It's official. Today is the release of Marney K. Makridakis new book Creating Time - Using Creativity to Reinvent the Clock and Reclaim Your Life. If you've ever said "I don't have enough time," this book is for you. If you've ever thought "I wish I had more time for my art," this book is for you.
Listen to Marney describe it in her own words:
I knew this book would be fascinating to read, because I took the Artella class "From Here to ARTernity." It was the first time I heard the idea that there are two ways of viewing time - linear verses non-linear, kronos verses kairos. As artists, we enter into kairos without even realizing it. What am I talking about? Well, I don't want to spoil your appetite. The answer is in Marney's book Creating Time. The answer is thought-provoking indeed!
During the past couple of weeks, you may have seen an illustrated haiku or two (hey, that rhymes!) on my blog about the subject of time. I love haiku! Creating Time inspired me to write "time" haiku by including a poetic pause at the beginning of each chapter. The poetic pauses are haiku written in the five, seven, five syllable format. Their purpose is to encourage you to pause and think about time and what it means to you. Probably no big surprise, but I've written one that I saved to include in this post today.
In case you haven't guessed, I'm especially excited about this book, because Marney chose to include two of my digital collages in her book. (Did you notice my header up above?) Wow! I would like to include them here, but that would spoil the excitement of you seeing them in the book.
Just in case you absolutely want to see a preview of the book, though, Marney has given me permission to post a couple of pages. (Thanks, Marney!)
Time Sighs When You’re Having Fun
An Excerpt from Creating Time by Marney
Makridakis
The perception of time is the quintessential human paradox.
We often want to escape ourselves and lose track of time, and yet when we
become fully aware of the gift of time, we are more present and in touch. As
mentioned in chapter 1, I see a solution in becoming less aware of time but more aware of the
present moment. This leads us to a certain state of bliss that
often is described as “losing track of time” or “timelessness.”
We all have had moments when we lost track of time or became
unaware of the time passing. There are several ways to describe such
experiences. In 1964,
Abraham Maslow coined the term peak experiences to explain those moments when we are
fully engaged with something outside ourselves. In his book Finding Flow: The Psychology of
Engagement with Everyday Life, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
popularized the concept of flow,
a mental state in which we are fully immersed in what we are doing through
energized focus, full involvement, and success in the process of the activity.
During peak experiences or flow activities, it’s not so much
that time goes faster, but that time seems to dissolve altogether. We’ve all
heard that time flies when we are having fun, but when I’ve been in the flow
state, I have felt that time neither flies nor stalls...instead, time sighs. When we have those experiences of time sighing,
everything feels different. The example that sticks out for me occurred several
years ago, when we had just moved to Hawaii and my husband had returned to the
mainland to finish packing up our home there. I spent two months in a new home,
on an island where I didn’t know anyone. It was a unique opportunity for inward
exploration and reflection, and it triggered the most prolific period of
creativity I’d ever experienced. With few responsibilities or obligations, and
with no sense of linear time, I did little else but paint wildly colorful
canvases around the clock.
I can remember a sensation of blurriness in the air as I was
painting, as if the edges of my experience were fusing into something else,
perhaps the very borders of time fading away. Though I’ve never felt it again
to quite that extent, I still recognize this gossamer-silk sensation during
times when I am in a creative flow; I’ve even experienced it a few times as
I’ve been writing this book. I don’t know what it means, and I can scarcely
even describe it; I just know that everything takes on a different quality when
we are in the flow, when time is sighing. When I asked students to describe
their experience during the flow state, they shared some of the following
impressions:
• “Colors become
brighter.”
• “I feel a buzzing
sensation inside.”
• “I feel really, really
awake.”
• “There’s a bit of
sparkle in the air.”
As a child, I remember, I fantasized about what it would be
like to live inside of a snow globe. I think this fantasy was rooted in growing
up in Texas and longing for snow. And yet, even then, perhaps part of me longed
for the still perfection of a glitter-filled utopia and the metaphor for
timelessness that it provides. In those sparkly little dome-shaped wonderlands,
there is only the present, only the now, only that world. Nothing else matters —
appointments, responsibilities, negotiations. Everything is flowing,
shimmeringly encapsulated in the moment, encased in a flow globe.
In real life, we can call it flow, peak experience, or losing track of time —
different labels to describe the same type of experience, an experience that we
all seem to crave. These timeless moments align us with the truisms of who we
are. They unify us with the world on which we spin. And they provide our souls
with deep evidence that outside of the obvious mortal limitations we have on
this planet, the perception of time is completely subjective, and just as it
was when we were children, time is therefore always under our control instead of the other way
around.
Marney K. Makridakis is
the author of Creating Time. She
founded the Artella online community for creators of all kinds and the print
magazine Artella. A popular speaker and workshop leader, she created the
ARTbundance approach of self-discovery through art. She lives in Dallas, Texas.
Visit her online at http://www.artellaland.com.
Excerpted from the book Creating Time: Using Creativity to Reinvent the Clock and Reclaim Your
Life ©2012 by Marney
Makridakis. Published with
permission of New World Library http://www.newworldlibrary.com
Is that deep or what?
Now comes the really exciting part! You'll want to order the book today. Why? This innovative book turns the concept of time management upside-down and creatively shows you that you do have all the time you need and can create a rich new experience with time that consistently supports you. You can order from any online bookseller any time this week and get an awe-inspiring bundle of time-expanding bonuses, and if you order Today, April 17 only, you’ll also get over $125 worth of Artella merchandise. Isn’t it time for a new kind of time? Click on the Amazon icon below to order your copy.
Enjoy your new way of experiencing time!
1 comment:
Hooray! It's a wonderful day! Your collages are awesome!
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