Want to get creative this summer?
Some thoughts and a few resources to help
Hello Readers!
I’m so glad you’re here. I spent this week recuperating from foot surgery, which I only recommend if you want to spend entirely too much time in your head. Thanks, but no thanks. I spend too much time in my head when both of my feet are in working order! However, it did lead to these thoughts and a few resources I’ve gathered on creativity. I hope there’s something here that resonates with you.
A quick note: This week’s reflection is for all subscribers, so I’ll be pointing folks in the direction of a few resources that may be familiar to those of you who already financially support The Attentive Life. Thanks for letting me share everything I’m offering in this space.
On to our reflection!
“I can’t write. The words simply won’t come, or they won’t come in the way I want them to appear—like a bell rung—offering a clear and bright sound across open spaces. I’ve lost the energy to chase words into thick woods or crowded spaces, but there remains this urge to make, to create something. In church a few weeks ago, we sang and asked God to “break open our imagination” and I felt a deep stirring. Those words have been a bell of their own, ringing in my heart for weeks now.
I wonder what it would be like to have an imagination broken open in a way that leads to acts of holy creation. I tried my hand at watercolors last week after a mini nature walk around my back yard. I found myself lost in the slow process of making something appear where before there was nothing. I found myself paying attention.
It seems that our imaginations are collectively broken right now—we can’t seem to find our way to solutions or middle ground or beauty or seeing with the eyes of the spirit the sacredness of our fellow human beings.
I wonder if we can gather the bits of beauty we find, if we sit with the potential, if we see and pay attention—will it break open our imaginations? Can we live within the constraints of lost words or lost connection or lost vision and believe there is still something good waiting to be created?”
I shared these thoughts on Instagram three years ago, and while my words are slowly drifting back, I’ve sensed that there’s more for me when it comes to creativity, imagination, and blessing the part of me that longs to live artfully.
Life is so very hard. We need art to help us process, grieve, remember, protest, laugh, love, and lament. But what happens when the part of us that processes the challenges of life through art-receiving and art-making goes into hiding?
The day before my surgery, with my schedule cleared off for the foreseeable future, I drove to the grocery store for a few items. In the short distance between the parking lot and the automatic door of the Stop and Shop, from somewhere deep inside me a question bubbled to the surface.
“Why did you give up on me?”
I knew this voice. This was the voice of my inner artist who, after having just spent a week soaking in the beauty in the Smoky Mountains and now with a blank schedule ahead, finally had the space to give voice to her grief. Over the last five years, I’ve somehow lost the creative life that sustained me for decades, and this part of me felt abandoned.
I’ve spent the past five years navigating anxiety and focused on deep inner healing, with almost no capacity for creativity. Occasionally, I’d hit a thread of creative gold while digging for the remnants of life as I knew it, but those moments became few and far between.
As I pushed my rickety shopping cart through the parking lot of the Stop and Shop, my inner artist and I unexpectedly shared our first real connection in years. It was a sign of inner safety, growth, and healing to hear what one quiet, hidden part of me wanted to say. As I pay attention to the parts of me that are ready to be heard, the parts that feel abandoned, the quiet parts who need an invitation to enter their own healing, I sense myself expanding creatively.
Later that evening, I journaled about this inner dialogue and I wrote my inner artist a love poem for all the ways her pursuit of art has sustained me in the past.
I signed off with an invitation, “You are free to speak. I’m listening.”
A Reflective Practice
Is there a part of you that you’ve stuffed down, hidden, or ignored?
How could you turn to this part of yourself with kindness?
Consider writing a love note or an invitation to this part and remain open to what he or she might have to say in response.
Or consider engaging in a creative practice that might feel welcoming to the part of you that’s gone missing. Some ideas:
Listen to a favorite song that always seems to sit right with you
Draw/color/paint something that expresses your feelings about this part
Take a nature walk in your backyard and consider what you’re drawn to and why
Get creative in the kitchen
Plant a few flowers in a pot while paying close attention to your senses
Engage in a physical activity that brings you back to a part of you that you love
Write a poem to yourself for your eyes only
Resources to help you get creative
If you’d like to become a paid subscriber to The Attentive Life, you’ll have access to the following:
Monthly reflections on The Artist’s Way: This year, we’re working our way through Julia Cameron’s classic book on creative recovery. I’m doing most of the work for you if you’re not able to devote time to the process, including offering reflective practices from the book.
A (growing) library of audio meditations: Has prayer been difficult for you lately? Consider these meditations as a creative approach to prayer. There are five meditations currently available to help you pray imaginatively, with more on the way this summer.
If you’re not ready to subscribe, consider these resources to help you have a creative summer (they’re not just for writers!):
100 Creative Prompts to Inspire Your Writing: These prompts aren’t just for people who identify as writers. If you’re looking for a way to get creative, consider using these prompts to develop a journaling practice or apply the prompts to a different artistic medium. I’d love to see how someone might apply these to water coloring, abstract painting, photography, or needlecraft.
A Writer’s Rule of Life: Substitute the word writer with artist or creative and this guide might be just the thing you need to get serious about your art. A Writer’s Rule of Life helps you answers two question: Who do you want to be as a writer? And how do you want to live as a writer?
A writer’s rule of life focuses on crafting guiding principles for one’s creative life. Many writers struggle to identify their purpose and plan their writing practice. A writer’s rule of life helps writers to partner with God in crafting a creative practice and cultivating regular rhythms that lead to their flourishing.
This resource will guide you through a path of 3 P’s: Purpose, Planning, and Practice, to create an individual and intentional plan for your writing life
As always, thanks for being here. Let’s get creative together!