Magic of Awe Inspires Creativity

“My mother loved butterflies. After her celebration of life, a Monarch was fluttering around the exit door. She followed me to my car. Later, I wrote a poem about my mother migrating south with Monarchs. Glorious” – Becky Breed

If someone asks “What makes a good life?” Would you say friends and family you can count on? A spiritual connection? Personal resources that make you happy? Dacher Keltner, author of “The Thrilling New Science of Awe,” replied, “Find awe.” In his many years of research, he found that an awe-inspired life gives us meaning, and helps uncover something larger than ourselves–intense joy and  a sense of mystery that transcend common life. For artists and writers, there’s more. The magic of awe inspires creativity, creating a sense of wonder and deep curiosity–profound satisfaction and meaning.

Read More»

Writing From the White-Hot Center

Writing From the White-Hot Center

This last year I discovered a new writer that I love, the novelist, Lily King. In an essay in the back of one her novels, she tells about doing a reading at an Ivy League college in which, during the Q and A afterwards, she was asked “what factors determine your authorial distance from the narrator?” She responded that “I don’t think when I write. I am like a blind worm on the ground.”  I love that! “A blind worm on the ground.”

She goes on to relate how she loves English literature classes and has been an English teacher herself. How she’s discussed and taken great interest in English-teachery things such as themes and yes, authorial distance. But that when she writes, she doesn’t use her “English teacher brain.” Not in the first draft of writing, “What you need,” she writes, “all you need, is your creative, sensual, wide-open brain.”

Read More»

Gifts of Creativity: More Good Follows

“The spirit of an artist’s gifts can wake your own.” – Lewis Hyde

Give Freely
“Anything you do not give freely and abundantly becomes lost to you,” remarks Annie Dillard in her book “Give It All, Give It Now.” She shares her view about the writing and creative life by describing the grand generosity and great courage giving asks of us: to give, to share, to offer what we can to the world. Dillard said when gifts of creativity are offered, “…something more will arise for later, something better.”…and more good follows.

Creating what rings true requires us to pay enormous attention to the world. For many, it is our love and destiny to create–our romance with possibility and the unwritten promise to imagine more. Barb, an artist, saw beauty in her garden and captured it in dazzling watercolor. She painted me a set of beautiful notecards of pink petunias with bright lime green stems. Afterwards, a friend was experiencing a loss and I sent her a flowered notecard with a few lines of poetry. Giving changes us.

Want the world better
Sharing our creativity shows we care about the world and want it better. When Anne Frank picked up her pen to write, although just a little girl, she was possessed of great insight and courage. She had the power to enter the minds and hearts of others bringing about deeper understanding, wider love. It’s true, an act of creation can have a rippling effect. Consider son-in-law Chris who created a magnificent red and white mosaic birdhouse featuring Charlie Parker, a brilliant black saxophonist whose life was cut short. His gift to the world brought new significance to the musician and by donating his creation raised money supporting a burned mountain top in Colorado.

More Good Follows
Ask yourself, the next time you sit down to create, what do you find yourself being pulled toward? Perhaps you want to write poetry about unrequited love, the search for inner peace or the struggle to find meaning and purpose in your existence. Photograph the beauty and finality in nature–or paint an unforgettable purple sunrise. Whatever your gifts are, cultivate imaginative compassion and notice how more good follows. You can begin today. As Anne Franke reminds, “How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world.” Your life and others will be richer for it.  – Becky

Writing/Creativity Exercise:

  1. Re-read the glorified words of Francis of Assisi, “For it is in the giving that we receive.” To begin, reflect on the many ways you can offer gifts of creativity to others. Recognize and celebrate your talents.
  2. Now select the ways you want to share and light up someone’s life. Your time, talent and creativity can make a difference. Consider:
    1. Interviewing an older relative or neighbor and writing one of his stories.
    2. Painting a small canvas of a colleague’s dog or the big fish she caught.
    3. Photographing a beautiful sunset and giving to someone you love.
    4. Listening and encouraging a friend who is struggling.
    5. Other ways to give: offering your talent of organization, playing the piano or singing to a shut in, baking and decorating someone’s favorite holiday cookies. The opportunities to give are endless.

 

For more inspiration, check out our website www.thewritingandcreativelife.com.

Or follow this link to purchase our latest book, The Fire Inside.

Postscript;

“May you be surrounded by friends and family, and if this is not your lot, may the blessings find you in your solitude.” – Leonard Cohen

During this special season, sharing our love and friendship might be the best gifts.

Here’s to the good that you find and the great that awaits.

Warmest Wishes,

Becky

 

Gerald Stern and The One Thing in Life

A month ago, I learned about the death at age 97 of poet Gerald Stern. I knew only a handful of his poems: “The Dancing,” “Waving Goodbye,” and “Stepping Out of Poetry,” but I loved those poems. They got me in the stomach, punched me with their emotion. And hearing of his passing, I knew that I needed to read more of his work. These last few weeks that is what I have been doing.

I read again “Stepping Out of Poetry” in which he reminisces about getting on “the old yellow streetcar” and going to the public library, the joy he found there: “What would you give,” he asks, “for your dream/  to be as clean and simple as it was then/ in the dark afternoons, at the old scarred tables?”

I found and read “Waving Goodbye,” about sending his daughter off to the next stage of her life, experiencing her loss “as an animal would, pressing my forehead against her/ walking in circles, moaning, touching her cheek…”

Then there is “The One Thing in Life,” a poem he considered as one which best described him and his life in poetry. Here are the last five lines:

There is a sweetness buried in my mind;
there is water with a small cave behind it;
there’s a mouth speaking Greek.
It is what I keep to myself; what I return to;
the one thing that no one else wanted.

How lucky he was to recognize that buried sweetness, to explore that small cave. How lucky for us to be able to read his poetry. And wonder about the wonderful one thing in life which exists for each of us.  –Lucy Adkins

Writing Exercise:

  1. Read “Waving Goodbye” and “Stepping Out of Poetry”
  2. Think about some people or ways of life you have said goodbye to. Jot down a few.
  3. Think about some fond remembrances of the past and list some of these.
  4. Write, beginning with the phrase “What would I give……..” Go on from there and see what happens.

For more inspiration, check out our website www.thewritingandcreativelife.com.Or follow this link to purchase our latest book, The Fire Inside.

 

 

Writing Brings Me Close to the Bone

Artist shed. Photograph by Chris Carithers

“This is what separates artists from ordinary people: the belief, deep in our hearts, that if we build our castles well enough, somehow the ocean won’t wash them away.” – Anne Lamott

How do I build my castle so part of my story doesn’t go out with the tide? Writing. Writing brings me close to the bone.

Read More»

Subscribe to Blog

Enter your email address to subscribe and receive notifications of new posts by email.

RSS Feed

If you'd like to subscribe to our RSS feed, click here.
© Copyright The Writing and Creative Life