Cross-Pollinate Your Ideas

Musing…
Recently I learned about a medieval French poetry form called a Triolet. It’s a highly structured verse of 8 lines, with this pattern:  A, B, a, A, a, b, A, B (a rhymes with A and b rhymes with B).

So there are really only four lines to come up with due to the repetition. Why am I telling you this? Because I wrote one with four lines from our blog posts. An “aha!” moment: WHY NOT USE THE BLOG ITSELF TO GENERATE A POEM?

Imprints from our Blog

Setting the stage…

Muses just keep appearing.

Facing the blank page.

Setting the stage…

Facing the blank page.

Lines running through my head while I’m driving.

Setting the stage…

Muses just keep appearing.

Get Fired Up:

This is about play, playing with what’s on hand.

*What do you have already going on that can generate another project?

*How does one endeavor feed another? How are your endeavors linked?

*How can you move between them and enrich both? 

From Your Center…to Your Center

original watercolor by Kate Kroska

Musing…
Speaking of mindfulness, when you pay attention to your movement forward in life, from where in your body do you initiate your next step? “Obviously,” you say, “with my foot.” Well, yes, the foot does have to move forward. But if you back up abit in your perspective, you may realize that you move from your intention, and that intention originates from your center, consciously or unconsciously. Let’s refer to it as your heart-mind center, and let’s locate it in the body space that includes your heart and gut.

Just imagine, if you will, what your journey would be like, if you truly allowed your heart-mind center to lead the way….AND to lead you in a conscious, mindful way.


Kate's Turn:
I recently had an opportunity to walk a labyrinth. This is a path, created usually in a round shape, with a series of concentric paths, that twist and turn, until you find yourself in the center…and then , from that center, you walk the return path to depart. It may look like a maze, but is different, in that a maze has many dead ends, that force you to back up and try again to find the way through; a labyrinth has only one way in that always leads to the center, and one way back out. Labyrinths date back centuries, are found in many areas of the world, and have more recently become popular as sacred sites for ceremony and spiritual renewal.

One Step at a Time

watercolor image
by Sandra Guiloff

Musing…
Walking meditation involves consciously placing one foot in front of the other, fully aware of all aspects of the process, breathing, living fully in the present moment.  The destination is not the focus; the process is what counts.  Open, curious, aware, seeing for the first time, moment to moment.

So also is this applicable to creativity.  The Muse invites us in EVERY moment to be open, curious, aware and seeing anew, the life we live.  Numerous opportunities to live our creative selves abound.  As stated last week, just taking the first step, with no end in sight, naturally leads to the next step….and the next…

But we must be mindful…and we must take that step.

Get Fired Up:

*What do you need to increase your mindfulness of the steps you take each day?

*How can you let your curiosity, your openness respond to the Muse’s invitations more often?

*What is the next step you wish to take?

Begin...with no end in sight!

Musing…

Picking up where we left off in “Expect Your Muse”…making peace with muses. This could be a title for a poem, Making Peace With Muses. And then that’s all it takes, recognize a title, put it on a page and go…or go only so far.

Maybe leave the title there, walk away, and come back to it. Trust that something will surface -- or that this will lead to something else, another title, another idea altogether because it’s a start, like flipping a switch.  

Charise’s turn:

So let me segue to the muse effect while teaching yoga.  As a teacher, I have a structure and intention, but mostly I am moving into and out of yoga poses, through yoga poses, without any thought about it.  My verbal cues have to catch up with what I’m doing, and I can’t lead by naming poses because I don’t know what pose we’re going into until I get there! 

Tend Your Creative Garden

doorway to Vien Thuc's temple garden 

Musing…
“An artist needs a garden”, Vietnamese monk and painter Vien Thuc told me when I visited him in 1993.  We spent the day hanging out with him in the garden surrounding his temple in Dalat – the outdoor haven where he meditates and then creates abstract paintings with Zen like sayings.  He creates his art quickly, like a bursting from within him, not carelessly but with all the energy that has accumulated from the stillness of sitting in his garden. His art grows there in tandem with nature, just as plentiful. 

Get Fired Up:

*What puts you into a creative space?

*How do you bring yourself to focus your energy on a creative or artistic endeavor?

*What are the ways to harness your creative energy (such as meditation, getting outside in nature, attending to your physical well-being)?

This is all about setting the stage for your muse to show up.