Feb Update: Visual Vocabularies for the Creative-Mind-State
And the relationship between chaos & creativity
In the North country, February’s pallet looks like this…
A stark month.
It’s my understanding, writing in these time blocks, that time has a message she wants to share. And right now she seems configured to point out things can turn extreme and we can go bold.
You can find yourself in heavy snow and a deep freeze and lay in that very frigid snow and find peace. Now that is a wonderful thing.
So, in this month of 28 days, I found the extremes of February to have shored up 3 new “knowings”—each of which are amping up my creative/inquisitive/loose/hey there wait a minute mind, and the very impulse that I don’t need to behave as if there’s some kind of leash at my neck….
What are the 3 things bringing up my creative-mind-state?
WHITE SPACE: In between thinking and doing is white space. February’s snow was telling me to be in this white space. And so I obeyed.
OUTER AUTHORITIES & INNER AUTHORITIES: I listened to my spiritual guides and learned that there are outer authorities and inner authorities. My guide asked me…is one talking more loudly than the other right now?
Who are the outer authorities? The people we elect, the ones who set laws, funding models, algorithms, value systems at a pulpit….also, my interpretation of other people’s expectations.
My inner authority? It quotes smoking women and men like John Steinbeck, who once said: the free exploring mind of the individual human is the most valuable thing in the world. And this I would fight for: the freedom of the mind to take any direction it wishes, undirected. And this I must fight against: any idea, religion or government which limits or destroys the individual.
FROM CHAOS TO ORDER: Creativity takes chaos—handles it with 2 hands, and 1 loose, expansive mind—and melds it into a new ordering.
I was reading about this, and discovered the following from the scientist, minister and poet Dr. Betty Luceigh:
One way to describe change is that creativity is continuously in the process of birthing new ordered forms, and within that process, there are temporary periods of apparent disorder required. Another way to describe change is that chaos is necessary first so that creativity will then have separated components available to choose from to connect into new ordered forms. Either way, creativity and chaos seem to be intimately related.
In our current times, it seems that chaos is often the prevailing condition.
The question then becomes, in my mind, who has the upper hand in creating the new forms in the current chaos we’re all inside of? Without referencing cruel and cold billionaires, I’d like to shine a stage light on 3 kind folks I know and am really admiring right now.
My friend and the author Rajinderpal S. Pal has established a new financial award at the University of Toronto for creative writing to encourage and amplify creative talents that are beginning their writing journey.
Two writer friends are meeting over Zoom every weekday morning at 6am to create together.
A writer I’ve admired for a while hadn’t written a thing in YEARS. This week she sent me a prose poem, and it made both of us soften into tender balls of breath. I think we carried that sensibility around for a few hours to everyone we met.
To end, a couple sketches I made that square up where the creative-mind-state is landing for me….going horizontal and vertical in life….
I usually end with a song. This month I’d like to finish off with this magnificent decision by this magnificent writer…
Nadia, what a beautiful piece of encouragement. You made me feel white space. 🤸♂️