radical, dude

Oh Creative One, as you know, I’m on a Rebecca Solnit kick with her book “Wanderlust.” In my quest to find a Gary Snyder poem that she quotes in that book, I stumbled on the link below titled, “The Most Radical Thing You Can Do.” In it, the right to stay at home and find work locally is considered. Certainly, with my being 34 weeks pregnant and with the amount of moving  that I’ve done both within Glasgow and within the U.S., it hit a chord with me. If I consider the definition of radical to mean a change from the traditional or accepted norm, finding one place to live certainly would be radical for me and my family.

Radical Creative One! Consider what would be the most radical thing you can do within your work. What are the traditions and accepted norms you have accepted as your own? Perhaps you have agreed with a definition of your work as sweet, violent, intriguing, joyful or _____? Perhaps there is a method to your creation that you routinely follow? Or a standard subject matter? A theme, a color, or a tool, you return to time and again? Consider what would be a change from these personal traditions and accepted norms in your work. Make a radical change, however small it may look from the outside, it will feel large and stimulating from the inside.

http://www.orionmagazine.org/index.php/articles/article/3628/

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/radical

take the long way home

Oh Creative One, it is getting harder for me to walk with this babe in utero. Every time I stand, it seems I’m getting larger and I have 10 weeks left! No one shovels in Scotland. No one spreads grit on the side roads and as it warms, the transforming snow refreezes at night causing ever increasing slip dangers the next day.  It is treacherous for me and makes me more housebound than most in this weather. When I crane my head from the upstairs window,  I can see the Cairngorms from my snowbound house. They call out in the winter sun, “Come on, get out the door.” Sigh. If only…   As you know, I’m reading Rebecca Solnit’s “Wanderlust.” Here is what she says about mazes and labyrinths: “sometimes you have to turn your back on your goal to get there, sometimes your farthest away when you’re closest, sometimes the only way is the long one.” (p. 69)

Lusting Creative One! There is still so much to be done before you finish. I know you can see your goal if you just peak over the hedge, but you’ve got a ways to go and for good reason. There’s lots of necessary work to be done before you get to the end.  In the words of the band “Supertramp,” take the long way home. Trust that you will get to your goal despite the length of your journey. Take a deep breath. Enjoy the walk.

carve

Oh Creative One, as you know I’ve been reading Rebecca Solnit’s “Wanderlust.” Here is a comment on the act of writing, “To write is to carve a new path through the terrain of imagination, or to point out new features on a familiar route.” (p72) Really, couldn’t this be said of all art and the artistry found in other modes of creativity? A painter’s job is to show us another way of seeing a face or catching a moment we’ve not noticed before. An outstanding surgeon finds that little something mid-suture that works just right in repairing that particular person’s body. An actor finds the new subtleties in expressing the words that have been spoken and the pauses that have been held for years, decades, even centuries.

Trekking Creative One! One of the reasons I’m glad you’re around is that the new path you carve, no matter how earth shattering large or soul comforting small it is, makes my heart beat happily. You re-invigorate me. I’ so very, very glad you’re here.

walk on

Oh Creative One, there are some books that I pick up at uncanny moments in my life. For example, almost every time I pick up Rebecca Solnit’s “Wanderlust,” I find myself in the midst of a move across the town, across the country, or to a new country. Determined to break the cycle and knowing I need to be here in Scotland until the new one is born, I picked it up again last night and re-read the first chapter again. It begins with a walk in terrain that I have walked myself and I found it comforting but in such a way as to not make me cry from homesickness. Here is a quote, “Walking itself is the intentional act closest to the unwilled rhythms of the body, to breathing and the beating of the heart. It strikes a delicate balance between working and idling, being and doing. It is a bodily labor that produces nothing but thoughts, experiences, arrivals.”

Delicate Creative One, this weekend take a walk. Bring a friend or not. Have a destination or not. But do receive the thoughts, experiences and arrivals that to which only your creativity can find. Enjoy…

wiggle while you work

Oh Creative One! Last night, ooof. My husband is away on a business trip, my daughter had a issues with sleeping, I was gestating, and the only thing mildly entertaining on television was “Beyonce and Friends” on a video network here in the U.K. She is a wonderfully silly dancer. But, really, I am a sillier dancer. I love to dance. I am the first to boogie my woogie on any dance floor and I have the reputation and stories amongst family, friends, and strangers to prove it. It made me wonder if I missed my calling and then I remember that I don’t even have a voice to find even if I wanted to sing. It will just never be my day job. But, rather than careening down a the path of existential crisis whilst watching Beyonce as I usually would, I stopped to consider movement in conjunction with my work. Beyonce is a great singer, but her work has a different energy when she does her silly yet good gyrations. Some kids squirm while reading because their bodies need input even while doing a relatively sedentary task. My son reads better whilst standing up for this fact alone. Rebecca Solnit has written an entire book, “Wanderlust,” about the act of walking on creative beings from mathematicians to painters to philosophers.

Curious Creative One, consider how to add movement when you work. Can you hold your paintbrush differently, let your body tap its foot while you write, talk a walk while learning a new tune? Let the energy of movement feed your creativity.