On Saturday I went to a Treasure Maps group run by Sally Swain, the same fabulous woman who runs the Creative Nest group I go to. If you’ve heard of vision boards or read the secret, you will be familiar with the concept of treasure-mapping. It involves creating a vision for yourself/your life/your work/your dreams and putting that vision down on paper through collage, paint, drawing, words or whatever else works for you. The idea is that what you put out there is attracted back to you.

Sally had us first do a guided meditation, where we visualised a healing colour, images, and set our intentions for our maps. I went there with a vague idea that I wanted my map to be about my writing, but I couldn’t decide if I wanted to focus on my book writing, my freelancing, my bite by bite website or any other kind of writing. I thought maybe I should focus on getting a fabulous part-time job, such as the one I’m anxiously waiting on a call from after a pretty good interview last week (details will of course follow if I get the job). Clearly, my early vision was quite cloudy.

During the meditation, though, it all became clear. These things weren’t separate – they were all part of my writing together, and made up what my careers coach Kerry calls a ‘casserole career’ (where you have lots of little things on the go making up your income, instead of just one big full-time job). I saw clearly that I shouldn’t be focusing on one bit of writing over another, but see them as a whole. I also had an image of a beautiful green plant unfurling, sprouting leaves and continuing to grow. These things were to become the basis of my treasure map.

After the meditation, Sally let us loose on what she fabulously calls ‘art play’. I flicked through 10- and 15-year-old magazines, cutting out images and words I thought might fit in with my vision. Once I had assembled a nice little collection, I started drawing with pastels on my paper – that long, unfurling plant with lots of leaves and buds.

My end result was this, cheekily titled ‘my successful writing career’:

So I’m not the best artist in the world, but that wasn’t the point. I had fun making it, and it felt good to be so purposeful. I think a bit further down the track I might make another one at home with a different focus – something about health. Of course, doing this as part of a group is truly wonderful, and well worth it. When a group of creative, purposeful women (or men!) come together they can create such wonderful energy. When I showed David my map he said, ‘you had to go to a class to make that?’ I tried to explain the energy, space, purpose and creativity thing to him, but, you know, he is a scientist.

For everyone else out there, though, I totally recommend joining or starting some sort of creativity group. For people in Sydney you should get in touch with Sally and get on her mailing list, because she has all kinds of groups (such as wish flags, power mandalas and writing groups), as well as one-on-one creative coaching. Oh, and she’s a fabulous artist and published writer in her own right.

I will keep you updated on what springs from my wonderful treasure map, but so far I’ve created a downloadable PDF for bite by bite, which has my top 10 binge busters (to print out and put on the fridge), I’m putting together my application for an arts fellowship and I did some wacky drawing and ‘art play’ last night. Yay for creativity!

posted by Kelly
Filed under: Art