Summer - Time to Refill the Creative Well
Summertime, like Sundays, used to be a time of rest and relaxation. Of renewal and restoration. Of recharging batteries drained by the demands of the year.
Not anymore. We don’t know what it means to relax anymore. We have to take classes on relaxation so we can learn how to stop our endless, and sometimes meaningless, motion. So we can learn how to breath deeply from our bellies instead of only the upper third of our lungs. So we can learn how to unclench our muscles and our stomachs and our jaws.
Our advanced technologies bring us so many advantages, but they also sabotage every effort to unwind, to get away, to get quiet. They sabotage us because we let them. We feel compelled to stay tuned in, turned on and accessible—afraid we will miss something important, earth-shattering, life-changing.
It is that accessibility that is life-changing, however. When we fail to give ourselves time away or alone without distraction or interruption, without any intent or purpose other than to have none, we fail to nurture our souls. And we definitely fail to nurture our creativity.
One of the hardest things for artists, writers, and other creatives is the ability to get away from our creativity. So many of us work in studios in our homes where our work constantly calls to us. Others have such limited time for creativity because of demands of work and family that each free moment becomes a challenge to fill it with our creative work.
Yet empty moments and time out of the studio are necessary to refill the well of our creativity. It is in the silence and stillness that our spiritual and creative batteries are recharged, that our creative well is refilled.
Summer is a good time to slowly sip the sweet refreshment of silence and stillness. To sit on your patio to watch the birds dip and weave their ways through tree and bush. To float on your back in the water and watch clouds drift by. To stare up at the moon while she bathes you in light.
Be still. Be silent. Your body, mind and spirit will thank you. And so will your creative muse.
How will you give your creativity a summer moment?
July 2nd, 2008 at 4:21 pm
A few short weeks ago I wouldn’t have had any kind of answer to your question, Paula. Rest? Relax? Give my creativity a summer moment? Impossible! I would have snorted and ran to the computer to get cracking on the book that a deadline looms for rapidly. But, oops! Something got in the way! I got sick. Really sick. Stop and smell the roses sick. Give your creativity a summer moment sick.
See, if you don’t do it for yourself, your body will take care of it for you as mine did. Everything has changed for me since May 11th. Most of the changes are, ‘well I’ll never be able to do that again!’ All except one aspect of my life. It turns out that my sickness works very well with my creativity–writing! It is work and therefore strengthening my heart but not stressful like the accounting which damaged it. I can’t lift anything except my fingers over the keyboard. I can’t work full time, but I can work when I want. I can’t drive to work to assignments that were sometimes 40 miles away one way but I can travel to my patio with my Alpha Smart, a note pad, or the phone to do an interview.
I don’t recommend my way of accomplishing what Paula suggests. It’s much too scary. But I do recommend you try it her way–and often!
Do the do’s!
July 2nd, 2008 at 9:08 pm
Great advice from Paula AND Liz! Just today I slept longer than I planned and decided it was actually what I needed. I rocked on the front porch and stared into space and drank tea and watched the hummingbirds, and instead of berating myself, I decided I was taking care of myself. See, we finally sold my parents’ house of 43 years, and Monday was the auction of the contents. A sort of funeral, but also a sort of christening for the wonderful new owners, who were there and bought several lovely things from the house, which will remain there. It was a huge transition, for which I have been preparing for an entire year. Yesterday was more work there and more cleanup. Today, I was supposed to begin a freelance job, and set the alarm for 7 am. But I felt like lead, and had to go back to sleep for awhile.
Here’s the beautiful irony. After I spent the entire morning recharging and enjoying the gorgeous weather, I worked on the front porch for two and a half hours, and got a huge amount accomplished, more even than I had hoped to accomplish by waking at 7. I also enjoyed every minute of it. Victory!
Paula, I also appreciated and admire your Mother’s Day entry.
Blessings–
Marsha
July 3rd, 2008 at 9:23 am
@Liz - yes, yours is a perfect example of how that constant accessibility can be earth-shattering and life-changing. Much better to choose your moments than have them forced on you. And how wonderful, that in spite of the life change, you are still able to do the work that is most important to you–that feeds your soul.
@Marsha - having gone through almost the exact same experience last fall with the sale of my parents’ home, I know how draining that can be physically and emotionally. Glad to know that you gave yourself permission to rehabilitate before turning to your other work. And don’t you just love it when being kind to yourself brings other rewards!
July 10th, 2008 at 4:22 pm
How do I relax? I follow my cat.
Seriously.
Most of the day I am going a hundred miles and hour, but when Lucille weaves by my feet, it is usually for a reason. (Alright, the reason is usually food.) But when the food is gone, I follow her outside, across the porch, down the steps and into the garden.
And everyone knows, once you take a few steps into the garden, it’s a whole different world… If not for the cat, how else would I know that my favorite rose has bloomed? Or that the red tailed hawks have a new eyas? Or that when the gartner snake turns his head just the right way, his eyes catch the sun and glow orange?
At some point, I look up and find the cat gone. And all of the noise in my head has gone with her.
No wonder cats were once considered gods…
July 15th, 2008 at 9:39 am
Yes, Jen, like children, our pets - especially cats and dogs - get us outside and outside ourselves. So many things discovered because I had to take the dog out for a walk. Just yesterday, while standing to wait for Duncan to sniff out a new smell, a tiny Myrtle Warbler, in its black and white wings and yellow cap, lit in the sapling just three feet away, gathering seeds.
What I might have missed, had I not stopped and stood still in the silence for my dog!