Weaving The Dream

Just in time for Christmas…a winter wonderland!  The snow fell softly but steadily yesterday from late morning until early evening here in the foothills of New York’s Catskill Mountains—whisper-light snow, perfect for kicking with your feet or for diving into to make snow angels.

The steadily falling snow piled into billowy drifts.  Our six small pine trees that Bob draped with white bee lights two weekends ago, were now also frosted with soft white mounds, turning nature’s beauty into holiday magic.

In the dimly lit darkness, Bob used the snow blower to clear the driveway while our son, Jason, and I shoveled the walkways, the patio, the paths to the bird feeders and up the hill to the woods where the dog has his latrine.

I knew where to shovel because our dog, Duncan, had already plowed through, decking himself with snow on his back and snow balls on his legs in the process.  As I shoveled his path to make it easier for him and us, I thought about how winter forces us to define and recognize the paths we habitually travel—we most often use this door to go out, we walk this direction at this angle uphill, we go to this point and that place.

Winter snows discourage meandering outside—unless you have snowshoes or cross-country skis on.  So, we clear and shovel our habitual paths, and then follow them as long as the snow lasts.

Sort of like what we do with our lives—our creative lives especially.  Which is odd considering that our creative lives are where we should be meandering the most.

But having done the work to clear our creative paths by creating routines, connections, and habits, we can often fail to explore new opportunities, new relationships, new ideas because they require more work—in effect, more shoveling.  And heaven knows our muscles are still aching from the last effort at clearing paths.  And what is wrong with those old paths anyway?  After all, they are usually the shortest, fastest, and easiest ways to where we want to go.

Nothing, of course, is wrong with them, but what happens to some of the critical elements of creativity—discovery, growth and…well, fun—if we stay on the old paths?  We can’t kick up snow or throw ourselves into snow angels by staying on those paths.  Creativity demands exploration.  Life does too.

Maybe that is why Duncan politely sniffed the paths we carved for him and then loped off into the pristine snowscape of uncharted yard.
 

This entry was posted on Friday, December 14th, 2007 at 8:07 pm and is filed under Creativity, Seasons and Cycles, Nature and Gardens. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.