There is nothing like creative flow. Ironically, in my experience, it only happens when we allow ourselves a little space and time to be still. Maybe we need sufficient quiet to allow the muse to make contact.
One of the first abstract painters, Hilma af Klint, believed her best work, the work she didn’t sell but kept to share with friends and loved ones, was the work that guided her. Not the work she did quickly or for income. She believed she channeled the work, and myriad writers have said the same, or aligned their process to the feeling of release. An ego release, perhaps.
Whether you see your own writing as a partnership with the spirit world or good old fashioned hard work or hard living that is finally paying off, the same thing is true. The work that connects over time and the work that is the most nourishing to create is the work that extends beyond the ease and convenenience of fast typing and writing-to-market.
The problem is, there are times when creativity is … slow to find us. Most of us are wired now to rush, so we fill our space with other things:
We click the “breaking news” story because it’s habitual and we are endlessly curious about human behaviors. Also, it might actually be breaking news this time! We need to do a safety check, after all.
We click on the funny videos because we want distraction. Is it real? Probably. Maybe. Though most cat videos, I’m guessing, are AI at this point.
We click publish before we’ve put our all in.
We zone out when we’re at dinner or speaking to a friend because we’re thinking about all we have to do.
We trip over a branch on a hike because we’re trying to get a picture of some aspect of nature.
Maybe we don’t do all of these things, but the point is, we humans are easily distracted, and our desire to capture everything keeps us running from the very beauty we seek.
What happened to sitting around bored, waiting for the muse to inject us with some divine inspiration? What happened to taking time to figure out, then listen to, our inner truth?
We also know know the value of writing to clear our heads and explore the nuanced beauty of life. Still, we click. We mindwander. We put the book down. We decide to skip writing group. We feel helpless to busyness, distraction or information overload.
In a post that’s part of my Year to Live series, I asked folks to look at a clockface for a full minute. You can do that here if you’re curious (or at home if you have an analog clock). This exercise is common in beginning meditation courses because it shows you how busy the mind truly is. If you have trouble with the exercise (or have no time to do it), I assure you. We can rebuild our stamina.
Reading enables us to connect by slowing us down and relating to another’s story. Writing becomes a release, then a release valve loosens and it becomes something else. It flows. The dopamine-addicted and distracted part of the mind is suddenly less important than the brilliance of connecting across time and space.
So let’s slow down, shall we?
I taught this at the Cultural Arts Center not long ago, and it reminded me of the value of ekphrasis to exercise for the concentration muscle and reawaken that flow of creative energy. Let’s try together.
Prompt: Spend 5 minutes with “Altarpiece” by Hilma af Klint (1862-1944).* Simply explore it.
Blow it up, zoom in, and see what you can find beyond the obvious. Look at the color choices, the textures created, the details you didn’t notice at first. Write a piece that either a.) describes the art in a poetic way, b.) explores the meaning through an entirely new story or lens, or c.) speaks to the artist directly, across time and space, inquiring and sharing your thoughts as honestly as possible.
Let me know what materializes.
The pictures were painted directly through me, without preliminary drawings and with great power. I had no idea what the pictures would depict and still I worked quickly and surely without changing a single brush-stroke. —Hilma af Klint
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