"When I teach the concept of creative ceilings," writes Julia about what I had earlier that evening described as my own glass ceiling, "I often talk about Chicago, a city filled with old buildings that feature wonderful, high, ornate pressed-tin ceilings -- ceilings often obscured by a lower, "modern" Styrofoam ceiling. It used to be a game of mine to tap the panels of these Styrofoam ceilings (they weren't really solid) and see what glories they had hiding up above. In many ways, we are a lot like those buildings with the artificially low ceilings. The hidden gifts we believe to be far above our creative capacities are often merely obscured from our view. A tiny whisper of the gift may remain, tapping at our consciousness like a mouse scratching at the ceiling. When we hear the whispered wish of that gift, we say, "Oh, I could never do that! That's so far above my head...."
OMG. Immediately the Light dawned in my consciousness and I perceived the illusion of the ceiling and the gifts hidden above. That was my "Ah-ha" moment.
Like the writing practice I learned and loved from Natalie Goldberg's book about living the writer's life, Wild Mind, our next exercise in class was to write for six minutes about "The Gift". Here is my six-minute essay:
"The Gift" by Raphaella Vaisseau
How intriguing to visualize the hidden ceiling above the glass ceiling that I have felt so inadequate to crash through. Suddenly it felt light and airy up there, with smiling faces and cheering crowds who have been waiting for me to climb on up, jump up, rise up to be on a level I have held myself back from. I've known it was me all along, but still, nothing seemed to lift me above until now. I'm enjoying the effortlessness of it all, the floating, joyous feeling of ease and accomplishment I would have thought would come from hard work and breaking glass to force my way in, but the accomplishment that has a sense of knowing and a confidence and also has a joke about it. I'm falling into the arms of the wise ones, my guides and angels and all who have gone before me. It's a celebration and a party. I'm dancing now on what once was the glass ceiling I could not see above.
