The week 12 check-in that never was

I know, if this was still The Artist's Way, we'd be ending week 13, but circumstances threw me last week, and left me with an unfinished feeling, in that I never got to post the ending-posts I'd envisaged, and something tells me it's necessary to round off, to leave a neat edge like on a piece of knitting, to look back, shake the flour off my hands, scrape the dirt out from under my nails, and have a look at the work that was in that amazing three-month journey, and to see what I want to say about it.

There is SO MUCH I feel I'd like to say, I'm a bit flummoxed as to where to start, so for now, I'll begin by trying to recap out of my week 12 tasks and do a check-in just on that final week.

1. Morning Pages - did them 7/7 that week. Have I accepted them as a permanent spiritual practice? - Sure, I was doing them already anyway, but have renewed my commitment, and found them to give me more focus in some way while I have been checking in on the experience each week.
2. What was my Artist Date that week? I know there was one. It was ah... yes, the Art Exhibition opening. Yes there were people there, and I did interact with some of them, but it was stocking my pond, and the interactions were interesting, speaking to people about drama, painting... you know, high-brow art!
3. Synchronicity? This is where letting time go by means I've forgotten the details of that week. There probably were happenings that struck me at the time, but now they've slipped out of consciousness. If I felt inclined to trawl through my Morning Pages journal, maybe I'd find them, but I don't have the energy..... Oh, how could I have forgotten? This is a long-term chicken coming home to roost, but it feels significant that it should have happened this week. At the end of the last AW I did in 1998, one of my wishes was to teach children poetry or creative writing. It came about in small ways over the past few years, working with after-school clubs, but these were one-off events. Over the past few months, I've been involved in the process of becoming registered for a data-base of poets certified to work in schools, and yes, the process was finalised and completed this week, with a wonderful visit to a junior school, and two sessions with 54 nine-to-twelve year-0lds, which went very well. I enjoyed it so much, and got such a buzz from seeing them coming out to proudly show off their work to waiting parents! Yay!
4. Other Issues? This will slide into the review of the entire process perhaps, but looking at the tasks I completed in Week 12, I notice I wanted to say I had no resistance, anger or fears (Yeah! Right!), and then admitted to residual resistance manifesting in the thought that this is all just grandiose posturing - that it's not REAL, and it manifests in my not really giving myself to the concept of looking after the quantity. I'm not producing more (not really noticably more, at any rate). Maybe I need to turn round and do the Artist's Way again! It's like I limit my acceptance. I believe... up to a point, and so I give myself to it, to the process... up to a point. Sometimes. And then sometimes I do jump. Sometimes I do believe. Sometimes I'm very excited by it. Maybe right now, writing about it, I feel tired, and that is seeping into my thinking. I think I did a post one week about when you think nothing is happening, there's a lot going on under the surface. Well, I'm relying on that being true!