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January 26, 2016 at 10:10 am #13697
Progress Log 1
“What I am letting go of RIGHT NOW to create the space, courage and confidence I need to reach the top of Launch Summit:”I am letting go, finally, of beating myself up for not being a creature of ROUTINE. I let go of the fear that without ROUTINE I will fail everything, and with that I also let go of becoming Reactive instead. Neither Routines or Reactivity work. Being stuck in limited Routines, trying to create them as the foundation for my life and then getting angry and despondent when they fail doesn’t work. Giving up and becoming purely Reactive to the world ALSO doesn’t work as it limits my potential for creativity and productivity.
INSTEAD I will focus on finding, unfolding, a life of RHYTHM. Having my own heart led, body nourishing daily rhythm – this will be my structure, from which I can trust that enjoyable effort and work will come.
Thanks guys for the lesson on Scheduling Success and having a Daily Ritual. These are helping me shift from goal obsessed to value orientated life. It is a grand experiment, but so far so good. Having nourishing rhythm that I choose, grow, evolve, shall be the foundation. No more setting goals and structure and boxes that simply don’t work for me, other than for creating negating self talk. Boo to that!
January 26, 2016 at 11:57 am #13725YAY you @catherine_wildfox. This is a fantastic stand you’re taking for yourself. Stoked for your self supportive commitment to find a rhythm that picks you up rather than beats you down in negative self talk. Smiling big for your yes!
January 28, 2016 at 10:02 am #14056Progress Log 2
This week I’m learning you can’t have late night drinking adventures AND still find it easy to get up at 7am and have our morning routine. BUT I’m incredibly impressed by Jeff and I for GETTING UP ANYWAY and encouraging each other. Even with headaches. We have made it to the ocean every morning, and I love the hit of getting nature in, seeing eagles and waves, and feeling Full of Virtue. Jeff loves claiming time for his own project before he starts his work day, and I am loving NOT going straight to emails/texts/other people communicating with me. I have decided whatever it is, it can wait till 10am. The morning is MINE. I’m using brain.fm and an app called Forest on my phone. Realising that connecting people to useful content (like brain.fm is really valuable and that I don’t need to write ALL the content for an ecourse but I can help organise it for people. I’m also seeing the power of breaking things down into small bite-sized steps for people rather than overwhelming them. I am liking getting badges and laughing at the videos.
I’ve started learning Animation again! Expect some animations appearing soon.
I’m feeling really excited because after yesterday’s group coaching I’ve been looking bigger and deeper for a TRUE VISION that will really motivate me to create something. I have found a thread for that vision now and have started pulling it. I am also getting clearer on what my market might be, and how I really want to help people. This is something I’ve been stuck on for a while and I’m grateful to feel it unlocking.
Jeff and I are starting to smell like Starbucks from our morning ritual of doing writing etc here. It is perhaps a necessary sacrifice. They have a big table with massive windows, its nice to have the sun come in and inspire us. I’m feeling a bit smug about being “one of those people” who is up early typing things in their laptop and looking all intense and creative 😀
January 28, 2016 at 11:00 am #14071Such a great progress report @catherine_wildfox!! I am stoked to see you and Jeff starting your days inspired and creative. It’s a great way to go!! Even if you do smell of coffee beans and vanilla. Not a bad thing.
Glad you’re digging the rewards of the adventure and that our silly sense of humour is landing home for ya.
High fives for getting up, even when you have a pounding head and sandpaper tongue from too much fun the night before. Proud of you two!
We can’t wait to see those animations!
January 28, 2016 at 11:01 am #14073Such a great progress report @catherine_wildfox!! I am stoked to see you and Jeff starting your days inspired and creative. It’s a great way to go!! Even if you do smell of coffee beans and vanilla. Not a bad thing.
Glad you’re digging the rewards of the adventure and that our silly sense of humour is landing home for ya.
High fives for getting up, even when you have a pounding head and sandpaper tongue from too much fun the night before. Proud of you two!
We can’t wait to see those animations!
January 28, 2016 at 11:08 pm #14138I’ve made a 3 second video of a fox lady, can we upload files here or just images?
Progress Report 3 – not an e-course
I started talking with a friend about ecourses who has done B-School. I noticed how unenthusiastic I became as she gave me opinions on marketing and such things and then I had an important revelation – I don’t even want to make a ‘e-course’. At least, I don’t want to call it “e-course”.
Actually what I want to create is more of an exciting gamified mythic adventure that takes people on a journey though their personal underworld. It’s going to be a great chance to collect my experience and skills around the body, sexuality, creativity, archtypes, shadow work, myths and journeys and storytelling. And have fun with it! So it’s something more like an interactive story-adventure that is filled with learning, transformation, guidance and edgy fun. Not a finished idea but a good start.
You know those wonderful books filled with “exercises”? I never do those exercises, even if I love the book! But I DID do the meditation in the “Big Why” video, followed through with the journalling. The Experience just “happened” to me, and I responded. The gamification element is encouraging me to actually adapt my REAL life patterns (so I can get the badges and tick things off and get the next ‘piece’ of the adventure…see what the video /next episode is). There is something in this that works so much better than writing a book filled with exercises. I dont want people to read a book, I want them to bring myth and magic into their daily life experience.
So that’s been my revelation today. I’m going to stop calling it an e-course, because that sounds like school and work. BOO to more school and work. YAY to more playfun and art-magic.
January 29, 2016 at 5:02 pm #14198I really enjoyed reading this one Catherine. It’s so cool to see how different people are responding to the adventure we’ve laid out for you. High five for going for it and for choosing what feels right and inspiring for you!
January 31, 2016 at 8:40 am #14424Catherine, I love what you are writing, and most of all, the way you are both going with your flow AND watching and learning from your observations as you move. Exciting and exhilarating.
Words as symbols, have great power, don’t they? Not just the power to create, but just as valuable, the power to inform about whether we are on our mark or not. There is a word that was given to me that I do not love. I tried to love it. But now, I have decided not to force the word, but to go with my flow. And–wha la! I am experiencing the energy, the glow, the joy, the love, the–dare I say it–bliss. Words. Who cares? Except that the ones we choose, the ones that speak for us, are the ones with heart and truth and soul. Thanks for sharing your adventure, WildFoxLady.
February 4, 2016 at 6:16 pm #15836Progress Log 4 – Alchemy
So, the idea that I thought was most ‘out there’ is becoming the central piece of my adventure, the most gripping and exciting right now. I’m mapping out an Alchemist’s Apprentice adventure, which will teach people how to develop “alchemical thinking” and be able to create their own transmutation circles to effect real change in their life, through having fun and creativity, as well as embracing that they will be making a mess at times and seeing it all as part of the great life experiment. More on all this to come. But I spent almost 2 hours chatting with @Luma where I articulated for the first time to someone not Jeff what it is I want to do, who it’s for and why it’s relevant, and she didn’t say I was crazy but actually that it sounded fun and she wanted to do it.
I wanted to share this quote – it comes from an Alchemy study program I found today, and fits pretty well how this eCourseAdventure feels. @Sharyn, thank you for yout words and I thought you might like this too :
“When you are inspired by some great purpose,
some extraordinary project,
all your thoughts break their bonds;
your mind transcends limitations,
your consciousness expands in every direction,
and you find yourself in a new, great and wonderful world.
Dormant forces, faculties, and talents become alive,
and you discover yourself to be a greater person by far than you ever dreamed yourself to be!
– Pantanjali (Yogic Alchemist, 2nd Century BC) “
February 4, 2016 at 6:38 pm #15851Yes. That’s it. Yes.
February 5, 2016 at 10:01 am #15911Go for it–the “most out there”–that’s where the fun is, on the edge {grin}.
February 5, 2016 at 10:16 am #15915Wow, loving where this is going and thank you so much for that quote. @andyfreist and I were talking yesterday, wondering what people’s perspectives were on this whole adventure and reading that made me smile 🙂
February 17, 2016 at 8:08 am #17334Progress Report 5 – will this ever work?
I finally got over my perfection/need to know all the details NOW self and got something up on arkitect forest – https://thegreatecourseadventure.com/groups/architekt-forest/forum/topic/alchemists-adventure-journeys-of-transformation/
I have been cycling through enthusiasm and despair which is a good sign I think – enthusiasm that the idea is great, despair that I can ever put into a format that will work or that other people will be interested in it. Jeff has been a great support as he is brilliant at bullet pointing my long rambling thoughts.
I have been studying into some rich alchemical literature, and while I know it as value it is almost invariably so esoteric/hermetic waffling OR deep jungian suitable for psychotherapy and dream work only. I’ve not found anyone who has done what I want to do – which is bring the concepts of alchemy into the modern, digital age, through the lens of art, imagination and storys. Jeff and I went to Harry Potter Studios in London and it was a huge emotional shot in the arm – the place is packed, and Harry Potter is full of that sense of bringing old magic into the “muggle world”. There is actually a lot of alchemy and symbols in it and all around me I saw children and adults who LOVE a world with wizard school and magic in it.
I’m keen to get to Creatora heights and work on a small scale “test” course – something to validate, test the waters, and see how people like it.
February 17, 2016 at 11:20 am #17352“I have been cycling through enthusiasm and despair which is a good sign I think”
I know this cycle well, Catherine, and just wanted you to know that: 1. I think you are on to something wonderful in your course idea 2. Brad & Andy promised us this would be a sloppy, messy process. And turns out the slop–and struggle–are real. And also, as I said in my recent progress note–real valuable. 3. I applaud your willingness and determination to get to your own gold. At some point we will get the right formula for turning the lead in our head into the gold we know it to truly be, but for now–back to the lab (for me. And back again. And again.)
I am finding this continual process of refining to be both aggravating and incredibly purifying. Coming face to face with all the self-limiting judgments, fears, and legacy beliefs about worth, personal value and failure. If they are not found and burned away, they will just continue to show up again someplace else. Possibly in the next project. Or lifetime. So it might as well be now. And in this place, on this mountain with other “differently designed spirits” who are working our own alchemical process in one way or another.
I love your course concept. Would–will–want to take it for myself. FYI, I recently was gifted with a mandala from Mark Golding. Not exactly sure where in the UK he is, but he is a true wizard. He regards himself as an alchemist, basically doing what you are speaking of, only he is using art and creating personalize and quite unusual visual “mandala maps.” He is out on the limb. And by all accounts doing fine. And in one of those throw-away comments we make in conversation or when we are making a point in another direction, he said “Alchemy is rather “she-she” right now.” Meaning, just what you observed at the Harry Potter Studio. People are hungry for something. They intuitively know that in order to find the “gold” in the mundane, ordinariness of life, they must be willing to go into The Mystery. Into Magic.
I will be watching you as you go. And celebrating your breakthrough’s and hopefully able to offer some “breadcrumbs to keep going,” such as have been offered to me. Such a relief and joy to be given signs that we are headed in the right direction and to just keep putting one foot in front of the other.
This is magical work. I hear in your words “Truth.” Maybe at some point some of us can gather around a campfire and share our messy creations and in the gentle yet powerful company of kind hearted brave souls, share the benefit of our eyes, ears, and good minds with one another. I, for one, certainly can’t tell when I have gone too far off the esoteric cliff and lost everyone or when I have nailed something clearly, compellingly and irresistibly.
All this to say–Hold Your Light and Shine On! I believe you are going to have a magical course.
March 9, 2016 at 11:57 am #19421Progress Report 6 – Castles in the Swamp
I have this monty python in my head –
Monty Python – building castles
“King of Swamp Castle: When I first came here, this was all swamp. Everyone said I was daft to build a castle on a swamp, but I built in all the same, just to show them. It sank into the swamp. So I built a second one. And that one sank into the swamp. So I built a third. That burned down, fell over, and then sank into the swamp. But the fourth one stayed up. And that’s what you’re going to get, Son, the strongest castle in all of England.
Monty Python and the Holy Grail”This pretty much captures how I feel at the moment – it’s been a bit swampy the last few weeks and sometimes it seems the more you build the castle the more things sink into the swamp (and sometimes catch fire dramatically as they do so)
Joining the coaching seminar was great this morning and I realize how important the sense of love and community is to this process. In order to create a course about alchemy I appear to activated massive alchemical processes in myself and some of the biggest blocks, issues, and challenges I’ve been sort of papering over and procrastinating from are becoming apparent. Starting work on the Manifesto sort of threw me — because I’m midway through working out what I really value and believe in – it was great to hear this morning that THATS OK and actually the manifesto will refine and grow as I do and the course does.
I’m also starting to view the Ecourse as it’s own thing, that requires love and care to grow.
@Sharyn – thank you for such lovely words and thoughts – will be back up on the mountain so see you soon!
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