creativity is a need

When the words don’t want to come, I soon discover that my other creative endeavors are stymied, too. 

When I feel a block in my writing, I think to myself, “I need to stitch,” or, “I need to paint.” I gather my materials, feeling assured that the project will kickstart my writing again, only to find myself staring at my supplies. I find I’m stuck in that area, too.

The muse does not discriminate. If I am feeling resistance to writing, it’s creative resistance across the board. And this is a problem. Creativity is a need, not a want, in my world.

Fortunately, I have learned a few things from such moments. I don’t know how others do it, but they work for me.

Discipline. The thing about writing, for me, is you just do it. You just show up and start. It might be a rough start, but you generally get into gear at some point.

Running/walking outside. Probably the biggest single source of activated inspiration in my life. Meditation in motion, in nature, rain or shine. Goes hand in hand with discipline.

Nature. Just getting out in it always nurtures:  breathing the air, feeling the sunshine or wind, noticing all the colors, scents, and sensations.

Permission #1. Importantly, I must give myself permission to be creative, affirming that it is a legitimate and desirable activity for which I am perfectly qualified. I wrote a little about this topic here as well.

Permission #2. Every now and then, I also realize I need to step away for a moment because something is percolating. In those times, it is best to let go and allow the space. Good time to go for a run, huh?

Pretty simple stuff, but it works for me. Maybe you have some tricks of your own?

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Stand for Freedom

blank page

How is it that this blank page
is the only refuge
the only safe space for retreat
beckoning with promise of shelter
a place to finally breathe
and find nourishment
to discover the nurturing mother
and know hope
resting even, perhaps, in delight
while the demons scurry about
in their unending, frantic parade

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Stand for Freedom

happiness

happiness alights
in the moment of idea
the rapt work of creation
a thing made that speaks your soul

happiness meanders
whispering through the forest
stealing the breath in beauty
the mystery of which you are part

happiness skips
pausing long enough to see
to offer a smile or a gentle word
an act of aid unsullied by strings

happiness enfolds
seeing the light in your eyes
feeling the touch of your hand
the warmth of you near 

alive with creativity
awake in spirit
woven by community
blossoming between souls:
in connection, there to be discovered.

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Once again, a heartfelt thanks to Eugi’s Causerie for this week’s prompt: happiness.

different

people are rushing through
a very tightly closed tube
but
looks like
somehow
you’ve managed to leak out

careful 
it’s
lonely out there

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at the artist’s cottage, a drabble

Courtesy of Eugi’s Causerie

His cottage looked out to the waves and the sky. Paints, brushes, and canvasses in varying states of completion filled the space. His lonely time on the bluff fueled creative landscapes highly prized by art lovers. 

Then one day, the woman with the black hair knocked on his door. Now, he lay idle, his fingers mingled loosely in those raven strands, inspiration long evaporated in a haze of romance.

“Today, my love? Please, pick up your brush again,” she coaxed.

He knew he was done with landscapes. 

He stared into her sapphire eyes. New inspiration flickered.

“Yes, today,” he smiled.

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Thank you to Eugi’s Causerie for the prompt, “mingle,” and the accompanying photo.

creativity exercise

A to Z challenge, theme: anatomy, day 10: J
Flash fiction, 100 words

Teeth. Lots of teeth. A long tail.  And those little bitty wings, for whatever evolutionary purpose that might serve. The monster, of course, happens to be green.

The jaws are wide open. Because it’s hungry? Roaring? Singing? Laughing?

I don’t know. Is it a dinosaur? Or a demon? The disturbing thing is that it emerged from my imagination, and, in an odd sort of way, looks kind of friendly to me.

This. This is what happens when you leave me alone with paper to cut up and no plan except to mix things up and see what you can make.

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compassionate new year :)!

Perhaps 2021 can be the year we begin to build in earnest our own compassionate culture. After 2020’s time of introspection, its heavy dosing of fear, its many questions, lessons, and losses, maybe we can feel empowered to build something new.

We see, after all, the technocapitalist drill does not serve humanity, the other beings, the planet, quite so well. It’s really good at some things, but compassion — a key element for life — is missing entirely.

Let’s make this year the one where we bring deep, fundamental compassion to the system.  Let the system shiver and learn to adjust, or crumble.

Love. Health. Abundance. Creativity. Freedom.

dreams must be

The early morning, still dark and star-strewn, makes the space for dreams — the wisps of the inscrutable ones begging to be deciphered, and, too, the waking dreams of substance, dreams of the heart, the aphrodisiac of aliveness. 

These are the dreams that make us more of who we are, who we must become, as surely as a tender sprout must one day flourish with extravagant blossoms whether seen or unseen by human eyes.

Some of us are happily, if not easily, driven by those dreams. For others, we must allow ourselves to notice them— these dreamy sprouts — then nurture them.

Our dreams prescribe wholeness, not careers or salaries. Especially in a time when we are more and more reduced to and perceived in our roles as commodities, we must dream, and go there, even if in bits and pieces. There is nothing inconsequential about it. Do not look to the status quo to place a value on your dreams.

Dreams, big and small and in between, are crucial to our own lives, our social underpinnings, and to the globe we trod. They are not defined by the marketplace. The shapes and colors and sounds of our dreams make our world shine with love and creativity and freedom, irrespective of what can be bought and sold. They assert our very existence. Dreams are revolutionary.

If dreams die, if we forget how to dream, we must see it for the existential crisis it is. We must find our way back to dreams any which way we can. 

It may mean finding a guide or a friend to help, or it may mean revisiting childhood dreams and experimenting there, or it could mean learning something entirely new to break the hold of the entrenched thought patterns that trap us in our dreamless state. It could be a new language, or a craft, or a place, a history, a skill, that turns out to be the trigger that allows our dreams back into our lives. 

We must try, because dreams must be. Dreams are fundamental to life. And when we fan the flames of our dreams back into existence, we must tend the fire. Dreams hold our gift, to be cherished and honored in love by all. The world needs the revolution of our dreams more than ever.

fear of the page

I view blogging as a practice. Kind of like meditation.

Blogging involves a discipline. It helps me show up. It is a conduit to my creative self – which goes way beyond writing.

It’s just the very tip of that self that blogging accesses. Blogging sort of sits at the outer entrance to my creative self, but it helps keep the door open.

It keeps fear of the page at bay.

I noticed in my drawing class the formidable fear of the page that pretty much everyone in the room experienced.

The teacher told us what to do and started a timer. We all just sat there and stared.

We eventually learned that the point of the timer was to force us past that fear of the page – to make us jump fearlessly onto it.

I experience this with creative projects of my own inspiration as well. I get a vision. I get excited. I can’t wait to bring it to fruition.

But then I notice that I am resisting it. I don’t have time to work on it. I don’t have the perfect supplies. I’m not, you know, in the right mood for that. I can’t find my scissors. I don’t know how.

Ha. That is one thing blogging teaches you. Mood, time, supplies, coffee, whatever, the point is to do it. Recognize the resistance and tackle it front on. Just make yourself go, dammit.

The longer you practice, you eventually learn that the creative self does inevitably show up when thus called forth – albeit some days better than others.

Even better, such a practice helps you to become more aware of the existence of that creative self and its awesome depths – as well as your capacity to access it and allow it.

And the more of that self that shows up, the better.

So, for today, just practicing. 🙂

lessons

I am ever and always becoming.

I may reach a plateau and coast for awhile, but apparently this is just the universe’s way of giving me a little breather. Then, the next lesson starts.

Except it’s not a new lesson, even though it feels fresh every time it starts. No, it is the same lesson I keep having to learn over and over again. The universe is absolutely persistent that I get this, once and for all, exactly right. It must be a pretty important lesson, eh?

And, why, pray tell, am I so resistant to it? Why do I flunk over and over again? And why does the universe not just kick me out of school?

The thing is, I actually know the answers to most of my own questions about this now. So apparently I have actually made progress in the curriculum. Maybe I’m not actually flunking anymore, I’m just getting C’s.

Why not finally go for it? Why not do all the homework and try for an A? Be an honor student? Be ready to graduate?

Yikes, what happens then?

Well, no fear, because if there’s one thing I’ve learned – the universe does have my back. And it’s all – every single bit of it – about love. I can trust that.

I am safe, if challenged, in the loving arms of the universe that is the absolute champion of critical thinking, innovation, embracing the arts, practical experience, fearless exploration, and radical education reform.

Confidence. I am good enough. I am smart enough. I can stop judging myself. I can do this without thinking. All I have to do is bring all of me to the party.

Okay. Pencils are sharpened. New notebooks in the backpack. No need for new text books, hehe, I’ve got them all.

Here we go again.