.

Join me as I share my own creative adventures, advice, artwork, books, challenges, discoveries, healthy life practices, insights, inspiration, lessons learned, resources, and tips as an artist, author, writer, blogger, creativity coach, yoga teacher, Reiki Master practitioner, and innerpreneur.  

The first episode will discuss my insights on writing my upcoming poetic memoir, That Which Awakens Me: A Creative Woman’s Poetic Memoir (Summer 2009 – iUniverse, Inc.). 

Click here to read the press release: http://www.prlog.org/10257014-authorartistcreativity-coach-ananda-leeke-launches-the-ananda-leeke-show-to-celebrate-creativity.html.

My Creative Fire Is Burning – Wreck the Journal Week 2 of Next Chapter Book Blogging Group

Posted by on in Creativity, Yoga18 Comments

fire

wreckjournal

http://www.tnc-wreckthisjournal.blogspot.com/

 

Happy Friday!

So it’s week 2 in my Wreck the Journal journey (http://www.tnc-wreckthisjournal.blogspot.com).  Yesterday morning I played in my book and finally faced my fear of following the instructions to burn page  4.  Remember page 4 scared me last week.  Even though I was born under the fire sign of Sagittarius and have no problems lighting candles and incense with a lighter, I am still afraid of lighting a match and watching paper burn. 

First let me say that Jenn Lee was my inspiration.  Jenn’s video blog (http://www.lifeunfoldsblog.com/2009/06/04/wreck-this-journal-week-1-playing-with-fire) last week really hit home.  The image of her burning the page stayed with me all week. So here’s what went down in the wee hours of my chakra castle (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chakra). Yes indeedie sweetie, I have all of the chakra colors represented on the various walls of my apartment. 7 bold colors.  Red, royal blue, light blue, orange, yellow, pink, and purple.  Sounds wild, right? 

My morning began a wee bit early. 6 a.m.  I must admit that my Wednesday afternoon acupuncture session really relaxed me and sent me to sleep early.   Getting acupuncture on a monthly basis for the past four years has been such a healing experience for me and my body.  After I did a series of yin yoga poses in bed, I walked into my sunny yellow kitchen and got the urge to light some Nam Champs incense and smudge myself with sage. 

When I finished smudging myself, I decided to smudge my entire chakra castle.   As I walked around, I chanted one of my favorite Tibetan Buddhist mantras: Om Mani Padme Hum (http://www.dharma-haven.org/tibetan/meaning-of-om-mani-padme-hung.htm).  I lit another stick of incense and a yellow candle when I returned to the kitchen.  I placed the yellow candle on my Buddha altar sitting in my red window.  My eyes closed as I stood in the mountain yoga pose.  The morning echo of birds lulled me into a place of stillness.  After a few minutes, my inner voice (you know Ms. Intuition … She is my Ananda archetype … a spiritual woman – click here to see a photo: http://www.flickr.com/photos/anandaleeke/3161424573) instructed me to get my Wreck the Journal.  So I walked back into my pink and purple bedroom and picked up the journal.  My inner voice invited me to turn to page 4. I stared at the page and smiled.  My hands gently grabbed the lighter and flicked a flame onto the page.  I watched in sheer delight.  A few seconds later I noticed the flame had left  its own footprint of sorts.  It looked like someone had taken a bite out of the page.  That was really cool! 

So later in the day I found myself thinking about my newfound courage born out of creative fire: How could I use it in my life?  The answer came early this morning when I realized that I could use the creative fire to overcome my current fear of delaying the publication of my new book, That Which Awakens Me: A Creative Woman’s Poetic Memoir of Self-Discovery with a request to have the font of the text changed (the current manuscript that I received from the publisher this week doesn’t look right….it makes my words look messy).  I didn’t want to face this fear because it means more WORK and summer is a time for play, right?  Well, I am working to transform my concept of WORK.  I decided to say that I am PLAYING with my creative fire to make sure others can play with it when it finally comes out in my new book at the end of the summer. 

My other favorite exercises from Wreck the Journal were:

  • page 26 – tearing the strips up
  • page 36 – chewing on the paper
  • page ? – crumbling the paper
  • page ? – making a paper cup and drinking water

Confession time.  I still haven’t made it around to most of my Wreck the Journal sistaloves’ blogs.  The one thing that I am looking forward to is visiting everyone’s pages this weekend.  Me and my creative fire are gonna have some good times with our online visits.

Thanks for stopping by!

Enjoy your weekend!

Peace and Creativity,

Ananda

New Creative Adventure for Summer 2009 – Wreck This Journal byKeri Smith

Posted by on in Creativity, Uncategorized25 Comments

 

 

wreckjournal

Wreck This Journal by Keri Smith – www.kerismith.com

crayons

Good Morning All!

Happy Friday!

It’s 6:40 a.m. in D.C.  The June rain that is hitting the pavement outside of my apartment fills the air with autumn chills.  It’s hard to believe that summer will be here in 15 more days.  I’ve already had two cups of green tea.  They warmed me up and got me energized for my new creative adventure : Wreck This Journal by Keri Smith.  

Wreck This Journal is an invitation to play and be free.  It was extended by Jamie Ridler, a certified professional co-active coach (http://www.jamieridler.blogspot.com).  Jamie founded Next Chapter, a book blogging group that has created an online sisterhood of support for creative women like myself.  I recently participated in Jamie’s Next Chapter book blogging group from January to April.  We read and blogged about The 12 Secrets of Highly Creative Women by Gail McMeekin (one of my favorite books – read it for the first time in 2000).  Click here to learn more about the group:  http://www.tnc-12secrets.blogspot.com.

Today marks the first step in my Wreck This Journal adventures with a group of groovy creative women. Click here to learn more:  http://www.tnc-wreckthisjournal.blogspot.com. Read about my first Wreck This Journal adventure below.

The clock registered 6:00 a.m. when I started my Wreck This Journal adventure.  I opened the book and read the title page.  My heart jumped when I read: “To create is to destroy.”  What a powerful mantra!  It was medicine for my creative soul.  It was also a permission slip to just be without an agenda.  I needed the medicine and permission slip after spending the past year and half working on my poetic memoir.  I really got excited when I read Keri’s warning statement: “You may begin to live more recklessly.”  My giggles let me know that I was on the right journey!  I shouted “Hallelujah!”

The first page I wrote in asked me to fill out who this book belongs to.  I wrote nice and neat like a good Catholic girl: Ananda Leeke.  The next line asked me to write my name in white.  I panicked and realized I didn’t have a white pen.  My sense of play left for a nanosecond until I wrote my name in any ole’ way.  That’s when I started to do my own thang despite the instructions.  My archetype called Madelyn, the lawyer/CEO lady, cringed.  My archetype called Puf, the little girl who rocks the world with her BoHo BAP (Black American Princess) fabulousness and Black-eyed susan southern debutante swagger, grinned and got on with the wrecking process.  Puf got the party started! It lasted 30 minutes. 

My favorite pages were:

1) Pour, spill, drip, spit, fling your coffee here.

I used green tea instead.  Rebel girl Puf didn’t blink an eye at my choice.  Then I dipped my finger three times in my tea cup and fingerpainted 3 long drips on the page.  

2) Color This Entire Page.

Kiamsha, my creative woman archetype, took over on this page. She decided to write a poem first. Here’s the poem.

Untitled

It is a rainy today.

Play is what’s on my mind.

Play opens the space of gratitude in my heart.

It reminds me of my Yogi tea bag message.

“Gratitude is the open door to abundance.”

Color it all with love. 

 After writing the poem, I walked from my bedroom into my art studio and picked up my box of crayons.  I brought them back to my bed and proceeded to randomly pull out a few colors.  I started coloring the page with two different crayons.  I shaded in places and scribbled in others.  I added more colors.  When I was finished, I realized that my coloring had given birth to a new poem.  So I copied it on the opposite page. 

Untitled

Coloring is my favorite.

It is scribbles of  joy.

Two crayons together going sideways, upside down, and all around.

Yellow and orange.

Pink and red.

White and violet.

Blue and green.

They kiss a blank page with their rainbow colors with joie de vivre.

My final act from this scene in my creative adventure was coloring the page. When I finished, I looked at the page with all of its colorful shadings and waved a cheery goodbye.

3) Fill this page with circles.

I decided to skip several pages and have some more morning fun.  That’s how I landed on page 32.  I let out a big WOW when I read the direction about filling the page with circles.  My Puf archetype loves to draw circles.  So much fun, right?  I pulled out my crayons again and made crazy swirls of colorful circles until I got dizzy. I drew blue circles on top of pink ones.  Yellow ones layered the pink ones.  Green ones moved next door to orange ones.  They were a family of swirling circle dervishes that  Rumi would be proud of! After I finished with this page, I closed the journal and made my way to my yoga mat for a round of sun salutations, mantra chanting, and meditation before my oatmeal breakfast!  What a way to start a Friday!

To my Next Chapter book blogging group sistaloves:  Thank you for joining me on this journey.  I am so excited to be taking it with you.  This summer I have more time on my hands so I will be able to visit your blogs more regularly (didn’t do that on the last Next Chapter book blogging  journey due to my poetic memoir writing).  I look forward to learning more about your Wreck This Journal experiences. 

Thanks for stopping by!  Enjoy your day and weekend!

Peace and Creativity,

Ananda