I can never read a book without it sparking a new idea. I think, well, that’s great but what about this? The creative mind sparks and next thing I’m reminded of some other thing, theory or idea and off down the rabbit hole I go?
Austin Kleon in his book Steal like an Artist writes when you copy one person you are plagiarising and when you gather together ideas from many well then you are creating anew.
This is termed, apophenia which loosely means making connections where there were none before. Click To Tweet
It’s the magic of our synapses snapping into action. I liken it to a field of fireflies or a complex join the dots puzzle only the picture wasn’t there before. You’re making it as you’re connecting the dots.
Mind blowing eh! And we do that almost every day, each in our own way.
It’s our creative brain on fire. And, your neurons spark differently to mine integrating your unique skills, knowledge, experiences, stories, biases and so much more. When you weave these threads from many sources you’re cooking up new codes. It’s from there innovation and invention emerge.
We’ve been doing this for eons. It’s the evolutionary, man.
If we were never to adopt an idea from anywhere, well then we’d still be hanging out with the Flintstones in a cave. A cool place indeed but there’d be no cars, no jeans, no toasters, no planes, no movies and no smart phones. We are all creative beings (yes, even the accountants and home scientists among us). It’s just that we all do it differently. It can be hard to own our creativity when we’ve been told or told ourselves for decades we are not Leonardo (da Vinci not di Caprio). We all just have a different way of showing up.
No one is better than the other. Some:
Produce from suffering after ploughing through acres of angst
Deliver patiently and diligently: linear and logic, precise and punctuated
Thrust themselves through trauma, thriving on tightropes and deadlines
Conceive from chaos with thunder, lightning, fireworks and fury
Rush from heady romance to lustful affair, in love with ideas, with possibilities, with potential
Harness harmony and divine from the depths, embodying inspiration from the ether
How does yours show up?
Take stock of your projects, adventures, smash hits and smashes, completions, discarded passions and obsessions. It’s all fertile ground for your way on the creative highway and how you’ll tackle what’s next.
Know your muse, make magic with her, nurture her nature, rock her rhythms and yes she’s a she.Creativity is the dynamic feminine, inspiring the masculine into discerning action. Click To Tweet
And our wistful, wasteful world is sure in need of more discernment. Creativity comes calling in the solitude of the shower, in the silent sitting amidst meditation or mind numbing meetings, in the messy minutiae of everyday todo’s. Often when you least expect her, mostly when it’s inconvenient. Celebrate her arrival, listen carefully for she can be a fickle mistress.
For me she calls clearly but with urgency. She rewards attention and intention. She drops nuggets and retreats. She returns with advances, expansions and course corrections. She has taught me patience and practice. She’s still teaching me to pause and embrace imperfection.
When you cocoon with your creative nature you begin to work your way. You feel the flow and discern the subtle changes in momentum from action to restoration, from being to doing, iteration and improvement. You’re learning effectiveness with efficiency. You get more done by doing less. You’re tuning into your body and listening and learning. You know this. You’ve got this. Enter the opening, bridge the gaps. Relax into it.Become a wizard not just a worker. Click To Tweet
Harness those moments of inspiration and ideation. See where they take you. Cultivate your relationship with your creativity, how it shows up. Show it respect and savour its sacredness. The next one may be the new velcro, post it note, cure for diabetes, or avocado on toast.
Remember it’s not what you are doing but who you are becoming in the doing.
If you’re interested in why your energy changes every few days. Consider tracking the moon phases. The moon is the feminine energy. The being to the sun’s doing. As the moon moves from dark (new moon) to full and back again. It’s energy also moves from relative action to relative restoration approximately every 2.5 days. Download my Moon Planner and notice the fluctuations in your own energy. Why do this? We’re not designed to be in action all the time or consistently working long hours. Our energy ebbs and flows. By tuning into the Moon’s phases we become more attuned to our own energy (the hermetic principle of as above so below. By observing when you’re all fired up and when you’re ineffectually faffing about you’ll find you can get more done in less time. Stick the planner on your fridge and observe over a few cycles. I’d love to hear what you notice and what changes for you.
Download my moon planner for the Southern Hemisphere here
and the Northern Hemisphere here
Until soon x
