DEVOTION TO CREATIVE TRANSFORMATION

letting ourselves be changed and transformed by what we are devoted to & musings on creative process

There is something for me about the getting started: the hump to beginning a habit or project feels huge.

For example: I started my first quilt in June with my aunt (pictured above!). Quilting and sewing are things that are a big part of my family lineage, and something that I’ve been wanting to learn for awhile now. Over my weekend visit, my aunt taught me how to thread and use my sewing machine, basic sewing skills, how to create my quilt top, the basics of the quilting process, so much! I left with a completed quilt top in sunset colors.

But it was October before I touched the quilt again. The process felt daunting: I had let time stretch on so long I couldn’t remember how to thread the machine. I forgot the next steps. I needed to even get the machine out of the trunk of my car! I dragged my feet and dreaded working on something I truly want to do that feels really good when I do it.

What is it that finally gets me over the hump? I’m not sure but I think it has something to do with a combination of the desire getting big enough and reducing things down to their natural next step. Instead of telling myself I need to finish my quilt, I told myself I need to watch a YouTube video about how to baste the quilt together.

I take one step at a time towards my desires. I allow the process to be slow and to feel good.

Creativity is beautiful and it isn’t always.

It’s the same with my writing. I haven’t had a daily writing habit besides journaling since … ever? Daily writing habit meaning I’m consistently showing up every day to work on writing pieces - this newsletter, my book, short stories, essays - not just journaling my feelings and doing morning pages (also important! I do that and love that kind of writing as well).

As a kid, I spent hours on the computer writing stories. Characters came to life on my mom’s chunky Dell in the basement. A novel got put on a floppy disk, then transferred to a CD. I haven’t written with such imaginativeness or consistency since childhood, and over early pandemic days I returned to poetry, evoking memories of being a fifth grader eschewing outdoor recess to write poetry in the library with my best friend.

Now, I return to writing fiction. Characters come alive on the pages again. I return to my imagination and my imagination returns to me. I beckon it to come and it does. I get over the hump by deciding to commit to process not outcome. Not: I will write a book. But: I will write. I will show up for my writing time every day. I integrate it into my routine: from 10 am to 11 am daily you will find me at my laptop sitting with my characters and my demons and my stories.

I am writing on a return home. Telling stories I have not yet told, weaving the beginnings of stories I haven't even dreamed up yet.

Virgo season brought me creative structure and Scorpio season shows me how devotion to my creativity is changing me from the inside out.

There is a magic in the daily showing up: the boiling of tea, the noticing of the foliage, the opening of the laptop, the moving of the pen. Most of our lives are made up of the mundane so how do we make it magical, how do we use the mundane to feel more of what we want to feel?

I choose to weave my creativity into the mundane. This fall, I commit to the creative practices I am devoted to and I let them change me, transform me.

This season, my inner child writes along with me as I craft characters and set scenes, as I dream up worlds and let them line the pages of Google Docs. This season, my inner child writes along with me as I write what is true. It’s not always fiction. I take what happened and I turn it into a poem whether it takes the form of poetry or not. I cut open the pomegranate, scoop out the seeds, swallow them. Let them tie me to my love. Let them anchor me to my creative practice. The sweet sour tang on my throat shakes body awake and it tells the stories it holds.

I am writing in a way I’ve never written before and this creativity pours forth from the fountain of my commitment to it. I will show up, I promise myself, for 200 words or 2,000. But I will be here every day, greeting the changing self who shows up to write. I am open to being changed by my creative practice.

In yin time the quietest of moments, the pauses, the small movement of fingers over keys, of a foot on sewing pedal, can be aliveness. The flicker of a candle flame, a kiss on my love’s forehead. We shrink the scale and we sink in. We show up at the table and we eat what is served. We let it nourish us and we say thank you.

How has your creative practice shifted along with the seasons? How are you committing to what you are devoted to?

I think creativity is compelled to come when space is made to receive it (a very Big Magic idea) so I am asking myself how I can be open to letting inspiration strike. The writing isn’t always “good” but when I write every day I am more likely to hit on a day where I access that juicy flow state everyone loves, where words flow and pour like honey and they are delicious and I lick my fingers.

I create the conditions for flow with my consistency. When I show up consistently, I create the conditions for my creativity to thrive, I plant the seeds and let them take root.

This is how I tend my creative heart, with this devoted practice. I can wax poetic about it but it is about showing up in the ways that work for me, and this is what I have found. I am changed in the showing up (and so is my writing).

As we sink deeper into yin season these are my plans, intentions, and priorities: love, connection, creativity, nesting.

I am so curious to hear about your relationship with these themes in the comments: creative practice and process, devotion, devoting ourselves to our own creative transformation, how you get over the hump.

With care,

Eryn