Where'd You Go, Leonardo?

Recently, I attended a creativity workshop called “Where’d You Go, Leonardo?” It was designed to help me (and a few others ) to take the bold step of finding the artists within us and to silence our inner critics, so that we could be comfortable and confident in accepting our artist selves.

A week or two after attending such a workshop, Oliver, our facilitator, followed up with this email:

How is everyone? It was  great to meet all of you at our first WHERE'D YOU GO , LEONARDO Workshop ! 

More importantly, how is  your Inner Artist  these days? 

Are you listening to him/ her? 

What is he / she telling you ? 

How is your intuition or Inner teacher guiding you ? 

Is your Inner Critic easier  to handle? 

How are you bringing more art into your daily life? 

We would love to hear feedback about your artistic journey ! any questions, concerns, stories, insights and discoveries and developments are welcome ! Just email through this address. 

Here’s my reply:

Hi Oliver,

Thanks for following up with me, and helping me remember that there is an Inner Artist in me that should be allowed to find expression.

For two Wednesdays now, I have been attending a Music Class in Southvale, near Daang Hari Road, just outside Ayala Alabang. There are ten other participating partners, and we have a wonderful teacher who sings and plays the piano. She also lends us – every student – two kinds of drums, egg-shaped rattles without handles, and tambourines.

For an hour and a half, we sing, tap on our thighs, clap our hands, snap our fingers, beat two kinds of drums with either our hands or rainbow colored drum sticks, dance while twirling scarves, sing songs while doing appropriate hand motions.  

We sing with gusto – sing softly or loudly, or mumble the words. Never mind if we are out-of-tune.

There are no critics in this class! Hallelujah!

The dances are not scripted or prescribed– we just follow the music, follow the beat of our own drummer, and dance as we please.

There is no right or wrong way. We are free to sing, dance, jiggle, joggle, tap, swing, sway, gyrate, prance, hum, act, pantomime, whistle, whirl, twirl, and act like there is no teacher, no censor, no judge. 

What a most inspiring, liberating and exhilarating experience it is to be in a music class with toddlers, where mothers and grandmothers are encouraged to be as free as any one, two or three year old whom they are accompanying in this class.

Yes, Oliver, this is how I am finding my Leonardo, and loving it. As I thanked my daughter for inviting me to my granddaughters’ music class for toddlers, I told her that in my next life, I will ask God for a singing voice, and enough grace so that I could dance with my grandchildren, but for now, I didn’t care – I’ll just sing and dance as if I were two. Years old, that is. J