The last two months have been a bit quiet here in my little blog space. It was never quite the plan, but life has plans of its own. And boy do I know that it is often simpler to go with the flow rather than to try and control it. I haven’t had a total digital break as I still added posts as and when I felt the creative spirit. My photography practice continues to inspire me and I try to post daily. When I was feeling a little less inspired, I was extremely grateful that the August Break challenge (here and here) helped me to keep my creativity going and my mind open.
There is that word creativity. Yes, that one! It is one of my three words for this year and I saw it unfolding like this.
I want to create (my) life and feel creativity in all aspects of my life so that I can weave my beautiful journey. The thing we call life.
Much like life, creativity cannot be forced, sometimes one must let go a little first and other times we must push a little and take that hard first step. However, there are things that one can do in order to support the flow. I find that being in nature, walking and hiking, taking photographs, being on my mat and meditating regularly all support my creative spirit. My mind opens up to the possibilities when I allow it to be still and this creates the space I need to bring my inner child out to play.
Creativity can mean something totally different to each one of us. It allows us to express our uniqueness. It could be anything from trying a new recipe, creating a piece of art, writing, gardening, singing or dancing. The options are limitless. In fact, I believe each moment is a spark of creativity as we have the choice to create our reality right in this now moment. We sure don’t need to create a masterpiece to think of ourselves as creative. As they say, art is in the eye of the beholder. Just living the life we want is a creative process, minute by precious minute.
On reflection I have actually been creative, if not in my journal, here at soulsister or through my photographs; I have also created a few things that I love:
- As a child I spent precious hours scrapbooking with my stepmom J. Scissors, glue, magazines, scrapbooks and countless hours of fun! All the photographs of the beautiful collages out there, prompted me to give it a try again. I relived those childhood memories and joy as I made a few for setting my intentions and vision boarding. And I feel clearer within myself.
- Dreamcatchers remind me to dream it big, fly high and pay attention to my dreams. My soul has always felt a strong pull to dreamcatchers and making them uplifts me. I have always wondered if this connection comes from a past life perhaps.
- I have planted a little herb garden, a tiny salad patch and an edible balcony garden over the last year. Getting my fingers into the soil grounds me and brings me down to earth. Watching the plants grow, the little insects move in and picking the first tiny harvest really move me. There is nothing that tastes better than eating something you have grown yourself. All that energy I put into it goes straight into my body and nourishes me, body and soul.
- According to my mom D. I have collected all sorts of gifts from Mother Nature since I was a little girl. I still do it and rarely come home from a walk empty-handed. Feathers, stones, shells, fallen flowers, petals and leaves are all picked up and loved. Some come home and some are left to be found by the next soul. Inspired by the beautiful nature mandalas I have seen on Instagram, I decided to give it a try. What a relaxing experience and such simple living beauty.
Creativity makes me happy, keeps me in alignment and allows me to create the life I want to live moment by moment. It helps me to find a still moment, to feel the possibilities and envision the bigger picture. So, for my inner child and I, it is definitely more of the same please.
I invite you to allow your creative juices to flow. Why not consider making a nature mandala, dreamcatcher, collage, tiny garden or something else. Perhaps a journal entry, haiku or poem. Try a new recipe, game, sport or dance. Paint, knit or sew. Or even something as simple as walking or driving a different route. Get creative! I’d love to hear what you create.
How do you express your creative spirit? Where do your creative juices take you? How often do you bring your inner child out to play?
with laughter, Delicia x
Hi Delicia, your pages and mandalas are lovely, I can feel their energy. Sometimes is difficult to be creative in the rush of the world around us, but I’m trying as well. Paying attention to all the beauty around me, taking photos, art journaling, trying new recipes (today I made fish cake, my kids didn’t want to come close to the kitchen, they hated it without tasting). And writing fiction, this is very new for me, but I’m a little scared of what is coming out, dark stories! I don’t know if it is because I read and watch lots of mystery, or if my mind wants to tell me something. But I’m having fun with it. Have a great week and post more in here, I enjoy a lot reading your posts. ☀🐱
Hi Elizabeth,
I love your mystery stories and I think it is wonderful that you are starting to share them on your blog. Keep having fun with them and keep sharing them. Yes, it is difficult to be creative in the rush of life, but I have found for me, it is a essential part of keeping myself in balance, so I try my best to make time for it. Sometimes I succeed and sometimes I let it go for another day.
I must admit I wasn’t fond of fish cakes as a child either. I hope you enjoyed them though and maybe next time they will try them.
Thank you for visiting and your continued support. It is so special.
Have a great creative and happy week!
Glad your creative juices are flowing. Sending lots of love.
Me too! Lots of love back to you.
First of all congratulations on the unfolding of your creativity word: great words and lovely outcomes! Keep creating your life Delicia 😉
Although I have a pronounced aesthetic sense, when it comes to imagination I always feel that my inertia keeps me at the back with an empty head when others are so easily prompted. I am just thinking of my German course and how much I struggled at the beginning to provide example sentences applying the grammar rules. The rules were easy but providing examples really strained me!
However, I do get creative whenever I am exposed to the creativity of someone else. Not only I get inspired (thank you for all your inspirations Delicia!), but it is great fun to play with other inner children 😉 So an easy way to bring my little child out to play, is to play with children. They both inspire and challenge with questions or wishes. Further, the great thing with children is that through their eyes imperfections disappear to be replaced by magic.
I also find that setting a goal, maybe by accepting a challenge like you did with the August Break, helps greatly the flow. But as you said, creativity cannot be forced. The best flow usually happens when I take photos, prepare cards or follow energy and let things come together, all with the goal of expressing the feeling of the moment. This has proven to be wonderful balm for my soul.
Other examples of my focused creativity are the creation of inexpensive pieces of furniture by painting polystyrene boxes to be used as small tables or stools, and staining lab 3MM paper with Coomassie Brilliant Blue and Ponceau S red to bring a cheerfully coloured picture in the austere student’s room. At work creativity also played an important role, often compelling to find ways of preparing posters and presentations to attract people and convey the novelty of the experimental findings. Since I am mentioning here my scientific side, I want to share with you something that came to me with a great deal of surprise. I recently did a psychological personality test and (no surprise!) I turned out to be a strong S-Type, where S = Structure, someone who likes organisation and details and has a tendency to analyse. The surprise came when I read that common hobbies of S-individuals are photography and painting, and that besides researchers, artists are S-Type! I always thought of art as pure freedom as opposed to the strict laws of science. But reading again what I just wrote about myself, maybe creativity is just another way of having things organised and ‘controlling’ (where things here = feelings 😉 ). Well, in the end it all comes down to the point that even if we cannot see it, it all makes sense, all is as it is meant, and probably we are just too concentrated in understanding with the mind instead of following what we know with the heart. But laugh, to confound completely, S-Type is often very sensitive and full of empathy!
I do not want to start here additional bewildered reflections on ‘And boy do I know that it is often simpler to go with the flow rather than to try and control it’, but I just want to say that probably the best would be to use our sails to take advantage of the storm by skilfully riding the energetic waves – following the flow but at the same time reaching our goals, and without ending up with ripped sails! Balance of flow and lead…
Namaste
Thank you Annalisa.
It makes perfect sense that when playing with children your inner child comes out. I love that you bring your inner child out in this way. Your words are lovely … ‘through their eyes imperfections disappear to be replaced by magic.’ So true! Thank you for sharing this beautiful addition here. What a great way to explore your creative side.
Indeed, creativity inspires creativity and I also find that by looking at the creativity of others, I am inspired and often gently nudged to keep creating.
I have been the happy recipient of some of your creative pieces and they are beautiful. There is a lot of wisdom is following the flow and feeling what you want to create. Art, whatever the form, is the expression of our feelings. And you do it so well.
From all your examples, it sounds like you really enjoy creating interesting pieces and I hope you will continue to let your creative juices flow with less structure and lots of feeling from the heart. I know that you already do.
Following the flow and not ripping the sails while I ride the energetic waves – oh the image is pure magic. 🙂
Namaste