Great Heron at Rest
Photography by Linda Wilson

Miracles Happen
Many years ago, one of my beloved daughters was acting somewhat furtive, maintaining little eye contact, repeatedly touching her turned down face. Standing slope-shouldered behind her partner she stared at the floor. Then looked up. Light in her eyes changed deepening to a brilliant dark green like moss in the early morning. Rosiness of a pink sunset sky spread across her face. Suddenly a shift in my awareness and Joseph Pearce’s words hit home “insight is always complete and perfect in its single instant’s appearance.” In that “A-ha” moment I was seeing with fresh eyes. My daughter was carrying a special light, a heartbeat of its own swimming in her inner world.

Composer Vinteuil said, “The only true voyage is discovery…not to visit strange lands but to possess other eyes, to behold the universe through the eyes of another, of a hundred others….”  When we  “possess other eyes”, we allow ourselves to be transported to a wonderful and sometimes, surprising new land.

Opening to New Visions
Traveling to new sites is important for the writer and artist. Brains are changed by new experiences. Rising mindscapes materialize when the world is mined with fresh eyes. Annie Dillard said the experience of writing “is that of any unmerited grace. It is handed to you, but only if you look for it.”

I am looking but writing struggles still come, sometimes relentlessly. Waiting for inspiration sweat beads form on my forehead. But when words pop on the page, even if it’s clunky, I feel fresh and a little bold, at least for a while. Where does an idea come from? Einstein compared the explosion of an idea to a chicken laying an egg: “Kieks—auf einmal, ist es da. Cheep—and suddenly there it is. Clever, Dr. Einstein. It worked, but I’m stuck again—where is Ella when I need her?

Ella Appears
When I was a second grader, I told my friends I had a whispering genie on my shoulder. She was my doppelganger – we didn’t look alike but had the same brains. Ella was a little bossy and told me what to do. It worked for a lot of things. At school, Ella told me when to kick (or not) the seat in front of me, pass on the creamed potatoes and peas at hot lunch, and stay away from HIM on the playground.

Ella was there for me when I had school work to do, especially creative work. She helped me see with fresh eyes. If I got hijacked on a paragraph, say, writing about my favorite animal, an old paint horse, she whispered a few magic words to get me started. Or when Miss Armstrong asked us to use the weekly spelling words in sentences there she was again planting some good (most of the time) ideas into my head.

Today is a difficult writing day, I look out the window and beam Ella to me. She arrives carrying on her little round body the powers of an Houdini. But instead of making things disappear she makes them appear “Kieks—auf einmal, ist es da.”  Cheep! Ella does it again. — Becky Breed

Writing/Creative Exercises:

1. Read This Morning by Esther Morgan.https://www.poetryinternational.com/en/poets-poems/poems/poem/103-24052_THIS-MORNING
2. Raymond Carver says a writer makes everything over to her own “specifications. It’s her world and no other. That’s how we are distinguished from one another.” Ultimately, he said we write when we know. What are your own specifications? For a writing exercise pretend you are looking at the world through the eyes of a ten-year old girl flying a kite or a middle-aged man watching the gyrations of a hula dancer. Select one or your choice. Now write a paragraph with a set of fresh eyes. How does the world look to you?
3. Who is your Ella? Write a description of her/him/it. Who or what helps you see with new eyes?

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

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How did they do it? Not merely bringing to completion in short order a number of artworks, musical scores, or chapters of a book. But in doing so, creating masterpieces. Not only quantity, but quality at the highest level.

With The Messiah, the story is that in 1741, Handel, despondent and feeling that his musical career had reached an end, came home one night after wandering the streets and found a thick envelope that had been pushed under his door. It was from his librettist, and contained scriptural references for a project he was working on, one he feared would be his last. He took a quick look at the contents, then went to bed. Closed his eyes and half-slept, but the words of scripture kept going through his head. So he rose, went to the piano, and for the next 24 days, worked in a frenzy. Barely sleeping or eating, he created the 260 pages of The Messiah, one of the greatest musical compositions of all time.

In 1986, Ishiguro wrote the opening chapter for The Remains of the Day.  But in the subsequent year, while he did a great deal of research and preliminary planning on the novel, he did no additional writing. Then in collaboration with his wife, he declared a four week “crash.” During which he would write from 9:00 in the morning until 10:30 at night. He would not take phone calls, read any mail, or have any visitors. He wrote, not going back to edit, but allowing “awful sentences, hideous dialogue, scenes that went nowhere. ” Slogging on to the end. In four weeks, he completed the first draft. There was still editing to be done, but the “vital imaginative breakthroughs” came during those four weeks.

In the latter years of his career, Van Gogh, after suffering an episode of acute mental illness, moved to the village of Auvers sur Oise to paint, to be close to his brother, Theo, and also his doctor, Paul Gachet. The doctor recommended painting as part of his therapy, and as this was Van Gogh’s passion, his driving force, he was happy to comply. While at Auvers sur Oise, he painted wheatfields, vineyards, cottages, gardens, and churches. Completed a portrait of the 12 year old daughter of his innkeeper, and a portrait of Dr. Paul Gachet. He worked feverishly, sometimes completing more than one painting a day, doing some of his best work.

These three creatives achieved greatly. But again, the question. How did they do it? So quickly and so well? First of all, the three were already highly accomplished in their craft. Handel with over 100 major compositions completed before writing The Messiah. Ishiguro with two successful novels, and Van Gogh with over 800 paintings and 1,000 drawings. They each had “their chops” and were poised to achieve even more.

The second point to consider (at least for Ishiguro and Van Gogh) is their preparation and intention. Prior to “the crash,” Ishiguro had done extensive research for his novel. And he had a challenging but doable work schedule in place. Van Gogh’s practice was to deeply consider his subject and then paint quickly.  Striving to preserve the feelings, the emotions aroused, before they faded. Sometimes he was criticized for the speed at which he completed his paintings. But as he wrote to his brother, “If people say they’re done too quickly, you can reply that they’ve looked at them too quickly.”

Thirdly, we must point out the great significance of inspiration. In composing The Messiah, Handel said that “I did think I did see all Heaven before me, and the great God Himself.” Van Gogh wrote that “I dream my painting, and then I paint my dream.” Ishiguro, on the other hand seemed to value discipline over the lightning strike of inspiration, allowing the relationships between characters to spark his imagination.

Lastly, each of the three exhibited tremendous focus and dedication, and were willing to forgo personal needs and comforts to devote themselves to their art. Handel scarcely ate or slept in his fever of composing. Ishiguro worked punishing hours with little respite, and about his painting, Van Gogh said that “I don’t care for anything but the work.”

So….what can we take away from this? Personally, I don’t think I’ll ever be able to write the essence of a novel in four weeks. Or complete 260 pages of poems in such short increments of time as did Handel and Van Gogh. I just don’t think I have it in me. We are who we are and we work as we work.

At the same time, I believe that we are all capable of more than we know. Early in my writing life, I attended a day-long generative poetry workshop and at the end of the day, had four new poems. This, for me at that stage of my writing career, was astounding. In April, during poetry month, some of my friends set a goal of writing a poem a day. (This was poet William Stafford’s process. He also wrote a poem a day, day after day and year after year.) Not exactly a “crash” like Ishiguro undertook, but a way to accomplish a great deal.

We can all consider ways to increase the number of creative works we complete. Continuing to learn and develop our craft, becoming more intentional about our work, and being open to inspiration. We can take advantage of generative workshops and retreats where the focus is on generating new poems or stories.

Reading about the accomplishment of artists like Handel, Ishiguro, and Van Gogh is inspiring. and we can learn from and be motivated by them. But I believe also that we can practice their methods only for limited periods of time, and then we must find balance. To keep our health, to live fully the lives we have been given, and to reserve our energies to keep on doing the work we love.

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Family of Things

Mary Oliver saw herself in the family of things.  She recognized that by opening to what was happening around her, she was already part of the natural world. Imagine Mary as a young child walking alone in the woods away from her difficult home life when she first heard the raw honking of Canadian geese break silence.

She saw the kindness of the lead bird float on air currents allowing trailing birds to fly faster with less effort. The tired goose dropping back, graciously letting others take the lead. Oliver watches the flock head to the same wetlands where food and safety were plentiful. A beautiful rhythm year after year. Mary Oliver took this wisdom of what she encountered in nature and wrote many poems. In “Wild Geese”, she penned these words “you do not have to be good” nor “walk on your knees,” but let the “soft animal of your body love what it loves.” In my reflection of these words, I think Mary suggests that experiencing the natural world helps us begin to shift from whatever we’re experiencing—anger, frustration, sadness—and realize there is a place for us. That we can accept ourselves—belong.

Oliver’s instructions for life are  simple: “Pay attention. Be astonished. Tell about it.” She said one of the wonderful things about being immersed in life is the joy of surprise. Feeling joy is a redemption for our life, no matter our struggles she insisted “the world goes on…”

My Instructions for Life
Lately, I’ve been reading aloud poetry to myself during these turbulent times. Oliver’s “Wild Geese” is one that resonates, stirring me to deeper examination of the world and my part in it. Much of her poetry reflects the times she spent as a child escaping to nature finding solace and connection. Her antidote to personal struggles was the out of doors, the natural world.

For me, I am walking the trails looking for the scatter of brightness, fall to my knees to gently pick up a magenta petal that has been tossed in the wind. At night the dark sky wrapped in black velvet with pinpoints of bright silver leaves me breathless with wonder. Heartbreak for the world is still there but I’m moving forward, trying like Mary Oliver suggests to embrace what the giving world has to offer.

Writing words these words, processing them as I write and re-write gives me disciplined concentration. Author Patricia Sterne said “Love is in supreme form, concentration.” I am devoted to spending time loving this world no matter what. Arm in arm with family, friends and neighbors and all matter of green flora—my family of things—I tap into their interconnectedness. Searching for the non-negotiable, the essential, its giving and receiving, I  make visible what matters to me.  As Joanna Macy said, “We don’t have to know the answers…we just have to live into the truth.” – Becky Breed

Writing/Creativity Exercises:

1. Listen to “Wild Geese” https://www.themarginalian.org/2014/09/24/mary-oliver-reads-wild-geese/Listen a second time taking note of the following lines: Whoever you are, no matter how lonely/the world offers itself to your imagination/calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting/over and over announcing your place/in the family of things. What do these words mean to you? What is your family of things? Write or draw your meaning.
2. With beautiful brevity, Mary Oliver shared her Instructions for Life. “Pay attention. Be astonished. Tell about it.”. The way we are in the world is related to our family and community upbringing and values, religious influences and/or personal successes or failures. Select one or two from this list or generate one from your own influences what was learned. Write your story and share with someone. What are your Instructions for Life?
3. Reflect on the ways nature has influenced you. Consider the story about Punch the macaque money who found comfort in a stuffed orangutan, read again Walden by Henry David Thoreau or recall the sweet memory when you were under the stars. Write a poem about how nature changes you.

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

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Has that happened to you? I believe that it happens more than we know. Life intervenes and we do not always act on inspiration when it comes. Or an idea may skip across our minds so fleetingly that we do not recognize it or its potential. And the idea is lost.

The good news is that the universe is teeming with ideas—ideas for poems, paintings, novels, and books of essays, all waiting to take form; and if we pay attention, if we keep our eyes and ears and our minds open, more ideas will come.

In her book, Big Magic, Elizabeth Gilbert shares her belief about the way creativity takes place. That there are untold numbers of ideas floating about, standing by, wanting to be born. That ideas have a sort of consciousness. They have will, and they “want” to develop and emerge into a larger existence. But for this to occur, they need a human collaborator. Someone who recognizes the idea for what it may become, takes hold of it, and devotes herself to making it manifest.

Perhaps that’s a little far-fetched. A little fanciful. But the ways of the cosmos and of creativity are mysterious. There’s always a little magic about the creative process. And if our next fabulous poem or novel is wanting to find us, it behooves us to be in readiness. Do what we must so that we can act when that spark of inspiration happens by.

So how do we do that? Mary Oliver says that for writers, “to pay attention, that is our endless and proper work.” So let us work to be alive to the world. To what we see and hear. The way the scent of plum blossoms takes you back to your childhood. How a robin warbling in early spring at dusk can almost break your heart. Do what we can to slow down, indulge in idleness, and remain curious. Sit in your chair in the sun with a pen in your hand, and see what wants to be written.

We live in a busy world. We have to make a living and take care of those around us. And we cannot help it sometimes—ideas disappear back into the ether from which they came. Our solace is to know that more inspiration will come, and we can unplug, relax, and pay attention, and that wild joyful rush of inspiration will make its way to us once more. –Lucy Adkins

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

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Challenging Relationships
Dargis describes the entangled father and daughters’ relationships as “…greedily self-involved and irresistibly charismatic, the kind who are easy to fall for and tough to let go.” Sentimental Value resonates with unwavering themes of resiliency, self-reflection and a conflicted love with intense highs and lows. Slow moving and layered with ambiguities and symbolism, the film is a tender, complex and poetic film that leaves much for the audience to absorb. . . and aspire to.

Families Change
The Viking Victorian, the family residence, symbolizes multiple realities and speaks directly to the emotional mind. Over the years, the temperamental characters of families living there triggered varying perceptions. Viewed as a nest and a sanctuary for some, the domicile also symbolized generational trauma, broken relationships and ghosts for others.

Reflecting on the movie I asked myself why Sentimental Value, nominated for best picture, received such wide recognition. Flannery O’Connor wrote “a story is good when you continue to see more and more in it”  Agnes’ searching body language teaches us as she gradually rotated toward her father—looking at each other, sitting closer—the landscape of family can change. Reminding us of our personal stories and struggles—we turn them over and see more and more in them. Sentimental Value encourages us to look at our own changing capacities to heal and forgive.

Ultimately, when finding love with its rough edges and redeeming handholds surrounded the broken family, their minds enlarged, their hearts, too.  And, maybe, just maybe, what we think is an ending is really a beginning. –  Becky Breed

Writing/Creativity Exercise:

1. Over the years, the Borg family home was viewed from multiple perspectives. For this writing exercise, consider the places you’ve resided. What did you think of them? Consider the first home you lived in as a child, the one you were the most attached to or maybe the home that still brings you nightmares (a tree by my bedroom window tap-tap-tap). Select one and write about a favorite memory or s spark you want to follow.
2. Read “Reward” by Denise Levertov. How does continuing to “see” reward us? Write or draw about a time you have lingered, paused at a garden, explored a face or reflected on the color of a beautiful sunset. Looking back is also a powerful way to glimpse what you missed. What feelings bubble up? Write a paragraph or more about it.
3. Have you ever experienced when an ending turned out to be a beginning? Where did this question take you?
4. Listen to glorious “Cannock Chase” by Labi Siffre.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aavxo3n8-xE Why do you think the producer for Sentimental Value selected this song as the last one on the credits? Play it again and pull out lyrics that speak to you. Perhaps develop a story using these lines or one of your favorite lines. Dream.

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

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From late 1799 to 1808, Wordsworth lived there with his sister, Dorothy, the two indulging in what he called “plain living and high thinking.” Their lifestyle was indeed plain—there was no indoor plumbing and their meals were simple. But they filled their days with meaning. Walking in the countryside, keeping journals (both William and Dorothy), and in William’s case, writing poetry. Three of my favorite poems of his: “Ode: Intimations of Immortality,”  “My Heart Leaps Up” and “I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud” were written there.

 A Connection to Greatness
There’s something inspiring about being in a place where exceptional lives were lived. Where works of greatness were created. Being in rooms where writers worked, seeing their favorite chairs and desks, the pens and pencils they used. At Dove Cottage, I felt a certain sense of connection, knowing that where I walked, Wordsworth walked. Where I looked out the window to the English countryside, the poet did, too. I experienced a sense of the sacred. A sense of the heights a human heart and soul and brain can attain.

Then, too, there was the idea that being in the same space where Wordsworth wrote, maybe some of his molecules of greatness were still floating around in the atmosphere. And if I were lucky, some might fall on me.

Lastly, it was encouraging to see the humble surroundings. To think that I, too, coming from a similar modest background could dare to attempt poems that might be, if not great, then at least not-half bad.

Finding a Mentor From the Past
Pushing the limits of your abilities in the arts is the work of a lifetime. And like all worthwhile things, it isn’t easy. It helps to have a companion, someone along with you who is walking the same path. Real life mentors who can encourage you and coax you, and prod you at times. But also mentors from the past like Wordsworth or Jane Austen or Mary Oliver. People we admire and want to emulate—whether it be in their writing style, or their work ethic and commitment to excellence.

Since Dove Cottage, I’ve visited Eudora Welty’s home in Jackson, Mississippi and Willa Cather’s childhood home in Red Cloud, Nebraska. Also Hemingway’s house in Key West. It is said that inspiration can come from anyone, anywhere, anytime. What about your experiences? What places have inspired you? –Lucy Adkins 

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

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Sunrise Photograph by Mary Kay Roth

In Emily Dickinson’s poem “There’s a Certain Slant of Light” she artfully expresses the way winter light transforms the snow-filled world: “When it comes, the Landscape listens—Shadows —hold their breath.”

Experience of Light
Writers have chosen to write about the variants of light for a long time. For many, it’s not so much the color, but the experience of light. Poet Jane Richardson wrote “…light loves searching out/what is hidden/what is lost/what is forgotten…” Consider Shakespeare’s famous lines, “But, soft! what light through yonder window breaks?”  Washington Irving in Old Christmas said, “Surely happiness is reflective, like the light of heaven… .”  Or lines from “Meditation in Sunlight,” May Sarton wrote “The sky looks down and meets the mountain range where time is light not shadow.”

A Light Show
To experience winter light, as Thoreau suggested, one must walk. All year long, Thoreau loved walking, strolling long distances by himself, often fifteen to twenty miles a day. In “A Winter Walk,” he wrote “At length we awake to the still reality of a winter morning. The snow lies warm as cotton or down upon the windowsill; the broadened sash and frosted panes admit a dim and private light.”

On a night in mid-November, I went to a city park finding my way across a grassy field to see the spectacular Northern lights, the aurora borealis. The sky was ablaze with an amazing luminescence of shimmering bands of fiery red and passion pink tinged with purple. Watching the spectacular display of colorful celestial dancers spread across the dome of the dark sky, I was again—for a split second— a ten-year old girl looking out the back window of our ’55 two-toned green Chevy. In wonder I leaned in and whispered what’s that. Dad said a sky carnival.

Golden Light
Have you noticed how phenomenal sunrise and sunset lights are this winter? Sunlight “travels an astounding expanse to reach us” said poet Jan Richardson, “arriv{ing} in a shape you did not foresee.” In the winter, while the long shape of the sun’s arc undertakes an arduous journey across the atmosphere blue and green hues are scattered away from our line of sight. Red, orange and yellow wavelengths remain to paint the sky with golden-red tones. When we experience this magic hour whether we’re looking from our deck or walking prairie something special happens to us…our hearts hold still.

Another golden sunrise happened many years ago during an early morning in late March, 1975. The whistle of a faraway train heard, my heart was full as I threaded my way down the long hallway toward the beam, a lighthouse in the ocean of darkness. A children’s lamp with cutouts of giraffes and lions and elephants spin in the semi-darkness throwing long snouts and big heads on a pink wall. Outside, everything was wearing a brilliant coat of white, the trees, barns and houses in the distance, all bathed by the experience of a magical light. Inside, another experience of a holy golden ray, not to be repeated, an ineffable baby girl.  – Becky Breed

Writing/Creativity Exercise: 

Every morning greet the light. Thank the sphere of beaming gold for all it brings to you. Light a candle of gratitude. Read “Blessing for the Light” by David Whyte.  Light can bring love, healing and wonder–possibility. What does the experience of light open for you? Consider writing from one of these writing prompts:

1. Perhaps it’s the special light at the end of the day, twilight, that holds your attention. A face of someone you love. Part of his face in twilight, the rest in shadow. Part winter solstice, part summer solstice. Write what comes up for you.
2. Maybe a time when sunlight brought healing…Soft sunlight drifted through the sheer curtain caressing her face. She woke up. Her lips chapped from the fever she asked for orange juice…
3. It was the early time of my life when I backpacked the mountains of Colorado. Spent nights under a pup tent. The first morning I woke up early…The brilliant sunrise was enclosed in a golden honeycomb…

What opens for you?

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

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But now he was turning the tables, and I was taken aback. What had I been learning?

I said I’d learned that politicians can surprise us, maybe even surprise us in ways we liked. (I was thinking of Marjorie Taylor Greene.) But I wasn’t satisfied with my answer. That wasn’t learning, I thought. That was just paying attention to the news.

Since then his question has remained with me, remembering times in my life when (not involved in a particular formal course of study), I was nevertheless intensely involved with learning. Learning which came about spontaneously, organically.

One of these times was after we moved into a new house with a new back yard and I became suddenly obsessed with all things relating to flowers and flower-gardening. Perennials, in particular. Another time, I developed an intense interest in the impressionist painters—Monet and Manet, Pissarro and Cezanne, Mary Ann Cassatt. I absorbed everything I could about them—their painting styles, where they painted and who they painted with. Their love relationships, their struggles for acceptance by the traditionalists. There’s a delight in these passions–becoming completely engrossed with something new and wanting to learn everything you can about it.

Undoubtedly, you too, recall similar times for yourself. When you’ve been fascinated by a particular subject—maybe photography or cave art, poetry or the history of the Civil War. You become totally absorbed in the subject—paying attention to every reference that crops up in your life, seeking out other avenues to discover more. It’s an exciting thing– a new infatuation, a passion. And it adds a richness to every day that not much else can.

So how can we add more of these sorts of experiences to our lives? I would suggest that there are two ways:  (1) paying attention, and (2) curiosity.

“Curiosity is the wick in the candle of learning,” William Arthur Ward wrote. And Eleanor Roosevelt said that “Life must be lived and curiosity kept alive.”

For the creative in you, a healthy curiosity is an invaluable asset:  What would happen if I took this series of photographs in black and white rather than color? What if I added another protagonist to this novel and wrote her chapters in first person?

What are you interested in? No matter how off-the-wall this might be? What are you passionate about? Indulge yourself and be on the lookout for new interests. Not only will it provide a spark for the creativity inside, it’s a joyous way to be fully alive. –Lucy Adkins

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

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Finding a place I can see with new eyes.

“The tree which moves some to tears of joy is in the eyes of others only a green thing which stands in the way,” William Blake wrote “As a man is, so he sees.”

Expectations and Seeing
How we see our world shapes what we know according to Andy Clark, cognitive psychologist. Our brains make predictions of what it expects to see and limits our reality to that. “Those predictions then structure and shape the whole of human experience,” Clark continues, “from the way we interpret a person’s facial expression, to our feelings of pain, to our plans for an outing to the cinema.” It’s true, what we perceive today is embodied in what we experienced yesterday, and all the days before. Past histories are important. Seeing is knowing.

Discovering Yourself
All my life I’ve loved water and trees. It can be a mountain stream, farm pond, and, visited last month, Hanging Horn, a large Minnesota lake rippling with a strong north wind and rimmed with dancing ladies wearing tutus of orange and yellow leaves. Those flirty cottonwoods curtsying and prancing fill me with nostalgia for my Mother, an observer, a seer who had the wise eyes of an artist. Mother was touched by nature and all that it contained. Through painting she was guided inwardly to a larger and more bountiful life. Maxime Lagace said, “By discovering nature you discover yourself.”

As she grew older, Mother gained new perspectives and a deeper appreciation for all that was. Her canvases in later years shine depth and authenticity, a kind of awareness that can only be created by living in tandem with green things, in the open, nature. In one painting an old knotted apple tree sways at its knees and another, a copse of aspens with branches playing with each other like school age friends. Mother’s depiction of a ramshackle grey barn with a young boy chasing a mutt is my favorite. On the canvas, too, a towering oak tree, the father of all trees, is a carved heart with initials. Mother’s D.K. alongside initials of someone else. It took me a while before I recognized the letters were not father’s. Seeing is knowing. Even at age seventy Mother was a romantic.

Sending Invocations
The last night at Hanging Horn we sit close to the water’s edge gathered shoulder to shoulder around a campfire. The lake a black mirror reflecting pinpoints of light. Marshmallows burnt hang from pointed sticks. Symphonic layers of sudden laughter rise as some fall unbidden into the flames. “Oh, no, another one, Gram!” A chilly wind kicks up the fire’s embers that float like tiny Chinese good luck lanterns into the dark sky. I close my eyes and send silent invocations summoning the spirit of Pegasus, the constellation of creativity, inspiration and freedom. Watching my granddaughters’ turned faces look up I see Pegasus transformed in them. All light and love, emancipated. — “alive” in the world.  And, as Joanna Macy beautifully described, “…with senses to perceive it, lungs that breathe it, organs that draw nourishment from it—is a wonder beyond words.”— Becky Breed

Writing/Creativity exercise:

1. Choose a memory from a time you were in nature. Who were you with? What did you do? Describe the colors and season. Why is it important to you? Suggested activities: Artists, create a canvas reflecting this memory. For writers, create a prose piece or poem about your favorite nature memory.
2. Select a type of tree you are most like or would like to be. For example, a fruit bearing fruit, a giant redwood, a Christmas fir, one splintered by lightning but still alive, the tree you grew up with or your choice. What characteristics will you relate? Passions? If the tree could talk (maybe it has), what would she say? Now write.
3. Invocations are deeply held convictions asking for guidance or assistance. Today, what words would you use? To whom? Write your own invocation.
4. What does being “alive” in the world mean? Tell a trusted friend what this means to you.

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It is how we choose what we do, and how we approach it, that will determine whether the sum of our days adds up to a formless blur, or to something resembling a work of art

My husband is a sports nut, especially in regards to baseball. So around our house, particularly now with the playoffs, the TV is often turned to a baseball game. And if a game isn’t on, he tunes into sports talk radio to catch up on the latest. Because of his passion, certain exotic words and phrases float around our house. Phrases like slugging percentage, RBI’s, and pitching rotations. And from time to time, there’s a reference to the sweet spot.

What’s that? I asked. Tom defined the sweet spot as “a particular spot on a baseball bat that when the ball is hit from that point, everything lines up perfectly. And it’s as though there is no sense of impact, no effort on the part of the batter, but the ball sails out of the park.”

What if there were a “sweet spot” for our creative lives, a place from which we do our best work—and it comes effortlessly? Peter Bregman believes that “We all have a sweet spot where everything seems to flow; where we feel happy, competent, in sync with everything around us, [and] uniquely talented…” David Spangler states that the sweet spot is “the state of mind in which we experience the most joy and satisfaction in being ourselves. And from that place of pleasure and joy…energy arises to flow out into our day…”

So, the sweet spot does exist, surfacing when we are ourselves, doing what we love and are meant to do; and when we are in sync with everything around us.” It is being “in sync,” I believe, where we run into trouble. Life gets too crazy sometimes. Our plates are too full, and we wear ourselves ragged. Our emotions get the best of us, and we find ourselves out of harmony, out of balance.

In her book, The Sweet Spot, Christine Carter suggests ways we can re-establish that balance and work from our places of greatest strength. These ways include  developing habits which enable us to re-energize, unshackling ourselves from clutter, cultivating relationships, and the willingness to get out of our comfort zone from time to time.

The sweet spot is elusive. If it were not so, every pitch to a batter would result in a home run, every artistic step we took would be brilliant. But we can try to grow closer to the place where we are at our best. That place where we breathe deeply and feel at peace. Sometimes it can be as simple as finding time to take a walk outside or sharing a laugh with a friend. For me a place of great comfort and also great energy is writing with my writing group. Some mornings I find this place at my writing desk. What about you?–Lucy Adkins

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