Rest: Is Re-membering

Musing….
In the depth of winter, I finally learned that within me there lay an invincible summer.

--Albert Camus

Winter is the season of rest – for the earth, for hibernating animals, for humans as well. Nature teaches us to slow down, be quiet, and invites us to enter a stillness as of softly falling snow and a silent star-studded sky.  Allowing yourself to go to that deeply profound area of calm within you fosters a remembrance of who you are at your deepest core.  Pulling inward, like curling up in front of a fireplace, gives you a reprieve from the fragmenting of busy lives in order to re-member your deepest, truest self.

Kate’s Turn:
Summer and autumn are high-energy seasons; much is produced and harvested. In the creative cycle, this is an exciting time, full of activity and production. And it can also leave us exhausted and depleted at times. Having moved almost 4 months ago, I am gladly enjoying the winter’s rest. I’ve dedicated twilight as a meditation time to enter this stillness,  to gradually release outward activity for inward nurturance of who I am…..values, passions, longings that direct my living. I re-member that my expression of creativity in watercolors feeds my spirit, and so I must factor that in now that I am more settled. In this winter’s depth of silence, I can connect to that innate creative wellspring within me.

Get Fired Up:
Give yourself presents (presence) this season in re-membering your lovely self…Blessings!

The bud
stands for all things,
even for those things that don’t flower,
for everything flowers, from within, of self-blessing;
though sometimes it is necessary
to reteach a thing its loveliness,
to put a hand on its brow
of the flower
and retell it in words and in touch
it is lovely
until it flowers again from within, of self-blessing. . .
     — Galway Kinnell from the poem Saint Francis and the Sow in Three Books

Rest: Is Constructive

Musing…

If rest were about stopping, or quitting, or being passive, I would have left this post blank to demonstrate this. Instead, let’s entertain the idea that rest is active. Rest is active because life has a fullness of presence within you no matter what you are doing, or not doing.  

Charise’s Turn:

Have you heard of constructive rest? This is a technique I learned in the early 1980s as part of my education for a master’s degree in dance/movement therapy. What we did is lie on the floor with our feet planted and knees bent and arms crossed over each other at our chests, even allowing the knees to rest against each other so that the least amount of effort was employed to support the body (described further in Human Movement Potential by Lulu Sweigard, PhD). 

Our instructor, Andre Bernard, led us through a visualization of being a suit of clothes, allowing for more slackness of muscles and emptying of holding patterns. This was a way of coming to neutral, of inhibiting habits of tension. He told us that stress is necessary in life, that a stress free body is a dead body, that eliminating stress is not a goal, that greater ease in the body and more efficiency of movement can be accomplished with constructive rest.  

Get Fired Up:

Get on the floor!  Place the soles of your feet onto the surface you are lying on so that your knees are bent, and allow your arms to drape across your chest or at your sides. Close your eyes and follow your breathing, rest.

Do it again another day. Get on the floor! 

Rest: The Gift of Idleness

Musing…  
Shakespeare said “Intervals of idleness are essential to creative work.”  The Idler (UK magazine) proposes that idleness has little in common with laziness; rather, it’s more about the notion of contemplative productivity with the minimum of fuss (philosophy of Gavin Pretor-Pinney, co-founder of The Idler magazine). ALL the rest of nature does this during the winter season – why don’t we?

Kate’s Turn:  I’ve been anything BUT idle recently. In fact, I feel constantly pressured by so much to do in such little time; I’m still unpacking boxes, still looking for work, still developing a coaching practice, still shopping for winter clothing, etc. But instinctively, the decreasing amount of daylight and decreasing temperatures lead me to pull inward and rest. I feel like just watching the leaves fall, like basking in the yellow glow of the sunny maple leaves, like staring at the bonfire flames.  I’m trusting that all these outcomes will be generated in due time, if only I take the necessary time to sit within my core essence and be in sync with all of nature by slowing down to a point of minimum fuss. 

Following these examples of nature, I’ve introduced a new meditation into my routine at twilight.  While quieting my outer self during the fading light, I’m connecting to a new depth within myself-that stillpoint of core essence, Source Energy, from which all of my life flows. Resting in this place is a nurturing activity for future creative expression.

Get Fired Up:  
As we enter a busy time of year in outward activity, how will you honor your internal well of creativity with your presence?  
Listen and respond as idleness beckons……….

Rest: Sitting with Change

Musing…

“Don't go outside your house to see flowers.

My friend, don't bother with that excursion.

Inside your body there are flowers.

One flower has a thousand petals.

That will do for a place to sit.

Sitting there you will have a glimpse of beauty

inside the body and out of it,

before gardens and after gardens. “

-- Kabir

Charise’s Turn: My twenty three year old daughter was just promoted to a management position in her company which requires her to relocate from her hometown to Boston. After the flurry of activity to get packed, make arrangements for moving, visit with family and friends, the day to leave arrives. Departing for this major life change consists of sitting in the car, sitting in the airport, sitting in the plane. Sitting allows for a break from busyness, from doingness, to rest in the place between places, neither there nor here. This rest is rich with all the life she’s lived so far and all the life ahead of her.

It is while sitting together just in front of the security line at the airport that she puts her arms around me and says, “I feel sad to be leaving”.  This isn’t about second thoughts, or wanting to turn back or stop moving forward. This is about the absolute insistence of growth.

Get Fired Up:

Within you is the imperative for growth and creativity -- wherever you go and when you are at rest or between places, goals, destinations, certainties. 

Sit with your self, with who you are, as you are.

Routine/Ritual: Practice, Practice, Practice

Musing…
”Ten thousand hours of practice is required to achieve the level of mastery associated with being a world-class expert-in anything. In study after study, of composers, basketball players, fiction writers, ice skaters, concert pianists, chess players, master criminals, and what have you, this number comes up again and again. Ten thousand hours is equivalent to roughly three hours a day, or twenty hours a week, of practice over ten years. Of course, this doesn't address why some people don't seem to get anywhere when they practice, and why some people get more out of their practice sessions than others. But no one has yet found a case in which true world-class expertise was accomplished in less time. It seems that it takes the brain this long to assimilate all that it needs to know to achieve true mastery.”
      -- from the book This Is Your Brain On Music, The Science of a Human Obsession by Daniel J. Levitin

Kate’s Turn:

I LOVE this fact!  It promises me results if I show up with perseverance. Of course, one needs to choose the areas you want proficiency in to invest those hours of practice. I have experience of this in many areas of my life: cooking, learning Spanish, sailing and other sports, my professional work, etc.  And most recently, learning watercolor painting. And currently, tap dancing!!! Even in the 2^nd lesson, I improved to my great delight. 

There is another practice that could be implied here: doing something daily to support your creative energies. During my morning walk, I ground myself, and remind myself of my expansive and creative nature. This daily reminder creates myself anew.  It is a time to reflect on how I create my life each moment, in my thoughts and in my actions. Am I practicing for the results I wish to achieve?

Get Fired Up:

Review all the things you’ve become accomplished at, simply through practice. 

Reflect on this question:  What am I creating for my life?

Have you heard about the guy who asked the taxi driver “How do you get to Carnegie Hall?”  The taxi driver replied, “PRACTICE!”

Routine/Ritual: Get Clear

Musing…
"You say grace before meals. All right. But I say grace before the concert and the opera, and grace before the play and pantomime, and grace before I open a book, and grace before sketching, painting, swimming, fencing, boxing, walking, playing, dancing, and grace before I dip the pen in the ink." -- G.K. Chesterton

Charise’s Turn: 
I didn’t say grace before beginning this writing, but I did do something I call “clearing”.  Clearing is making the space for the best possible outcome. You may have heard of The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron and the technique of writing when you first wake up, writing without correcting, without stopping, emptying thoughts and feelings on paper. It’s basically a dump – it may be valuable in and of itself or it may be valuable to get the dump out of the way so something else can come through. My friend Debra also refers to a “verbal vomit”, where you spit out your thoughts even if they seem off track or unpolished in order for some organization to follow.  

Clearing is simple. It might look like this: I say to myself “okay” and breathe quietly for a few moments. It might be a matter of bringing my hands together in prayer fashion and ask that what I’m about to do benefit myself and everyone else involved. It could be lighting a candle to bless the moment. These are all rituals that put import on what I am doing and also honor the power my actions have to make an impact, however tiny or large.

Get Fired Up:

Choose a way to get clear before you engage in an activity/endeavor/pursuit – 

several deep breaths, saying an intention to yourself, lighting a candle, saying grace or blessings, spitting out thoughts (on paper or verbally) until you get to an “ah” or an "aha" that clears the air for something new! 

Routine/Ritual: Change it up!

Musing…

Now this may seem contradictory to change up your routine.  Even in a routine, variation brings a freshness, a new perspective that can add richness and vitality. Brain health specialists strongly recommend choosing multiple changes in your routine so that you continue to create new pathways in the brain in order to ward off atrophy and dementia…use your non-dominant hand, go about your tasks in a different order, hum a tune when you feel like sighing, etc. While being committed to a practice, whether it be creative expression, exercise or spiritual deepening, taking a new turn or trying something different could invite you to a whole new ride, which you may decide to integrate into your “routine”. 

Kate’s Turn:

I have LOTS of change in my routine, as I just moved last month. While much of my previous routine of creative expression has been let go of, I still have been able to maintain my exercise and spiritual practices throughout this transition.  And the richness of new walking paths in the woods, the artistic bounty I see at the farmer’s markets, and the Indian summer colors in nature all are like mulch, adding new life to my creative garden. My creative expression is now in culinary or decorating pursuits, as I never stop being creative – it’s my nature!  I trust all the new pathways in my brain will bring vitality as I embrace this life change.

Get Fired Up:

What routines would you like to enliven?  What would be a new way to do the same routine?

Have fun introducing some “change” in your patterns!!

Routine/Ritual: Self-Care

Musing…

My friend Charmaine, brilliant founder of SynergyDance, called me on my birthday to ask how I was planning to spend the day. I said I had left the day open to see what I felt like doing, let whim dictate, no plans until dinner with family. She said, “You’re having a moon day”.  A “moon day” from her perspective is a day to tend to yourself, your feminine energy.

Charise’s turn:

I assumed that my “moon day” would be a passive sort of experience, something like leisure time. What a misconception! It's more like putting yourself in a director's seat, making choices and seeing what plays out. As I quietly attuned to my internal world, feelings stirred by conversations with faraway friends and family came to the surface. I decided to hang out with these feelings, like having a mad tea party with myself. All manner of distinct characters showed up to ask for a cup to pour whatever they had brought to the table to share. A welcome hostess I was, until the revelry of clinking cups and sloshing contents became more draining than entertaining. Best let the party fizzle out, erase my urges to get stuff done and follow more inner cues such as improvising to music, soaking in a bath, journaling, and continue to erase my urges to get stuff done. Erase ____________ get stuff done. Erase __________________________.

Get Fired Up:

Set external demands aside for some portion of time in order to tend to you.

_____________demand____________________________time__________to tend to you.

  

Risk: Be Brave

Original watercolor by Kate Kroska

Musing... 
 “Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn’t do than the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines.  Sail away from safe harbor.  Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover."   - Mark Twain

Compare the difference in feeling you have about yourself, when you think of a time that you let your doubt and fear hold you back from something you really wanted to do versus a time when you made yourself just Go For It! There is such a feeling of mastery when you risk facing your fears head-on.

Kate’s Turn:
Thirteen years ago, literally, I threw off the bowlines, and my husband and I sailed to the Caribbean, making it our home. At the time, it felt so extreme, so “out of the box”; I had much fear and doubt about how it would all play out. In spite of the losses I felt in leaving my home, community, and career, and the fears I had about our security and all the unknowns, I HAD to experience the adventure, and so I let courage lead the way.

Now, looking back, I can name the blessings and gifts of that adventure in extraordinary experiences, friends, and personal growth unimagined. One specific outcome is the unfolding of my watercolor artistry. Another is the belief that I can do anything I have a desire to do when I apply myself.

Get Fired Up:
How do you foster being courageous in expressing your creativity?
What is the thing you know you MUST do?

“The winds of grace are always blowing; it is you that must raise your sails.”
- Rabindranath Tagore

Risk: Trust

Musing…

It turns out that the name of Windhover Center for the Performing Arts was inspired by a poem of Gerard Manley Hopkins “To a Windhover”, referring to a falcon “notable for hovering in the air with its head against the wind …symbolic of the soaring of man’s imagination and the spiritual quest that informs great art” (Ina Hahn). One metaphor plucked from a poem to name a place where dance coexists with nature.

Charise’s Turn:

On the second night of our performance of The Crowning of the Woodland Queen at Windhover, the stage was wet with rain. An hour to showtime and some were wiping off folding chairs while others were getting costumes on, moving forward with the production even though more rain was predicted. “Are we really going to perform outside?!” was all I could say, feeling anxious about dancing on a surface which was still slick after mopping. The response from Karen, our director, and Hugo, our sound and lighting man, was an emphatic “yes”.  Karen came up with the brilliant idea to take off the soaked Marley floor that was taped over the wood of the stage, revealing the promise of dryness underneath. With this, Karen became the remover of obstacles, and her trust that we would brave the elements was the risk we all had to take. She wouldn't buy into defeat; her vision of success was clear. And so was the night sky over us.

Get Fired Up:

Your creative vision requires your trust. That’s the bottom line.

  

Risk: Be Free

original watercolor by Kate Kroska

Musing…. 

“Learn to free yourself from all things that have molded you

And which limit your secret and undiscovered road…”  

(from an African Guide Poem)

After setting an intention to express creatively, you must act; you must take steps to carry out your idea.  Often, that is when the parameters, the hidden restrictions begin to show themselves.

THE KNOTS PRAYER

Dear God:

Please untie the knots

that are in my mind,

my heart, and my life.

Remove the have nots,

the can nots and the do nots

that I have in my mind.

Erase the will nots, may nots

might nots that may find

a home in my heart.

Release me from the could nots,

would nots and should nots

that obstruct my life.

And most of all, Dear God,

I ask that you remove from my mind,

my heart, and my life all the am nots

that I have allowed to hold me back,

especially the thought

that I am not good enough.

Amen.

-- Anonymous poet from South Africa

Kate's Turn:  

The first painting I sold was exhibited for a fundraiser to protect Taino sacred land from resort development. I had painted with a group of artists only 2 months, and was encouraged by them to enter an artistic expression of this land. In my painting, the steep-to mountains next to the sea held images of faces; a second look at the clouds revealed faces. My own self critic was SO active to remove the faces and just paint the topography, like every other rendition of this landscape. But my conviction about the sacredness, the spirit of this area won over my fear to present something so different from other artists. And this feature of finding something hidden when you look more closely at my paintings has continued in more of my works…my own secret road discovered!

Get Fired Up:  

What “nots” do you need to free yourself from? 

How then will you act?

Risk: Be Real

Musing…

Jeff Kaplan, my life coaching instructor, had this advice about marketing: “don’t talk about yourself in the way you think your client wants to hear, talk about yourself as who you are”.  Being one step removed from yourself is too far away from your creative human nature.    

Charise’s Turn:

In the first draft of A Portable Identity, I wrote about myself in the third person, as “she”. Meanwhile, my co-author Debra was easily referring to herself as “me”.  Once I saw how she was going about telling her personal story, I realized that I was setting an arbitrary, unconscious distance from what I was sharing. This wasn't going to work. Debra and I had made the decision to include our own experiences in our book, which has a self-help format, as examples. Our stories would provide inspiration for readers to attend to their own experiences. We were also saying that we, mental health counselors, were not immune from the challenge of change to identity that happens when you are the spouse relocating to support your husband’s career.  

With a deep breath, I changed all my pronouns to “me” and “my”, set my concern about my image aside, and continued to write what was true about me that had relevance and importance for other expat women.  As one of our reviewers puts it,  “The authors do not hide behind professional expertise but lay themselves bare, and reveal themselves with all their faults as well as their personal strengths . . . At the end of the book, you feel like you have an intimate personal relationship with each of these very special women.  A Portable Identity encourages a woman to take the time needed to get in touch with herself."  (Carol Usher, Canadian Social Worker and Book Reviewer for Tales from a Small Planet)

Get Fired Up: 

• How are you getting in your own way of taking a risk that will boost your creative efforts? 
• What risk can you take that puts you closer to what you want to accomplish, or brings you closer to your creative self?

Receptivity: Light

Musing….

“The creative spirit creates with whatever materials are present. With food, with children, with building blocks, with speech, with thoughts, with pigment, with an umbrella, or a wine glass or a torch. We are not craftsmen only during studio hours. Any more than a man is wise only in his library. Or devout only in a church. The material is not the sign of the creative feeling for life: of the warmth and sympathy and reverence which foster being; techniques are not a sign; art is not the sign. The sign is the light that dwells within the act, whatever its nature or its medium.” -- from Centering In Pottery, Poetry and the Person by M.C. Richards

Kate’s Turn: 

One of my most memorable magical times was experiencing bioluminescence on the sea.  As we left an anchorage at 4am in order to make our destination that day before sundown, we were carried out on a magic carpet of shimmering, vibrant light – truly a wonder to behold!  These tiny microorganisms shine their light when disturbed in the water; and their doing so becomes a wondrous gift to those who notice.

Our creative expression is a manifestation of our inner light.  No one expresses their creativity exactly like another; everyone emanates their creative light uniquely.  Claiming our light within, coupled with receiving inspiration  (think: deep breath to quiet the mind and receive wild imagination) can carry us on a magic ride of creative expression.  Marianne Williamson says: 

We were born to make manifest

the glory of God that is within us.

It’s not just in some of us; it’s in everyone.

And when we let our own light shine,

we unconsciously give other people

permission to do the same.

Get Fired Up:

How are you inspired to let your light shine?

Say “YES!” to what you behold…..YES….YES…..YES…

“This little light of mine……..”    Keep singing!

Receptivity: Turn On Your Imagination

Musing…

Where your imagination leads you may be the most inconvenient or impractical place for you to go.  It may also work on you like a tug, tugging on you, not letting you alone, because it offers more than you can actually think through or logically figure out.  Imagination requires your utter devotion at times.  Einstein puts it this way:  “Imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited to all we now know and understand, while imagination embraces the entire world, and all there ever will be to know and understand.”

Charise’s turn:

My friend Karen, artistic director of Ancient Rhythms Dance Company of Washington, DC, has decided to bring our company to her ancestral hometown of Rockport, Massachusetts to perform. The idea began with only two available performers (herself and me), no funding, no support, no local audience, no storyline for a 90-minute production, and again no funding (!). As she began the phone calls to dancers to see who was in, began talking about the theme for the production, and got permission to utilize Windhover Center for the Performing Arts, she still had to face the fact that the only way to move forward would be to put money up front for everything that was needed prior to the show. The turning point in making this decision was that momentum was building, indicating that the energy was there to accomplish what was imagined. 

We are about to take a road trip to Rockport to promote this 4^th of July dance theatre production of The Crowning of the Woodland Queen, and to meet with local dancers who are excited about taking on a supporting role in the show.  It turns out that Karen’s original idea is a tribute to her father who told stories of fairies who leave gifts for children in the garden, and her memories of the surprises she and her siblings would find along the garden paths of their Rockport home.

Get Fired Up:

Give yourself permission to set the practical aside and turn on your imagination;

turn where creative energy beckons, turn toward that energy -- an idea that gathers energy matters. 

Receptivity: LISTEN to Your WILDNESS

Musing…

"Wildness we might consider as the root of the authentic spontaneities of any being. It is that wellspring of creativity whence comes the instinctive activities that enable all living beings to obtain their food, to find shelter, to bring forth their young: to sing and dance and fly through the air and swim through the depths of the sea. This is the same inner tendency that evokes the insight of the poet, the skill of the artist and the power of the shaman." -- Thomas Berry

There is an internal readiness that actively awaits the evocation of the Muse. Consider the womb. Picture fertile ground. Know that wild lightning will be grounded.

Kate’s Turn: 

We all have experienced being pulled into advertising through its appeal to our imagination, evoking us at our primal level. Or remember a teacher whose use of imagination engaged us so effectively that we remember their lessons lifelong. These are examples of creativity lightning being grounded, harnessing its wild power to affect a desired outcome.

Imaginations can run “wild”; dreams are "wild.”  One of my favorite phrases is "…beyond my wildest imagination”, which I say when my expectations have been exceeded.  I LOVE when this happens.  I believe in those times I had an openness, a willingness, a readiness to respond to the Muse; I listened to the wild, and rode its power “beyond my wildest imagination.”  Living in the Caribbean has been one of those wild rides; becoming a watercolor artist is another. 

Get Fired Up:

How do you quiet yourself enough so that you listen to your wildness?  Consider gardening or physical work as meditation in order to quiet the mind and tune in to your Muse.

Pay attention to your dreams, your daydreams, the images and wild ideas that float through your mind – they may just be the first step to a ride “beyond your wildest imagination.”

Receptivity: Already Here

Musing…

John O’Donohue says, “in each individual the earth breaks its silence” (Eternal Echoes). How are you breaking earth’s silence? How are you receptive to your own voice, your calling, and how does this take shape, form, structure? You are already here as a unique being, you are all ready here.

Charise’s Turn:

It took four years of teaching belly dance at the World Bank to understand that this is not a separate endeavor from my outreach to expatriate women as the co-author of A Portable Identity: A Woman’s Guide to Maintaining a Sense of Self While Moving Overseas. The participants of the World Bank belly dance class are primarily foreign women living in the U.S., from diverse places such as Morocco, Tunisia, China, Venezuela, Australia.  My clientele as a social work counselor at the Community Services of Bangkok in the early 1990’s were foreign women living in Bangkok, from diverse places such as Australia, Sweden, U.K., India, Japan and a few Western educated Thai women.  Why hadn’t I seen the parallel – had the dance gotten in the way? The focus for that hour a week was dancing, but what was happening?

What was happening in the belly dance class is this: we were building a common language amongst women of diverse nationalities, and this offered a sense of community, belonging, and acceptance. With the rhythms of Middle Eastern music, I led improvisation to show how you build phrasing and artistry from technique, like stringing words into sentences that tell a story. They responded with diligence, with enthusiasm and delight, spontaneously applauding at the close of a track of music.  This joy transported them right out of their workday, took them somewhere far away from Washington, DC, while giving them comfort in their bodies, confidence in who they are as women and how they express their individuality outside of their home culture.

Get Fired Up:

What are you ready to receive or understand about your creative nature?

Ask yourself this question (maybe more than once, maybe each day for a week) and wait in silence for an opening for your muse to respond.

Recognition: Clearing

Musing… 

Clearing away the old…making way for the new.  Having recognized and claimed your birthright as a creative, expanding being calls you to prepare in good faith for the expected growth.  We see this in the spring when gardens are cleared for the new plantings.  New parents physically clear space for their newborn as well as reconfigure their lives to support their baby’s growth.  Spring housecleaning clears space and gives a clarity and openness that clutter and congestion won’t allow.

Kate’s Turn:  

I have been on a cleaning frenzy.  I hate that there is no more room in my bookcase for current interests, as books I once treasured and found useful no longer serve me at this stage of my path.  Quite frankly, I’ve outgrown them.  So also for my file cabinet, closet, desk, etc.  You know this for yourself…the space around me no longer is in alignment with how I’ve expanded. 

This clearing also occurs in the beliefs I have about myself as a creative being.  Any fear, resistance, self-talk (ex: “I can’t…”) or negative belief that obstructs my creative path must be cleared away.  We are inherently creative; any belief other than that is not aligned with who we are, and we must clear this resistance, moving more towards saying “YES” to our true nature.

Get Fired Up:  

What needs to be cleared in your Garden of the Soul, so you have clear space for new growth?   What old patterns can be used as compost?  What actions can bring you clarity and focus as you plan your goals and dreams?  Happy Spring Clearing!

Celebrate World Creativity and Innovation Week:  April 15-21

Recognition: Fool Nature

zipline in Ketchikan, Alaska

Musing…

It’s April Fools Day -- whatever this may mean to you, it sits on the calendar like a crowned jester, inviting you to do something foolish.  The Fool of the tarot deck “is like a vivacious child…confronting life with startling freshness” (from Geraldine Amaral of Tarot Celebrations).  When you are a fool, you find wonder in the ordinary.

Charise’s turn:

I ride the Washington DC metro every week. It’s ailing. There are elevator outages, train delays, and rail work to make improvements.  I stand, with other people, waiting by the tracks, and feel the shuffle of our thoughts part when we hear a train arriving.  We readjust ourselves, move toward the doors as those inside shift to make their exit.  What awaits them is the ride up the escalator, the ride that I’ve just taken, which is full of mechanical noise.  A recent article by Chris Richards of the Washington Post implores you to tune in to these noises because they are fascinating sounds! Screeches and other metallic tones of varied timing could evoke much -- like music does, like a soundtrack of a place that is far from anywhere you’ve ever been.  Be transported, not only literally, but also by the fancy of your imagination. Ride the ridiculous. For me, the groaning moving stairway speaks like a guardian beast of the urban underworld.

Get Fired Up:

Be fool hearty

(we’re not talking foolhardy).

Recognition: Claiming

Musing…

As you listen to what stirs within you regarding creative urges, consider these sensual responses (perhaps  a shiver that may be both thrilling and scary) as clues, leading you to the continuing unfolding of your innate birthright as an expanding, creative being…the seeds of who you are, your destiny, so to speak. Seed catalogues are eagerly read this time of year in an exciting anticipation of manifesting their innate essence.  Consider planting the seeds of who you are in the soil of your creative self.

Kate’s Turn:

I once heard a talk by James Hillman, a psychologist who authored The Soul’s Code, writing of the acorn theory of the soul. He shared examples of how this reveals itself throughout life, one of which was Martin Scorcese's illness as a child that kept him indoors; in entertaining himself, he looked out the window and sketched frame after frame of the street’s happenings – his early frame by frame movies perhaps. Hillman encourages us to claim our uniqueness and manifest this inner calling, that unique something about us that we carry into the world. He suggested we pay attention, listen to patterns, passions that manifest repeatedly, persistently. An acorn carries the seed’s destiny; so too our soul awaits the claiming and nurturing of our essence.

Get Fired Up:

What have you noticed in your life that suggests your “acorn theory”?    

How can you  say “Yes” to this unique essence in an even greater way?  

In your own "seed catalogue" of so many possibilities, what is it that you will claim and cultivate?

Happy Spring!  

Recognition: Listening

ringing in spring

Musing…

From the shshshsh of winter, warmth begins to course through, a whisper of excitement that change is underfoot.  Seasons shift, spring stirs. Without being seen yet.  The scene of unseen.  The before manifest.  Brings me to the creative landscape – your creative landscape, where finding out what you have stirring to be manifest is about listening.

Charise’s turn: 

On the phone with my friend Lisa, just a catch up call, she told me how a cricket got stuck in candle wax at her apartment and how this became a funny story for her family.  She went on to say that after her recent move to Manhattan she bought a cricket cage.  A novelty, completely useless, she said.  “It has no function, but it does fit in our down sized apartment”.  As we laughed, I recognized that the useless thing does have a function, “it has a function for your imagination”.  We then let our minds go to images of collecting cricket cages, stacking them up to the ceiling, putting different things inside each one. Total inane silliness, but the images were taking a life and I told her she was inspiring me to write a poem.  “I'll put your poem inside one of the cages,” she said. “And”, she continued, “Bellevue isn’t far away if my family thinks I’ve gone over the deep end”. “Oh, yes, “I replied, “Bellevue is a very large cricket cage”.  

I did write a poem titled “Cricket Cage” right after we hung up. More function of the imagination.

Get Fired Up:

Tune in to what you are hearing, listen with all your senses, with curiosity and wonder as you engage in the world.

Listening leads to recognition of what stirs your creative impulse.

 

Renewal: Choosing Sustainability

Musing….

Renewing a library book, a subscription, a vow, is about continuing, making new for another period of time. It's about sustainability. Farmers intentionally allow a piece of land to lie fallow, protecting it from the frenzy, the eventual depletion of productivity. Progressive corporations build in “naps” for their employees, recognizing that this period of rest is, in fact, a time of consolidation of ideas that contributes to innovative production. This period of quiet is a vital, necessary step in the long-range plan of increasing output and preventing burnout. In the cycle of the seasons, nature offers this renewal period during the winter season.  We sometimes call it the “dead of winter”, but in fact, the hidden forces are  teeming with life.  Meister Eckhart, a 13^th century mystic, said “I need to be silent for a while; worlds are forming in my heart.” 

Kate's Turn:

What a challenge it is to be as quiet and still as a snowfall on a winter’s night!  My mind wants to keep working a problem; my body wants to just keep trying something different in hopes of a breakthrough or resolution.  Sometimes it takes more effort to be still and quiet than to just keep circling in the same old pattern.

I’ve been getting antsy to get some paintings done…not because I have ideas bursting forth, but because I’m uncomfortable with an elongated period of “unproductiveness”. Silence takes me deeper, to my creative light within me, so that the images that begin to emerge are from my own spirit of creative expression, and not just something I made myself do. 

Get Fired Up:

How can you cultivate your faith in your emerging creative expression, to trust the “worlds that are forming" in your heart?

What are some choices you can make towards renewal of your creativity?     

How do you invite quiet and silence to nurture and call you more deeply to your center as you weather the winter bend of the creative cycle?   

Ssshshshsh……breathe and allow the quiet of winter, the silence of renewal to do its magic.

Renewal: Rounding it Out

Musing…

Renewal is a part of the cycle of creativity, and it best fits at this juncture of the calendar year.  Time pulls us forward, but we also inhabit cycles such as the return of seasons.  Jean Giono says, “ Days begin and end in the dead of night. They are not shaped long, in the manner of things which lead to ends – arrow, road, man's life on earth. They are shaped round, in the manner of things eternal and stable – sun, world, God.”  We invite you to consider the roundness of your creative leaning, where your endeavors lean and curve and rest on a bend that is always connected to a center where you sit with your muse.

Charise’s Turn:

Speaking of seasons, it’s winter where I am and the first snowstorm of the year has knocked our power out.  There‘s the quiet of lack of electricity while the house is getting colder hour by hour. My source of warmth is at the hearth where the wood that burns is from the oak that had to be cut down last spring.  What's apparent is that what had to be destroyed is now taking new life as fire and source of much needed heat. Renewal of energy. The heat allows me to write these words here; as if there is a harmony between thoughts, words, wood, flames; the natural world and human. As if? Hmmm…

Get Fired Up:

What energy is available to you toward your creativity?

How is your daily life sustenance for where you want to go in future days?  

How can you pull the energy of future days, the future pull, to your day today? 

Forward Pull

Musing…    

Already half of January has passed; are you being faithful to your creative call?  Small step, by small step, our creativity is made manifest, and the creative process itself pulls us forward – we just have to show up faithfully.  And we are walking with you, every step of the way, to support your creative expression, as you meet your muse.

We reviewed our blog entries in 2010.  The end of the year is a natural time to reflect as we consider the next stage of our own creative expressions here in this blog.  Our plan is to continue fostering creativity, but in a more focused way, so we’ve mapped out a course for this next calendar year – stay tuned!

We would LOVE for you to respond with your comments/questions and create an interactive blog.

Get Fired Up:  R    U    Ready?    What does your review of last year look like?  And 2011 plans?    What pulls you forward?