Experiment 5: On Creativity and Nature

So this month's topic is all about using Nature as an inspiration for creativity. Whether its simply being present, slowing down,  and slowing down - or - using what you find to inspire small ways to bring color and textures together - all of this is food for creativity. 

Yes. This I have known for awhile now. And, I appreciate how this would be a way to expand out into the world for so many people. The invitation to explore Nature - wild nature - is not one that everyone can - or wants - to accept. Overall, I think how Kelly, Jean, and Val approached this was lovely and inviting.

And...watching Kelly, Val, and Jean at the height of summer working on crafts in the backyard of a mountain cabin was a bit surreal. I felt the distance between where I am right now (January 2022) from where they were in summer 2021. The greens, short sleeves, the sun, the warmth. Distance creates disconnect to me. I found myself watching the videos from a more detached place than I have in the past.

For myself...

I know that my creativity flows from my connection to the natural world. This has been my spiritual and tangible path as a creator, writer, photographer, seeker, and counselor. My soul work has always been held in the natural world. 

I've explored what that connection is - what lies beyond the manmade constructs that we inhabit. I've questioned the social constructs that are the filters that I use and utilize to move within the natural world. I've sat in solitude for days on a red rock ledge and contemplated my spirit and how it resonates with the landscape. What speaks to me, what voices sing to me on the wind, what stone and plant and sky whisper to me. 

I am part of a marvelous wild natural world. What goes missing is never forgotten and never stops being a part of the whole. I can lose sight of who I am as I stare at myself through other's eyes - but in the end, my wholeness is there... simply waiting for me to re-member and surrender to my deepest awareness of not only myself but my abiding connection to the organic wild of nature.

I walked yesterday down around a state park. Beaches tossed with driftwood, frosty stalks of dead grass. Huge conifers towering over the rocky shoreline. Swift currents as the tide headed out. I stopped and admired the forest of 'old man' lichen, and took pictures of evergreen huckleberries so I could make sure to embroider the right pattern for the leaves.

I'm blessed to have access to incredible natural beauty where I live. It is the sea, the land, the tidepools - the ecotone of the shoreline - as Terry Tempest Williams would call it. Nature is my pallet and my salvation.

Takeaway: What we call "Nature" is not separate from our biological being. Find a way to connect - even if it is with a neighborhood tree. Press a few fallen leaves in a book, trace the fine lines, try to identify the colors  - look, touch, smell, learn. Remember that we are part of nature, not devoid of it.