Creative cycles

Good morning!

It is mid fall and I am so aware of the transition that is happening. The leaves have let go into gravity and the quiet is settling in.

Bare branches let my eyes travel with the shapes and lines they create, so different than when the leaves were filling out the density of space. 

I have been in the post show transition. 

(click read more for images)

Having installed the big piece that I have been working on for so long, (images below) and that took over as a really big push in the last month or two, I feel like my leaves are settling into gravity too. The exhale of the cycle. Letting go and landing. 

There is something so important about completion. Closure. Release.
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It can also be scary. There is a strong sense of purpose and identity with the projects underway. Who are you without all the doing? And what if they are not actually any good? 

Many of us are much better at the starting and have trouble with completion. This can cause things to get clogged up and the overwhelm to build to the point of inaction. There becomes no room for creation.

Fall is a time of clearing out, completing, creating space for new work to emerge.

In order to complete things, you have to trust that you are ok in the silence of not doing and that the work will be what it is. It wants to be seen.

When you are ready, the next thing will already be bubbling up. It is in you waiting for it's time. And it will be served by your being able to see the last one to completion. You are learning with each one- if you let yourself see them to completion.

I have been working with a breath meditation recently that allows for a pause at the bottom of the exhale- a still point. If you sit in that silence for a moment, you get to a point where you can feel the urge, the desire, to inhale. I think of this as being ready to activate again.

So in my still point after completion, I am finding home again, reestablishing the rhythms of exercise and good food, nesting, catching up with all the people and things that slipped to the side during the big push. Being a person not just an artist and a solopreneur.

Having done a long overdue deep clean in my bedroom a few days ago- and reveling in being able to see the top of my dresser and the beauty of the clean windows, I woke this morning with a sense of emptiness. I started to feel it as a lonliness or something wrong or off, and then I realized that it is the sensation of my psyche asking for energy- calling for the activation of the inhale. 

It lead me to write this to you. And having done that, I feel renewed energy pouring in.

I gave myself permission for a kind of softness and self-care that is like a deep exhale. And now I can feel the impulse for the next thing beginning to emerge. A desire to be back in the studio with new ideas. And an urge toward offering a rich group experience, connecting in a process of creating.

Today I am ready to clean the studio again- create beautiful space to be in for the winter.

I tell you all of this with the question for you of what is closing? How are you landing? Can you give yourself permission to find closure, to let go, to have a pause in the still point, and then listen for the urge towards the next thing?

Don't rush. Revel in the cycle.

Warmly,
Val

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