Everyday creativity

Here I am, listening to Miles Davis, trying to suss out a tangle of notes from a client project…  If you were to look from the outside, you’d see me hunched (horribly) over my keyboard, tea gone cold in my mug, my brain following paths looking for the ease that indicates the ah ha that moves my work forward….

but I am also “gathering”

When I look up past my screen, I am noticing things like icicles, strong shadows from the pines on the snow in a sunny moment, the way a snow squall softens a hillside into a whisper of a line, almost a gesture…

But also, I stumbled on music I had not listened to in a while and am finding a resonance there too– a familiarity but with the surprise of joy attached. This was Miles before he distilled his own essence down to one note. This was Miles when he played like I like laughing…  and some part of me is being fed by this too, I can feel it.

I invite you to be open to the idea of gathering. As you go through your normal day, to the grocery, the laundry, your work, notice what you are noticing.  What shadows are catching your eye, what movement, what sounds filter through, what feels good?

I invite you to spend one more moment looking, listening, feeling… just soak it in just a little longer than you ordinarily would.  This gathering, this feeding, this mindful noticing… the details and sensations we gather are pieces we will be able to draw on when we reach in…

Share This:

5 thoughts on “Everyday creativity

  1. Zen has taken this noticing to an art form, a way of living. I look at something in my usual thoughtlessness and see things of significance, of import. Then I bring my Zen mind to the effort and my vision literally clears, becomes sharper, and the thing I was looking at loses its interpretation and becomes just a thing. Only a few times in my life has it become a thing of beauty beyond ordinary beauty, where I see it as itself without any spin from my interpretation – I’ve seen the most beautiful bowl of cereal imaginable. I know it’s pointless and futile to pursue that vision but I’d still like to see that way all the time. I want to live breathlessly with, Oh, look at that!

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *