Flow

Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one’s courage.
– Anais Nin

As we venture into a new year, we imagine unlimited possibilities. The mystery of creativity dwells just beyond logic’s reach. You can’t calculate it, will it, order it online. Beware the great inhibitors of creativity with official disclaimers such as writer’s block, lack of inspiration, just need to do a little more research, still working on a plan… Meanwhile doubt creeps in and strangles you in your sleep.

As we venture into a new year, it may also be timely to address your creative fears. Instead of allowing the unknown to plunge you into a state of paralysis, tune into frightening feelings. Primal and instinctual, fear raises the stakes, forces you to pay attention.

Six months ago a young man came to me for guidance to develop a project that has been germinating for some time. Once we ignored the false starts, dispelled the doubts and made a plan, he wrote and revised, wrote and revised, wrote and revised with unswerving focus and energy, moving it forward line by line. Three months and three weeks ago, he handed me a completed 240 page first draft. “I’m terrified,” he said, “so this must be right.” Oh, it’s right – within a month his book goes to press! Without his willingness to throw the dice, his vision might never have been realized.

Fear knows how to lure his prey. If your fear choses lack of inspiration as bait, call him on it. Abandon familiar surroundings. Take things out of context. Celebrate opposition, look for similarities, and see what happens. Try sleeping with the dictionary to explore wordplay and create pithy lines. Obsess on a memory. Project a dystopia, a utopia. Ruminate on place or take yourself to another one. Dig through the dumpster on the street, or in your mind – hold the treasure to the light.

Like Picasso… begin with an idea and then it becomes something else. Wake to dream and dream to wake. Find an image that won’t let go.

Four months ago, on the road to the Cape of Good Hope I happened into a vineyard as a flock of ducks returned home from a day’s work. They naturally prey on pests that destroy the grapes. With the elimination of insecticides, the vineyard produces organic wine! Two months later I found myself in the courtyard of a Napa Valley winery 10,245 miles from the duck patrol. I sat on an old wooden bench watching the continuous flow of water into and out of the vessel, eventually returning it to the ground. I revisited that winery to conjure up a lover who had once been there with me. He too has returned to the earth. And the little green moth with widespread wings clinging and watching in silence? I passed right by him one day on the outside wall of a lodge high above the Sand River in South Africa. I hurried past him on my way to tasting a loaf of freshly baked hot bread, minutes later stolen by a monkey who swooped down from the roof and nabbed it off my plate. But just before the bread snatching, I did a 360 to stop and marvel at the beauty of the odd little green winged creature.

Life does indeed shrink or expand according to one’s willingness to venture and stay awake. Celebrate the randomness of life and welcome chance encounters. Taunt fear – and find beauty in unexpected places!