[warm-up, creative parenting]

Did you play this game as a child? It bears repeating and is a great thing to do with your own kids. It’s non-competitive, free, interactive and instructive, for adults as well as children. Plus, if you bring a creative slant to it, it can be an experience that teaches about the close relationship between smell, memory and creativity.

THE GAME:

Place a series of smells under the noses of blindfolded people and ask them to name them.

Best played in the kitchen.

That’s it.

However, it’s not as easy as it would seem to be. Sometimes the smell is as familiar as your own name but the word for it will not come. This is probably because in order to do this we have to utilize two separate parts of the brain. The part that identifies smells as familiar and known—and the part that puts a word to that familiar and known smell, ordinarily with the assistance of sight.

It would be a great game to play at a Halloween party since this holiday is already so much about masks and the senses. Make it part of your “Haunted House” and have the kids identify a few ‘bad’ smells along with the good or neutral.

If you’re just playing this at home, talk to your kids about the brain and memory. Sit down with them and do a quick free-writing exercise just to see what the non-verbal sense of smell has aroused in your c-minds. If your children are too young to write, let them dictate their stories.

You can also use some of your game smells as the basis for art work. After you’ve played the Smell Game, tell your kids they can make art with the ingredients. Explain that this art work may not be as lasting as if you were using paint. It might be a good time to teach them words like “transient,” “ephemeral,” and “fleeting” and to talk about art and artists who make art that is intentionally so.

Smell Art Ideas:

Sprinkle jello on a paper and let them use their fingers to make art (this is a great sensory-rich way to help them learn to write their letters and numbers, but save that for another more structured time ) Enhance the smell factor by letting them dip their fingers in lemon juice first!

Dip paper in strong tea, coffee, fruit juice.

Use berries to make dyes, paint with them!

Finger paint with (a little) peanut butter. (Maybe even jelly, too?)

Put glue on the paper and use aromatic spices as you would glitter.

Take one item—how about a lemon?—and do a whole picture out using all parts of the lemon.

And, this is a whole other article, but don’t forget: edible art! Pancakes with food colouring, popcorn ball people, rice cake worlds.

LINKS

Here’s a lovely website
http://library.thinkquest.org/C0110299/html/index.php made by three young people about the brain and the mind, including pages on creativity (take the How Creative are you? quiz), the senses and memory.

The Ephemeral Arts - check this one out. it’s all about ephemeral arts on the Indian sub-continent; here’s another link to the same site, one that gives examples of these kinds of art. Use them with your kids!

Stayed tuned for my own Ephemeral Arts article. Coming soon!

Have fun and never forget that anything you can do with kids and creativity, you should be doing for yourself anyway. Tapping into our childhood well, keeps creativity flowing strong!

[-quick tip, practice-]

A Quick Creative Practice
~simple habits can have profound impacts~

“The smell and taste of things remain poised a long time, like souls, ready to remind us…..” Marcel Proust, French writer.

Whether you’re on a high energy creative roll or in a loggy slump, paying attention to your senses always makes good sense.

The kind of creativity you’re engaged in will tend to dictate the sense organ that you primarily use—though sight wins hands down. Music - hearing, Photography - sight, Cooking - taste, Pottery/Sculpting - touch and what about that OTHER one? Ah, yes, smell!

Since that’s the sense that tends to be used least, try going on a smell adventure for a way to inspire, to perk up your creative juices. As I have detailed recently, cooking that is done with intention, can be a great creative catalyst for this very reason.

Cook something that has smells you really love—or hate! Even if you don’t, cook you can make lemonade, cocoa, peppermint tea. Or just bite into and eat one perfect peach, making sure that you are aware of the smell as you do it. There are smells all around us all the time, right? Paying attention to them is the key.

Smells can be a switch, a direct neurological link to a memory, a feeling, a moment in time. It’s simple and effective. Researchers believe that this feeling of directness to a smell or taste induced memory has to do with the fact that these senses are our only chemical ones.

Sense memories are most often associated with the art of acting, but they are also intimately tied with writing, music and art as well. We create out of who we are, so what could be better than to use this primitive, chemical-sense to heighten our abilities in order to create our own truth?

After exposing yourself to the smells of your choice, try doing a ten-minute writing exercise or quick sketches. Use the mental stimulation to create something just from the sense of smell. Have fun!

Here’s an excellent article on the science behind the sense of smell and memory.

Cooking is one of the few creative activities that I engage in pretty much everyday. However, I realized recently that somewhere along the line I stopped giving cooking the respect it deserves.

I have always enjoyed cooking but I guess my children—over time—with their penchant for the bland and the familiar, ate away at ( )the amount of creativity that I generally poured into daily meals. I remember my younger son exclaiming that a quickie “Sloppy Joe” dinner was “The best meal you’ve ever made, Mom!” That’s okay. As a busy mom, I’d take any compliment I could get.

But for years now, it’s ordinarily just my husband and myself and since we’re both adventurous eaters, I have free reign over what to cook. I’m not much of a planner. I work until my tummy tells me it’s time to eat, go downstairs, think about what I’m hungry for, see what’s available— sometimes pulling out three times as much as I’ll use—and start cooking. I rarely use a recipe for evening meals. The results are usually good and often delicious (my rule of thumb is Would I be happy if I’d paid for this at a restaurant? and often I can answer “Yes!” to that question)

However, I don’t usually think of it as part of my creative day.

Recently, I had a different kind of cooking that needed to be done. We—like many people this time of year—have a surplus of zucchini from our little garden. I don’t even particularly LIKE zucchini so I knew that I needed some creative ways of using up these mass quantities. I looked on the internet for zucchini breads and ran across a beautiful cooking blog called 101 Cookbooks by Heidi Swanson. There, I found a recipe for a zucchini bread with an ‘Indian’ twist. This looked perfect as I was having my book club over that weekend. Our book club does a pot luck dinner with food suggested by the book we’ve read and this time it was Indian.

I set to work making this and what I ended up with was not only a yummy dessert and a little less zucchini to deal with but also a renewed appreciation for cooking as both a creative outlet and catalyst.

Right from the start this zucchini bread recipe offered me two things: 1) the opportunity to bake—which I love but don’t allow myself the time to do and 2) a recipe to follow. Nothing earth-shattering there, but it dawned on me as I got into it that following a recipe was allowing me a mental escape. Follow the directions. Do this, then do this, then do that.

Relaxation was the first thing I noticed. I scooped and measured the dry ingredients, enjoying the gentle mess of flour as it sifted across the counter. I used my food processor with childlike glee to shred that huge zucchini in the photo in a just few seconds.

Then I noticed that the relaxation was overlaid with something else: stimulation. My sense of smell became activated in a major way by the ingredients. Lemon zest! Wow, what a virtual explosion of associations: summer and heat and childhood and so many others—all good! Then there were the more familiar but homey smells of pecans (being from Texas where pecans grow, I used them instead of walnuts), cinnamon and vanilla. My senses were further delighted by surprising ingredients such as crystallized ginger and curry powder. What yummy smells and sooo delicious.

By the time I popped the two pans in the oven, I was as relaxed, happy and energized as if I’d had a late-afternoon walk on the beach or a great yoga class. I felt raring to go! Ready to take on more baking (I used up more, though not all, of the zucchini on Heidi’s gorgeous chocolate zucchini cupcakes! which we are still enjoying around here) and more of anything creative I could get my hands on.

I would have come upstairs and written this post right then if I hadn’t had Book Club coming the next night!

What I realized—remembered—is that cooking, when we can relax into it involves the senses as few other activities do. Not only smell and—of course, taste—but touch and sometimes even hearing. And it’s one of those activities such as walking or riding a bike, driving or taking a shower that can put us into a C-mindful state. I’ve often worked through plot knots while cooking. The activity is absorbing enough that it distracts but it doesn’t require a great deal of concentration—sometimes none at all. Perfect for c-mind problem solving!

So here’s the reminder: We have to eat, so why not approach the occasional cooking *chore* as an opportunity to delight our senses, relax our minds and catalyze whatever we want to do with our excess creative energy.

bon appétit

[-photography, digital art-]

Rain Day

Originally uploaded by Elinesca.

Today’s image is all about water.

Water is so magical to look at, photograph, be in, experiment with because it can do so many things to and with our senses. It not only reflects, but is, at the same time, transparent! We see *on* and *in* it simultaneously. It catches light and color. It distorts size and position of what is seen through it. It is powerful enough to etch through stone but can be as gentle as a foggy mist.

© 05-07 nancy waldman

Remember this as you create.
• Before painting, soak your paper in water.
• Take a photograph of an object through a glass of water.
• Find out what happens to a photograph that is soaked in water.
• Click here for more outrageously watery suggestions.
• And finally, don’t ever underestimate the power of a shower for providing an atmosphere conducive to inspiration!

Thanks, Elinesca for today’s inspiration.

Originally posted to the original Practically Creative blog in February 2006; edited slightly for re-publication

[-gardening article-]

Planting a garden is work full of hope and joyful expectation. If it’s time to plant seedlings where you are, this article will inspire you and help you to enjoy the fruits of your labours.

by guest contributor, Sherry D. Ramsey

As gardeners, we all share some of the joys that growing things can bring: the thrill when that speck of green pokes up, signaling an awakened seed; that heady raw earth smell when the soil is turned for the first time in spring; the burgeoning splashes of color as the garden fulfills its springtime promise. Walking the garden, reveling in our successes, and fetching a breath of that intoxicating scent of flower and earth and sun make all our hard work worthwhile.

But there are other, out-of-the-ordinary ways to enjoy the garden that many of us miss in the practical rounds of weeding and watering, pruning and cultivating. Here are a few simple suggestions for delving deeper and discovering the heart and soul of your garden this summer.

• 1. Make a point of observing your garden at different times during the day.

The dew-spangled garden just at dawn (or at least early morning) is different from the sun-swollen mid-afternoon garden, and a distinct experience again in a cool, misty twilight. Nothing compares to the magic of the garden limned by the silvered fingers of a full moon.

• 2. Walk your garden in different weather situations.

Most of us enjoy the garden on a sunny afternoon, but don’t miss its wild, tossed beauty in a windstorm or the deepening greens and cool wet scents of the garden in the rain.

• 3. Don’t just stroll in your garden.

Grab a blanket, stool, or lawn chair and settle yourself close to a flower bed. Now watch the interplay of blossoms, insects, breezes and birds. Observe each petal and leaf in its unique relationship to the plant as a whole. How many color variations are there in a single bloom? A single leaf?

• 4. While you’re sitting there, close your eyes for a few minutes and listen.

The drone of nectar-laden bees, the rustle of foliage, the background of birdsong, the skittering of insects through the grass, maybe even the swift whir of a hummingbird– they’re all part of your garden, too.

• 5. Display a big spray of cut flowers in your garden–they’re not just for inside the house.

Cut flower bouquets allow you to bring together blooms that can’t grow together because of conflicting light, water and soil requirements. The resulting combinations can lend a whole new dimension of beauty to your garden, and a lovely focal point for a patio, deck or gazebo.

• 6. Sprinkle your garden with tiny lights at night, for just pennies.

Tea light candles set in empty glass jars (Mason jars are excellent) weave a flickering path of beauty through the nighttime garden. Watch how flower colors mute and blend by candlelight as the garden takes on an entirely new persona.

• 7. Finally, keep a journal of your garden.

Not just the prosaic facts on planting and blooming dates, plant performance and propagation notes. Weave in your thoughts and observations as you follow the suggestions in this article. How did the garden look in the rain or at dawn? What made it different by candle- or moonlight? How did it sound? Did you learn anything new from your observations? Don’t forget to note down how the garden looked on special days throughout the summer–birthdays, anniversaries, family visits, holidays. Your garden journal will make great winter reading when the garden is sleeping and you’re curled up in your living room, browsing through seed catalogs and dreaming of spring.

The great gift of a garden is that it delights all of our senses. With a little creative thinking, it can delight the spirit and soul as well.

© 2005 - 2007 Sherry D. Ramsey, all rights reserved

About the author:
Sherry writes speculative fiction. She’s published many short stories and her newest SF novel, “One’s Aspect to the Sun” was recently awarded second place in the 28th Annual Atlantic Writing Competition’s novel category, the H.R. (Bill) Percy Prize. She’s also the author of many essays and articles especially on the craft of writing. She is the publisher and editor of the highly successful Scriptorium Webzine for Writers. You can read all about Sherry at her author’s website www.sherrydramsey.com.

Be sure to read Sherry’s other works in The PCQ.
short story
- Accidents Happen
poetry
- UPLOAD
- I, Galaxy

Originally published in the April 2005 issue of The Practically Creative Quarterly, theme: inspiration

[-essay, parenting-]

What do yoga, Carlos Castañeda and being a loving, effective parent have to do with knowing who and where and what you are? Read this great essay to find out.

Playing the edge, finding one’s spot and being one’s true self

by guest essayist, Joe McCarthy

I recently attended a four-class parenting seminar on Love and Logic, wonderfully facilitated by Cindy Horst. The three “rules” of Love and Logic are:

1. Take care of yourself by setting limits in a loving way
2. Give choices whenever it’s reasonable.
3. Let empathy and consequences do the teaching.

Throughout the classes, parents were encouraged to stretch to allow children to experience more consequences directly, enabling them to fail early and often, rather than being protected or rescued from those consequences. There is much to be gained by moving out of our comfort zone, but stopping short of real pain. Cindy notes that the Love and Logic principles can be used not only by parents interacting with their children, but in school and the workplace as well.

I see these principles as applying equally well to my interactions with my self.

This notion of stretching to the edge of our comfort zone reminded me of the concept of “playing the edge” that Erich Schiffman describes in his wonderful book “Yoga: The Spirit and Practice of Moving Into Stillness”. Reviewing the highlighted passages in my copy of the book revealed close alignment with some of the concepts taught by Don Miguel Ruiz in “The Four Agreements” and by Don Juan (via Carlos Castañeda) in “The Teachings of Don Juan”. I’ll include some relevant passages below.

On “playing the edge” (from Erich Schiffman’s book):

A large part of the art and skill in yoga lies in sensing just how far to move into a stretch … This place in the stretch is called your “edge.” The body’s edge in yoga is the place just before pain, but not the pain itself … Sensing where your edges are and learning to hold the body there with awareness, moving with its often subtle shifts, can be called “playing the edge.”

One of the things you learn in yoga is to enjoy working with intensity. Intensity is simply more “energy” at any given moment, more feeling … Yoga can teach you to enjoy and learn from a broader range of experience. It will encourage you to seek out and process more intensity … Skill in yoga involves creating the perfect amount of intensity — not too much, not too little.

The real key to depth in postures is going slowly, making sure you have thoroughly opened your early edges … Proceed slowly, edge by edge and gate by gate … Respect your tight edges. Work with them sensitively. Lure them to greater openness.

Never be in a place you don’t want to be. If you do not like it, change it. Adjust. Find the degree of stretch you can totally immerse yourself in … Never fight yourself.

This last part reminds me of Don Juan’s notion of finding one’s spot (via Carlos Castañeda’s book):

Finally he told me that there was a way, and proceeded to create a problem. He pointed out that I was very tired sitting on the floor, and that the proper thing to do was to find a “spot” (sitto) on the floor where I could sit without fatigue. I had been sitting with my knees up against my chest and my arms locked around my calves. When he said I was tired, I realized that my back ached and that I was quite exhausted.

I waited for him to explain what he meant by a “spot,” but he made no overt attempt to elucidate the point. I thought that perhaps he meant that I should change positions, so I got up and sat closer to him. He protested my movement and clearly emphasized that a spot meant a place where a man could feel naturally happy and strong. He patted the place where he sat and said it was his own spot, adding that he had posed a riddle I had to solve by myself without any further deliberation.

Finally, re-reading the opening chapter of Schiffmann’s book reminded of the concept of mitote in Ruiz’ book:

Your mind is a dream where a thousand people talk at the same time and no one understands each other. Everything you believe about yourself and the world, all the concepts and programming you have in your mind, are all the mitote. We cannot see who we truly are; we risk to be alive and express what we really are.

Schiffman addresses this issue of who we are - and who we are not - and suggests that yoga can provide a way to discover and experience our true selves:

Yoga is a way of moving into stillness in order to experience the truth of who you are … From very early on, a fundamental conflict was introduced into our psyches revolving around this basic and most important issue: Who am I, really? And because we were not encouraged to find out for ourselves, we believed what other people told us. The result is that we feel guilty, ashamed, embarrassed, and confused about who we are. We feel judged … [Yoga teaches you to] turn your attention inward and focus on yourself. Focus on what it feels like to be you. Experience you.

One of the things I like about Love and Logic is that it encourages children to be who they really are. Rather than trying so hard to control children, the program points to a path through which children can more naturally unfold to be their true selves, with gentle guidance and support from their parents. This approach resonates with me, and I will try to apply it as best I can. And, regardless of how this affects my children, I plan to get up extra early tomorrow to have more time to find my spot, play my edge … and experience being me.

about the author:
Joe McCarthy’s mission is to help people relate to one another. He has played the edges of academia and industry, and is currently moving out of his comfort zone and opening up to the intensity of a new entrepreneurial path aligned with this mission. More about Joe’s entrepreneurial aspirations can be found at interrelativity.com; other dimensions of his journey can be found on his blog: gumption.typepad.com. This article is a slightly revised version of this one originally published on his blog.

illustration from the yellow woman series by nancy sm waldman © 2005 - 2007 all rights reserved

Published with the permission of the author in the April 2005 issue of The Practically Creative Quarterly, theme: inspiration

[-quick tips, inspiration, process-]

Originally published in the April 2006 issue of The Practically Creative Quarterly, theme: Alterations

All such Graphic Reminders in The PCQ are the playful fault of
Nancy S.M. Waldman, © 2006 - 2007; all rights reserved

[-inspiration, process-]

by Suze Corte

Inspiration? I am often and easily inspired! What to do with that inspired feeling-how to put it to creative uses-is another matter entirely. As an artist, teacher and creative junkie, I dread the times when something seems to get stuck in my creative machinery, jamming up the works somewhere between inspired concept and output. I have reached the conclusion that I am in desperate need of a mechanic, the grease monkey in charge of tuning up the engine and making it go. I think of this oft-absent spirit as my Studio Muse.

Looking back, it’s obvious that the ability to recognize and experience moments of inspiration emanates from my childhood. My siblings and I were encouraged to be creative thinkers, flexible and open to many possible solutions to problems. Not only were we surrounded with readily available art materials and books, but we also had plenty of time for free play outdoors among the grasses and trees and toads. One of my favorite childhood haunts was a spot up in the branches of an oak tree. There I would follow the seasons of my imagination, communing with the ever-changing leaves enclosing my dreamy perch. Nowadays I realize that I received a priceless gift: carefree time in a beautiful natural setting to get to know myself well. I had the delicious opportunity to reflect, to dream, to imagine, to be engaged, to connect, to plan. As a result, I grew up to be an artist and teacher whose antennae are ever ready to detect tiny tantalizing tidbits of inspiration.

I was fortunate to grow up in a family that supported creative pursuits, honoring books and supplying materials for exploration and discovery. Through the years, my creative outlook has provided me with many successes. I have a healthy marriage to an amazing man. We have an intelligent, creative, beautiful daughter. My home is filled with handmade pillows, drawings, and poems. I have created businesses, taught art classes and preschool, written elegant research papers, and created hundreds of gifts for friends, family and clients. So what am I complaining about?

Well, I’m not complaining. I am sad and frustrated that when I sit down to work, I often feel that my Studio Muse has left the building! I’m wanting more. And because I’ve been wanting more ever since I can remember, I have decided to begin today by actively inviting my Studio Muse to move back in with me on a full-time basis. In the back of my mind is an idea of what my muse looks like, and my plan is to create an actual likeness of her. I know that she will take three-dimensional form, but that’s as specific as I can be right now. I want to manifest her in real form so that she can aid me in moving from my imagination-fantasy-dreaming world into my action-doing-productive mode. I will let you know in the ensuing months as this work-in-progress develops. In the meantime, look over my shoulder as I begin the process of defining, designing and refining the great Studio Muse Experiment!

DEFINING - Top Five Things My Studio Muse Will Be:

• 5. Powerful, wise, beautiful, quirky, encouraging, strong, brave, pushy.
• 4. Capable of evoking laughter and/or tears at just the right times.
• 3. Three-dimensional and multi-faceted.
• 2. Available for late-night consultations.
• 1. Fun.

DESIGNING - Top Five Things My Studio Muse Will Be Designed to Do:

• 5. Take up residence in my life.
• 4. Make her presence known when my attitude toward work is unproductive, resistant, or rebellious.
• 3. Request candle-lighting ceremonies.
• 2. Surround herself with inspiring trinkets.
• 1. Preside over my studio with panache.

REFINING - Top Ten Things My Studio Muse Will Help Me Do:

• 10. Show up regularly.

Practical steps: I will write on my calendar each week specific times when I am going to walk into my studio to work. I will also write down how much time I plan to set aside for each studio session. I’ll leave three reminders around the house, scrawled in crayon and possibly decorated with sequins, saying something like “Show Up! 5:30pm Tuesday!!~signed, Your Studio Muse.”

• 9. Stay for the whole “session.”

Practical steps: If I sit down at my studio table and begin to feel that I have nothing to do, nothing to contribute, nothing to say, so be it. I will still stay for the allotted time. I can push beautiful papers around, rearrange things on the shelves, organize paintbrushes, color-code files, rip fabric, cut funny words out of magazines, scribble on 14 different surfaces, make a list of why I should never come here again, decide how I’m going to destroy all the things I’ve started but never finished, or just sit and listen to music. But I’ll stay.

• 8. Enter with an open heart.

Practical steps: As I open the door and go in, I will look at my Studio Muse and be reminded that this is a place where I can expect to reveal my inner feelings, learn about myself, play, hurt when necessary, rejoice, grow, surprise myself, be surprised by the work.

• 7. Begin lightheartedly.


Practical steps: I will begin a ritual of entering my studio with a song, a dance, and a quirky idea to begin the work. I’ll follow through with the music and the fun idea, and then I’ll go on from there wherever the spirit takes me. I may end up crying by the end of the session, but that will be okay because feeling deeply is an integral part of any creative life.

• 6. Focus on work.

Practical steps: I am in my studio to work. Often creative people seem to work by playing, just as children learn best through play and through their senses. I will remain intentional about being at work/play and if I get off track, I’ll write down three things I’d like to work on. This may be just the trick to get me back to what I’m clearly wanting and needing to do.

• 5. Ignore distractions.

Practical steps: I will be present in the moment and worry about everything else later. I will not answer the phone, do laundry, or watch TV, nor will I be lured to my computer whilst in the studio zone.

• 4. Keep an inspirational journal.

Practical steps: I will create a journal that stays on my studio worktable. Since many items I’ll want to keep will be three-dimensional, i.e., lumpy, I’ll also have an adjunct “journal box” where I can keep a collection of stuff. The journal & box will be lovingly created so that I enjoy looking at them daily. I will deposit ideas, concepts, clippings, bits of nature, drawings, snippets of thoughts, song lyrics, bits of paper, lines from books and movies, quotes, things people have said to me, essays, photos, doodles, techniques I want to try, lists, fabric scraps, threads, cords and strands!

• 3. Be present in the moment.

Practical steps: Through easily accessible sensory clues-a scented candle, good music, nice lighting, comfortable seating, and an evocative Muse right before my eyes-I will attempt to place myself into a state that conjures up my productive, playful, emotional, inspired creative working self.

• 2. Remind me of who I am.

Practical steps: When I enter my workspace and see my personal Muse and Inspiration Journal, I will be visually reminded of who I am and what I want to do. I will know again that It Does Matter and will even remember–on a good day–why it matters!

• 1. Show my work in the world.

Practical steps: I will reveal my work to other people often and without a care as to what they might think. Since my Studio Muse is always there for me, to remind me who I am and to keep me centered, I will feel better about venturing out into the world with my babies-my creative offspring. My worth comes from within my own heart and soul, not from anything or anyone outside of me.

• And the Number One Thing I Hope
  The Studio Muse Experiment Does For You?

INSPIRE!

Originally published in the April 2005 issue of The Practically Creative Quarterly, theme: inspiration
© 2005 - 2007; all rights reserved

About the author:
Suze Corte is a writer, artist and pre-school teacher in Houston, Texas. In 2007, she was chosen as be the Houston Area Association of Educator’s of Young Children’s Teacher of the Year and the Texas Association of Educators of Young Children’s Teacher of the Year. Congratulations, Suze! It is a well-deserved recognition.


To see all of Suze’s PCQ articles and art, click on her name in the tags.

-essay, inspiration-

by guest essayist, Quinn D. Corte

Inspiration follows all of us around like a stray puppy, barking excitedly at the quirkiest times, begging us to come and play. Whether we notice her depends on our willingness to embrace creativity.

That gentle scratching of a familiar paw on my jeans has made me who I am. For me, inspiration is in such diverse treats as redwood trees, old ballet shoes, and Kevin Spacey. Inspiration has been behind most of my major life decisions, but it also makes me dance at inappropriate times and sketch people with interesting noses while riding the bus.

As children, we don’t ignore the dog frolicking in our shadows. Inspiration plays fetch with us, giving us boundless imaginations. It makes us refuse to go to bed at night and rejoice at waking up each morning. Show and tell is fascinating and one visit to the space center turns us into astronauts.

As we grow up, it’s easy to forget about that puppy at our heels. Life bustles around us, responsibilities beckon, and Inspiration lags, discouraged, a few paces behind. Adults may not as readily light up at the discovery of an interesting leaf or a new box of sharpened crayons. How much more fun life would be if we let Inspiration pounce on us and lick our faces more often!

Getting inspired is an active process. We don’t hear Inspiration whimpering unless she’s always in the back of our minds, right on the edge of consciousness. In order to let her work her magic, we must keep our senses on the surface, ready to intercept anything that may change our lives. We must remember that dog may be hiding behind the sofa, snuggling on the end of our bed when we wake up, or sniffing around the backyard.

Embracing the ubiquity of Inspiration is a conscious choice. It shouldn’t be scary or difficult and definitely doesn’t have to inhibit our daily routine. She sits loyally at our feet, ready to wag her tail with first eye contact. She is a creative companion who can use anything from a juicy nectarine to a rain-splattered window to conjure hidden artistic energy inside our spirits. A simple scratch behind the ears of Inspiration is a fulfilling and easy way to add creativity and beauty to our difficult lives.

I feel comfort in knowing Inspiration is chasing butterflies at my side, always in my dreams and within my reach … every day of my life.

© 2005- 2007; Quinn D. Corte, all rights reserved

- Originally published in the April 2005 issue of The Practically Creative Quarterly, theme: Inspiration