The Slow Emergence of Creativity

"A tree as great as a man's embrace springs from a small shoot;
A terrace nine stories high begins with a pile of earth;
A journey of a thousand miles starts under one's feet." 
--Lao Tzu

In these words, Lau Tzu captures the challenges of spring that have been weighing heavily upon me.  I keep thinking about seeds and bulbs.  I find myself impatiently waiting for the bulbs I planted in the fall to slowly starting making their way through the earth and into the air so I can see them.  All I see now is bare dirt.  I worry. I wonder.  I hope.  I try to control the things I cannot control.  So I keep worrying. I keep wondering. I keep hoping. 

The challenge of spring is staying the course.  It is staying focused, not on what I can't control, but on the work of nurturing all the small steps that are the foundation of creativity. I am working on the small steps of a book, reminding myself that I need to take each step if I want to get anywhere. I can't just wake up one morning with a book fully written.  It takes self-compassion, commitment, hard work, love, and trust.  Yet, my impatience grows. I get distracted. I think about the immensity of the end goal. This paralyzes me with fear and an overwhelming sense of my human limitations.  In that paralysis, I think about my bulbs. I grow impatient.  Almost to the point that I want to dig a little, just to take a peek at what is going on down there in the depths of that fertile earth.  The spring does that to me.  It wakes me up. The snow has melted. The grass is getting greener. It should be time, right? It's been a long winter and I'm ready to see some results of that hibernation.

Mu Cang Chai, Vietnam. vietnamhotels.net

The creative process tests me in all sorts of ways.  I imagine an expansive terrace and I want that to be me. I want to be that completed creation. I don't want to think about the process involved in making that terrace. I don't want to think about the years of labor.  I don't want to think of the layers of dirt.  I just want that fertile valley in all its glory. But that is not how that terrace came into being. It was a slow, organic process.  It took thousands upon thousands of small steps. It moved forward and backward, depending on all kinds of unpredictable elements--such as weather and people.  It took compassion, commitment, hard work, love, and trust.  As it states on the Inspiration Green website:  "Terraced Farms: when it rains, instead of washing away the soil, the soil stays in place. Nutrients are also held in place or carried down to the next level." It is a slow and orchestrated process.  It takes a lot of planning and a lot of trust. 

If only I could understand that completely.  If only I could be patient and intentional.  If only I could trust in the process with consistency.  Instead, I get edgy and crabby with impatience.  My anxiety grows.  I worry.  I want it now, today.  I try to hold tight to the small daily steps--and sometimes that feels amazing.  I can feel the world opening up within me.  But on other days I feel the sensation of dread and worry take over.  Where can I find solace?  Where can I find trust?  If I listen to Lao Tzu, it's in the focus and intention of each step.  It is coming to the humbling reality that creation and creative processes are anything but final and done. They are ongoing steps that do not prosper and develop in the realm of control.  Ongoing small steps can take us into amazing places. Unexpectedly beautiful places.  I need to remember that right now.   I need to sit and be patient. I need self-compassion, commitment, hard work, love, and trust. 

Stoking the Embers, Tending the Fire

Last week, Matt and I had a bonfire in his backyard as a way to celebrate the beginning of warmer weather.  I was a bit restless and found myself constantly tending the fire.  I had so many thoughts trigger as I started to look at the fire as a metaphor for my own internal fire.  The bonfire provides an opportunity to for me to meditate on the fire element within me, something that I always feel is a weaker part of my constitution.  It always feels like something that needs more of my attention.  It needs more focus.  More stoking.  

Balancing Tending to the Fire

As I tended the fire, I could see myself in those flames. I began to understand how I think about fire. I kept focused on burning away the old paper and wood that had accumulated in the fire pit over the winter.  I wanted it to be burned away and out before adding too much new wood.  But the old stuff was still a bit damp and it was tough to keep the fire blazing.  I want to keep the flames high and hot in order to burn away that old damp shit at the bottom of the pit, so I added small dry pieces to keep the flames going, pushing the old stuff into the flames. I just wanted that old stuff gone, burned away, so we could have a fresh fire pit for the summer. What I soon realized, though, was that my constant tending was not the best way to stoke the fire's sustainability. I kept futzing with with the fire and causing it to go from high flames, to nearly losing the fire altogether.  Could there be a better metaphor for my own capacity to maintain my internal fire?  I am constantly futzing and meddling, because I think that to have that fire, it has to be a blaze. My capacity to see the middle ground and acknowledge the heat that embers can produce is in its most infant stages in my mind. 

 When I took a moment to sit and watch the fire, I saw that it could live without my constant attention.  When I let myself sit and watch the fire find it's own balance, I was captivated by the way it knew, just knew how to move and shift between the dry ease of the new planks of wood and the deeper work of burning off the damp residue of accumulated winter fragments. I saw that I didn't need to move the wood around all the time to keep the flames high.  It would move through a natural progression, burning and moving in its own way.  I would get up occasionally to add some wood or stir things around so that the damper pieces could move toward the heat and take their time burning away.  It was invigorating to see the way the fire could find its own balance and that left me thinking about how my internal fire needs space. It needs room to develop and create its own heat.  

Much like my previous post, I need to make space in order to move away from the momentum produced by the easy fast burn of dry wood and to start to go deeper into the spaces that need a hotter, deeper, longer-lasting heat that only embers can produce.  Those deeper pieces that benefit from the slow burn.  Routine and movement in and through myself is key to keeping the embers stoked, but I do not need to create excessive flames and heat to experience the value of fire.  In fact, I need more embers in my life.  Less volatile flames and more sustainable and containable heat that energizes and wakes me up from the long winter.  

It's No Longer about Momentum

The past week (more like 10 days)  has been challenging.  Kapha keeps pushing and pulling me into spaces I'd rather not be.  Uncomfortable spaces.  Lonely and fearful spaces.  What is different for me this season with kapha, though, is that I have been able to stand apart and watch myself a little bit more and not get pulled down the rabbit hole so completely, totally, and fearfully. I have been able to recognize relatively quickly that it is perception that drags me into some of those sink holes. And it's fighting the seasonal shifts that can get me into a hell of a lot of trouble.  What  I mean by that is that it is that I'm realizing how important it is to work smart with my routines and activities.  It is less about getting the stick out and being aggressive and mean to those sinking urges.  It is more about focus and intention, so that the feelings that kapha promote do not take over and define me in the ways that they have in the past.


What became clear to me is that relying on the momentum of my vata energy is not a way to develop the focus and intention I need to keep kapha balanced and effective. Relying on momentum often means that when that energy is gone, I am left in a muddy puddle, unable to keep the fire moving old stagnant energy out of my body. Meditation over the past several days keeps taking me to a place where I hear myself saying, "It's no longer about momentum. It's about digging deeply and finding the real energy and fire that is bound up and trapped in your fears."


And it is fear that keeps me from going down the rabbit hole with curiosity and joy.  It is the fear that once down there, I will never get out, that immediately takes over.  Rather than being curious about the discovery and possibility of the treasures that are awaiting me, I am often overwhelmed with the fear of never escaping the rhizomatic tangles that shape the earth.  When I stop trying to fight my way out and wasting energy, I am able to observe my inner world a bit more closely. I see that there is an amazing storehouse of energy, creativity, and life just waiting for me to recognize it, embrace it, know it.  So my work as of late has been focusing on that fire in my solar plexus.  It is about nurturing that fire and staying curious about the trappings of depth and darkness. It is about opening up to the energy that is there and no longer relying on surface momentum that takes me nowhere but deeper into my fears. The abstract fears that really do not have a home aside from my mind's perceptions and stories of what I thought was supposed to be.  Now it is about finding that energy storehouse within.

Tao Teh Ching: Chapter 41
The wise student hears of the Tao and practices it diligently.
The average student hears of the Tao and gives it thought now and again.
The foolish student hears of the Tao and laughs aloud.
If there were no laughter, the Tao would not be what it is.

Hence it is said:
The bright path seems dim;
Going forward seems like retreat;
The easy way seems hard;
The highest Virtue seems empty;
Great purity seems sullied;
A wealth of Virtue seems inadequate;
The strength of Virtue seems frail;
Real Virtue seems unreal;
The perfect square has no corners;
Great talents ripen late;
The highest notes are hard to hear;
The greatest form has no shape.
The Tao is hidden and without name.
The Tao alone nourishes and brings everything to fulfillment.