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Greetings fellow travelers, I am happy to be a part of this Artist's Way Circle...as I am a part of all three other Artist's Way Circles. I am combining all the unity of all four Artist's Way Circles together. The Yahoo! Artist's Way Circle is the oldest circle of 10 years with a message archives. The Facebook Artist's Way Circle is newest Artist's Way Circle. Beliefnet Artist's Way Circle is the second Artist's Way Circle and I like the emphasis of the site being based on spirituality. Wurlwind is a growing Artist's Way Circle. Each has it's interesting features and it's been fun to learn about how to best use those features. I am going to each of my Circles and asking them what direction would they like their Artist's Way Circles to go. What direction would you like to see this Artist's Way Circle to take? * Would you all like to do a 12 week Artist's Way journey together as a group? * Would you like suggestions for Artist's Dates? * Would you like me to make videos going over Artist's Way topics from the book? Let's hear your ideas of the direction you would like your circle to take? Love, Buffy

Buffy's Check In Greetings Fellow Travelers, It has been brought to my attention that some of you are going on your Artist's Way journey and are struggling. I didn't know this because I am not receiving regular check ins from you or an email expressing your frustrations. Please use the Artist's Way Circle. It's here for support that's what the Artist's Way is about. Reach out to someone, it doesn't necessarily have to be me. There are many people who are willing to help. Send a message to the group expressing your challenges as you go on your journey. Please don't suffer silently. I wrote 6/7 Morning Pages this past week on college ruled paper. I am starting to get the hang of writing 45 minutes each day. I am toying around with different ways of storytelling. What if you could tell a love story from two perspectives in the same story. The girl's version and the guy's version. How would that meld together? I have been writing down pages of discussions in my Morning Pages this way. This conversation between a guy and a woman. It's actually coming out quite beautiful. It kinda appeared awhile ago and it seems to keep growing these conversations. My Artist's Date I went to my favorite women's spirituality and wellness sanctuary and had some Jasmine and Passionflower tea while listening to the sound of the water fountain. I pulled a meditative quote from a box that comes from a Conversations of Miracles. Sometimes I crave adventurous artist's dates and other times I crave quiet reflective artist's dates. A major synchronicity was finally meeting Sonicsuns after over a year of hoping. It actually came together! After awhile I questioned whether it would ever happen, however things finally fell into place. Finally, my dream has come true! Recovery issue for this week not to doubt yourself. When I first came across Sonicsuns in 2008, I was so starstruck by his videos that I was afraid to even leave a comment let alone dare to send an email. Back then I didn't get that people on YouTube were approachable. I kept thinking it was like tv where people were harder to connect with. I should have sent Sonicsuns an email when I first encountered him. I should have said what was really on my mind when it was happening. Instead I doubted myself and held back for 8 months. Finally, I mustered the courage to take a chance and I sent that email. Ironically, what lead me to Sonicsuns was his Artist's Way video www.youtube.com/watch?v=jdFpkW5ZTw8 Which the Artist's Way was the topic of his email I wrote to him. I think it's cool how the Artist's Way brought us together! I love the Artist's Way! With Love, Buffy

Buffy's Week 12 Check In Dear Fellow Travelers, I finished completing my 9th 12 week cycle of the Artist's Way! And I celebrated with a party with my face to face Artist's Way Circle. We had pizza, taco dip, lime corn chips, Doritos, three different kinds of soda, and Oreo cookies. I gave out cards with heartfelt messages thanking everybody for the things they taught me and I handed out colorful certificates. I made a video of this week's Artist's Way check in, but there's some sort of error with the uploading so I couldn't share it with all of you. And it's too big to attach to this email. I wrote 5/7 Morning Pages. I have been adjusting to writing 45 minutes a day. It was kind of frustrating at first, but I am actually starting to enjoy the extra writing time. In it I am exploring the idea of true love that I am writing in my novel. I have been thinking that instead of true love being a destination or a person, I was starting to evision true love as a process or journey. Kind of tying it in with my vision for myself that I am a lover and a creator. That true love comes from me and that's it's from the inside. I am a creator of true love. My Artist's Date was putting together the 7 cards for the Artist's Way Circle party. I wanted beautiful images and loving messages to go inside of each card. I wanted people to walk away and feel that they had an impact on the Artist's Way Circle. That they were valued and appreciated. The synchronicity of the week I liked the pretty certificates the members received, and then I was presented with my first Artist's Way Circle certificate of my own. I received a certificate with flowers on it thanking me for my talent, creativity, and inspiration for guiding the Artist's Way Circle. It now proudly rests on my entertainment center in my living room. The issue of recovery was to never give up. I have been following the life coach's suggestion about feeding the creative well through songs, videos, poetry, movies, and books on love. I feel I am really growing in the subject. I know I am also writing alot about my novel in my Morning Pages. I always am. I am trying to decide at this point do I want to continue to focus on my current novel, or do I want to start a new novel for the NaNoWriMo National Novel Writing Month challenge NaNoWriMo.org? There is something special about the camaraderie of writing a new novel alongside a bunch of other writers. But I really also want to develop my first novel. NaNoWriMo is next month already. I need to make a decision. With Love, Buffy

Buffy's Check in Week 11 Greetings fellow travelers, How is your journey going? What new and luscious discoveries are crossing your way? What people have appeared on your path? What new vision do you have for yourself? What are your dreams? What are your goals? What steps are you taking to make them happen? What new stories do you have to tell? Next week is the last week of my Artist's Way Circle at the Mental Health Center. Last year, I had a dream to start the first Artist's Way Circle there because I strongly believed it was needed especially there. The time just flew by and now next week is week 12 and our party celebration. I was honored when one of the Artist's Way Circle members there made me pair of hemp and bead earrings and matching keychain. I have made a wonderful and life alternating connection! I brought all your experiences and wisdom that you all taught me in this circle over the course of 9 years. Thank you for helping me to help others. I got brand new notebook to write my Morning Pages in. It's got GLITTER! Lots of pinks, blues, purples, and brown. Not so gung ho about brown, but it works with these colors quite well all sparkly! lol I was in the grocery store, I was pushing a cart of groceries, and I just spotted this notebook from the lower shelf. It like jumped out at me! It popped! I had to get it! In my excitement I didn't realize though that it was college ruled so now I am writing more in my Morning Pages at 45 minutes than the 30 minutes I normally write with wide rule. I suppose after 12 years I could graduate to college rule.lol Lately, I have been writing conversations in my Morning Pages from two voices back and forth. It's the most strangest thing. I actually hear a two part conversation going on. One asking questions and the other answering back in a different voice. Not quite sure what to make of it. I have been filling up page and page writing these conversations back and forth. It's kind of fun. My artist's date I made the Love Mandalas & Rose video www.youtube. com/watch? v=hlWIapx6qUA . My Love Mandalas were made using an older version of Paint Shop Pro. I meditated about love the whole time I made them and would finish pieces that resonated with me in that loved filled moment. I also had previously recorded using a computer microphone to record me singing the song "The Rose" written by Amanda McBroom in my bedroom. Out of frustration of not having a video camera I yearned to still create a video. I discovered that I have Window Movie Maker on my computer and began to play around with putting my song, love mandalas, video effects, and transitions together. It was quite frustrating at first because I lost my work three times and it finally came together on the fourth try in the end. The feedback I have been receiving through various comments and emails has been so amazing. I am up to 6 subscribers on my Youtube channel. I laugh when there were people who commented to me that they never even known I could sing. lol Now I would like to get a computer mic and sing more songs. I especially want to write a song about how Creator is funny. I started writing some words to this song in my notepad yesterday. I want to make another video. Strange synchronicity! I had just previously moments before been watching videos with multiple parts of the same person one with 6 parts of Beaker from the Muppets singing Ode to Joy & 4 parts of a guy singing about Star Wars. I just posted both on my Facebook. For some crazy reason I decided to view a video of a member of the Artist's Way Circle I hadn't seen & randomly selected one. When I saw it was a 4 part of the fellow Artist's Way traveler singing I busted out laughing by the coincidence. Recovery issue is creating a vision. So far My Vision Is: I am a lover and a creator. I play with life. I am a child of the Creator. Creator is funny. I am a writer, artist, singer, dancer, and more. I am a creator of true love. With Love, Buffy

Buffy's Week 8 Check In Greetings fellow travelers, In an effort to continue to make the Artist's Way Circle a better community, I want to extend the invitation to the members for suggestions of what we as a circle can do to be more interactive and dynamic. 1. What do you think we need to be doing? 2. What kinds of things do you want to see happen here? Remember this is your circle too. This past week I wrote 28 Morning Pages. In a single day I wrote 13 pages. The words were just flowing out of my pen as I rapidly was moving my hand across each page. Words of love and comfort were appearing on the sheets. As my Artist's Date, I went and sat in a women's spirituality and wellness sanctuary for three hours. I spent time listening to the water flow from the water fountain. I just soaked in the present moment. Some teens came and one has a Hello Kitty strawberry bubbles. I caught a couple of iridescent bubbles that came my way and my hands smelled like strawberry bubbles. A synchronicity I was watching a video that I needed to see that Bernie posted on the net: Abraham: THE VORTEX - Esther & Jerry Hicks An excerpt from the DVD: "The Vortex: Where Law of Attraction Assembles All Cooperative Relationships" - a companion to the new book of the same name. Here Abraham - Non-Physical Source Energy as translated by Esther Hicks - explains their concept of The Vortex, and illustrates how it can help you get whatever it is that you may be wanting. www.youtube.com/watch?v=HtshW4ECKrQ An issue of recovery is believing in myself. I took the risk and read part of my first draft to my face to face Artist's Way Circle. I was grateful to put myself out there and to take steps to believe in myself. I am truly grateful. Buffy

Buffy's Week 7 Check In Greetings fellow travelers, The past week I wrote 20 Morning Pages. I felt that I was inspired this past week. I find myself asking what is true love? I am writing this novel about true love and here I never had a boyfriend where I can say I experienced true love first hand. I long for that experience. Not sure how to achieve that though. I feel I am just learning what it means to be treated right by a man something that had previously alluded me. I am surprised. I feel something beautiful is unfolding in my life and it's also unfolding in my Morning Pages. Artist's Date I went to Friday Night Live and listened to Richard Holly www.richardholly.com play the harmonica and the guitar. There were so many songs I really enjoyed especially the one where he sang he doesn't want any skinny girl. I laughed. Synchronicity was that I was at my favorite women's spirituality and wellness sanctuary store when I discovered that a life coach was doing free sessions. I was the only one who showed up and he really focused on my dreams. I shared that I dream to write, complete, and publish my novel "Two Step." He helped me break down the steps I needed to take to make that dream a reality. He asked me to seek what inspires me. He asked me what genre my book is in I said I believe it's a love story. So he suggested that I seek out love songs to listen to, love movies, and love stories to help inspire me about love. I thought that's a great idea and later when I got home I acted upon that. He talked to me about what the next step would be. He later looked at my video and emailed me saying that by the time my novel is ready I will be able to publish it. I really appreciated that he took the time to view my video also and to also become my friend on Facebook. Just a beautiful synchronicity. Recovery Issue letting people help me. Letting the life coach help me. Letting friends help me who want to print copies and read my novel. I don't even know what I did to deserve this help. Yet, it just appeared. I am starting to let people in on my dream. I told a group of 50 people about my dream of writing and publishing my book and I received so many hugs and well wishes. I had one woman tell me she was so impressed with how excited I am about writing my book. She was amazed at how far I come and how I desire to express myself. She was amazed at what a difference I was from last month even. I do feel better about following my own dreams and taking steps to make it happen. Then she said my ex was stupid for leaving such a great person like me. Buffy Group Leader of the Artist's Way Circle

Buffy's Week 6 Check In Greetings Fellow Travelers, I am busy running a face to face Artist's Way Circle in Waukesha, and starting off two Artist's Way Circles at two new sites on Ning at: Wurlwind wurlwind.ning.com/group/artistswaycircle Wisconsin Pagans wisconsinpagans.ning.com/group/artistswa... 1. I wrote 6/7 out of Morning Pages. I had good intentions of writing the seventh day, but then the day escaped from me. Intense emotional issues are erupting from my Morning Pages. They're exploding all over the pages. I can't seem to contain my feelings anymore. Just a waterfall of raw emotions are raining down on each page. I feel like I feel like a conduit of something greater. Where are all these feelings coming from? I just don't understand it. The more sense I am trying to make out of it the less sense it makes. I can't logically explain any of this. It's just like explosions of the heart left and right. I am just caught up in the light show. At times it intimidates me because it feels so much larger than I am. I can't explain what is happening to me. I think I know what is happening to me, but how is that possible? I question it all the time. I am not sure what to do next. What if it gets even more intense? I am not sure I am ready for that. I am not ready for the next step. What is the next step? Why am I questioning myself all the time? I am not sure where this is leading to where this road is going? I am not sure what I am trying to say sometimes. Well think I do, but I am afraid of what it means if I admit what I believe is happening to me. 2. My artist's date I wrote a few pages in my "Two Step" novel. You know it's challenging to write about true love while you're healing from a broken relationship. It's like they're two opposing forces and the sheer force moving through each of them is like conflicting with each other. Writing about true love and experiencing grief in real life are a strange mixture. Because my main character in the book is not going through grief, but I am. Even though I don't want to be grieving. I want to skip the whole process and come out on the other side already. I don't want to be sad. I am not feeling sad at the moment. Yet all it takes is a single phone call from my ex to bring me back to that awful place. Or a random song that was his favorite to make me feel sad. I hate being at it's mercy. I just want to be done with grieving already. I don't want to feel sad anymore. I don't want to feel this emotionally vulnerable anymore. My character is immersed in the story of true love and it's a beautiful feeling to touch that place myself. The strange contrast between the conflicting emotions. So strange such a peculiar expression. If you were to read my morning pages, (I am not going to let you read my morning pages lol), but if you could you would think I am peculiar with the range of feelings of expressing these days. They are on opposite ends. 3. A powerful synchronicity I experienced was having my prayers answered by getting a ride to my Mohican reservation for the Mohican Pow wow. I got the call late Friday night for the next day. I was in shock that I was even there. I thought I was dreaming somebody pinch me. I couldn't believe all the people I met from my Mohican-7 group. I felt amazed by all that I was experiencing. I thought for sure we wouldn't even be able to get there because of the storms which were whiteout conditions on the highway and drivers were driving with their flashers on. This was amazing that when we got there the rain stopped for five hours. I went shopping and purchased a white buckskin medicine bag, a beaded cross, a pair of earrings, and a necklace for a badge. I was able to take pictures. I did alot of talking and I was excited. Loved the pow wow music and the dancers. We were looking forward to the evening session, but then the mc announced that there was a storm cell coming. So we had to get back on the road and we saw a rainbow and got out to take pictures. Then we entered a downpour and wicked lightning across the sky. A most memorable trip. It was good to go back home. 4. Issue of recovery this week is the power of home. I have lived in many homes in my life with family and with strangers. I am a Hungarian gypsy on my mother's side of the family and I truly roamed like a gypsy in my life. I didn't have a of solid place in my life. I even briefly lived on the reservation. So home has always been this elusive word to me. Where exactly is my home? I really didn't know for a long time. So often I wanted to come back home and I didn't know where that was. But being at the Mohican pow wow I strongly felt like I was at home. I felt such an overwhelming peace there. I am such a city girl so I doubt I would uproot myself to get up there to permanently live. But there is something about the Mohican reservation that speaks to my inner child. I felt like my Grandma Gardner's spirit is strongest there. I smelled the forest air and the memories stirred in my mind. My first pow wow was on the Mohican reservation and I felt that I was back to that place of wonder that felt as a little girl. I felt I reclaimed a part of myself. Buffy

Buffy's Week 5 Check In 1. I did 6/7 Morning Pages but on one of the days instead of writing just three pages I wrote six so in the end I wrote the equivalent of pages for seven days worth. The day I wrote six pages, I just wrote and wrote and I could not put my pen down. The feelings just came pouring out and I just went with it. I didn't have to think about it. They just came tumbling out detail by detail. I wrote very quickly and kept my hand moving across the page. When I was done I was surprised out how much and how fast things came out of me. Also, was the strange feeling of experiencing so many emotions flowing through me. 2. I did two Artist's Dates: a) I went downtown for the Friday Night Live event that goes on during the summer in Waukesha. I had a Chicago hotdog from the new Sloppy Joe's Soda Fountain that just opened up. I really don't care for jalapenos on my hotdog so I picked them off. Then I found a bench near the Potter's shop and watched them fire Raku pottery with green flames in the street while I listened to a singer and guitarist performance across the street at Steaming Cup. I loved his version of the Beatles song Norwegian Wood, but I was sad to hear his version of Walking in Memphis by Marc Cohn because it brought back too many memories of my ex because that was his favorite song. b) I went to the Art Crawl the next day Saturday. I stopped off at the Clinton Gallery and got to see the work of someone I know from the Medicine Wheel Circle by the name of Tony. He did these sculptures out of clay. One of a buffalo skull rising out of a wall. Another of a Native American chief rising out of a wall. Another one of two red turtles. I loved his use of Native American themes in such an intriguing way. I told him the turtles are my favorite and he said he was inspired by the turtle in the creation story. Then I went to Beading Hearts and I purchased some size 11 orange delica beads for my earrings project and the owner DeDe said to come back and show her my beadwork that I made with the supplies I bought from her store. Then I went to check out a brand new store of handmade jewelry and ran into a friend Tranny. Then off to Three Sisters's Spirit where I listened to Barabara Stephan vocals and keyboards and Jeff Smith on a cajon. She had the most amazing voice and I felt like I was totally swept in the moment and I found myself singing along. She played a special song for me called "A mother's love." I cried. 3) Synchronicity I had a need and a friend from Virginia surprised me with a gift that met that need. It arrived and I was quite emotional. I feel truly blessed. I didn't ask her for the gift she just surprised me. I am grateful. 4) Issues of recovery this past was taking calculated risks. You know sometimes something comes along that is so important, but it can be very scary to pursue. But I find if I minimize the risks and think things through, I am better able to take a calculated risk because it's something very important to me and worthwhile. I am glad to be able to take a chance on someone and new situations. Buffy Group Leader of the Artist's Way Circle

Could we get something going for fall? I would like to discuss after the creation of art. There is downtime and what do people do.

Buffy's Check in Week 4 Greetings Fellow Travelers, It was reading deprivation week need I say more? Didn't watch any tv. Did a great job early in the week. Instant messaged someone from the Artist's Way Circle for support. Had a huge board meeting where I could see no way to wiggle out on responsibilities. Survived my 9th reading deprivation week. Whew 1. I wrote 7/7 pages in my Morning Pages and I realized you know that I have a much more authentic voice in my Morning Pages than I do in my novel. I really get to the heart of the matter if you will in the MPs. It is so cool to notice the difference that the power of sacred space in MPs create. I am soooo grateful I have maintained doing the MPs. 2. My artist date I spent several hours last week writing in my Two Step novel. I wrote 10 additional pages in my second draft of my novel. Trying to incorporate the freer voice I have in my MPs into my novel. Once I made the decision to do that I began to get into and really enjoy writing my novel again. I read a couple pages of this past week's work to a friend and she was amazed by how my words just flowed she said. She really was getting into it and said I did a great job. A very satisfying artist date. 3. Synchronicity was I was struggling with a particular issue, when someone comes up to me randomly and starts telling me this story that ironically addresses my dillemma. It was a positive omen and I felt strongly that the Creator directed her to come up to me to reveal this intimate story with me at that precise time. Creator is good....all of the time! 4. My biggest recovery issue is faith. I need to have faith that good things are meant for me. Buffy Group Leader of the Artist's Way Circle