Let me be perfectly clear.

A prompt for you this week.

“Let me be perfectly clear…”

I love how this statement manages to be a flex, a threat & a prayer all at once.

“I Am That Horizon Line” 2016, digital self portrait made when I was really trying to get clear.

What is it about clarity that holds so much power over us?

Typically, the more under-resourced I feel, the more fuzzy everything becomes. Pulled too thin in any direction and even the most basic of decisions can get super tricky— like, “What do you wanna do for dinner?” turns into *DISORIENTED SOBBING!!!* kinda tricky. I know you get this.

But it’s the not-feeling-clear part itself that messes with me. Maybe this is because we put an inordinate amount of pressure on ourselves to know everything all the time in my culture— to somehow make the right decisions for survival in a dizzying echo chamber of AI manufactured counter-realities and weaponized illusions of rugged individualism. When I am clear I can anticipate threat. When I am clear I can communicate authority. When I feel clear I feel in control.

This is one of the reasons why a lot of the creative games I play are about relinquishing control over what I think I should know.

I engineer little moments of greater-than-me clarity so I can practice relaxing into the Mystery. This is the open-palmed prayer version of “Let me be perfectly clear”. In this sense, I am not expecting myself to walk into my day with All of the Knowledge & Authority. I am asking the universe to help me be empty enough to simply notice what arises when I open up and relax my control.

If you’ve taken classes or workshops with me, you know that creative prompts are one of my favorite tools for this kind of relaxed clarity. Given just the right amount of limitation and a no-stakes task, our internal clarifier springs into service. This is practicing clarity as poetry.

A Prompt For You:

Set a ONE-MINUTE TIMER & follow these 5 words “Let me be perfectly clear…” with 5 words of your own. Write that line in the comments & our comment thread will become a meta-poem on our collective clarity.

In other news: The Creative Partnership Circle is sharing our weekly WINS & WTFs over in the chat. Who are we? What are we doin’? In short, we’re multi-faceted creatives engaging in free, focused, peer-to-peer professional support:

We make regular time to get clear together by sharing our goals & limitations as creative professionals.

If you’ve read our basic agreements you’ve got the format for setting up your own intentional creative partner sessions! But: if you’d like to get involved in future meetings with this whole dynamic group or work with me one-on-one, reach out!

xo,