Beginning: Words of a Feather
All week I’ve felt this mixture of anticipation and dread, of raring to go and being stalled. One foot on the accelerator of my life, the other on the brake.
It’s a familiar feeling. And it always heralds some sort of change hovering outside my door. Tapping its foot, waiting to be welcomed in.
This feeling also precedes every writing project I’ve ever undertaken.
Every single one—not just the books, but the articles, the poems, the essays, the broadcast pieces. Even my newsletters.
And now, this brand-new blog.
On the surface, my life in this time of gestation–before the next creation emerges–looks ordinary enough.
Wake up, brush teeth, shower, dress, pray, meditate. Work, work, work. Make meals, eat meals, clean up after meals. Email, Twitter: read and respond. Read books, read magazines, read blog posts. Read the label on the pickle jar.
Pray and meditate some more. Brush teeth, get ready for bed. Snuggle into quilt. Sleep. Dream.
But underneath this seemingly boring surface I can feel the engine of my life revving up . . . brrmm, brrrmmmmmm . . . Thrumming with a finely pitched pulse.
Until the moment when it reaches lift-off.
That’s really what it feels like . . . the ground of my resistance drops away. I’m soaring! Into blue sky, or grey, it doesn’t much matter. I’m soaring!
And the words fly from my fingertips. One word, one sentence, one paragraph. And the next. And the next and next and next until they tumble out in a great feathered flock that sweeps across the page, winging its way to who-knows-where. Into the next great adventure.
Words taking flight. Singing lightness and grace, humor and pathos. Cawing truth and tears, honking easy and hard . . .
Welcome to my blog.
Let’s talk about your creative process. How you enter into it. Straight ahead? Along a winding pathway? Through an underground cave? Deep-sea diving?
Tell me how you begin.
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Deep appreciation for this, your first blog post. I loved reading it and can’t wait for the next one too! :)
Woo-hoo! Hiro! I love that you started blogging. For me, my creativity is usually driven by two things: seeing needs of others that I’m wanting to respond to, and deadlines. Put those two things together, and creativity comes out of me.
The quality of what comes out of me is affected by prayer, Remembrance, and other heart-and-Source-connection journeys, but the actually creativity comes from seeing needs and deadlines. :)
My creativity often arrives in bursts. A quiet phase followed
by a period of creating and birthing. Then back to a quiet
phase where I rejuvenate and nurture new ideas. Then
they spring back up ready to be born and the cycle continues.
When I recognized this about my creativity cycles, everything
got easier because I suddenly realized why the systems I
had read about in many books wasn’t working for me.
They were suggesting working on creative things in a
linear way…a little bit every day consistently. But my natural
flow is more of a up and down rhythm. Not just a
flat line.
Now that I’ve practiced being in groove with that, my
creative process is more of a welcome friend, than a force
to fight and wrestle with.
Great post and welcome to blogging!
My creativity comes in long slow build-ups, then can get sort of frantic without care, then good work, then often long periods of doubt… don’t like that part!
Twitter: TheGirlPie
how lovely to hear your voice in more than 140 characters! And what a swell opening topic — I’m lucky to have been raised in a natural state of creativity, (revving up is only required for obligation — Ha!), but we”re so glad you’re soaring with your new blog — looking forward to wishing you a snappy mirthday for your 1 year anny 12 months from now — thank you!
Welcome to your blog! Congratulations on the first step on this journey, I’ve found it a wonderful one.
Twitter: havi
Oh boy oh boy oh boy!
What a wonderful day, made even better by being able to come and hang out on your blog instead of having you over for tea on mine.
And what a beautiful space. Hi!
For me creative output is always about allowing stucknesses. To stop and say “Okay, right now it’s not flowing here so oh well, I’ll give myself some love and reassurance.”
And then I go do Shiva Nata and meditate and dance around and catch the next wave. The stuff that wants to get out is always waiting to be expressed. It just wants to know that I’m going to make a safe place for that process to happen.
Ooooh, looking forward to hanging out with you here. And remind your words that no one is judging them. We are all excited that you’re sharing them with us.
Big hug to you.
Woohoo! congratulations, Hiro. I’m so happy to be able to celebrate your first blog post with you and everyone else here!
Creative process: like many who’ve already commented, when I learned to allow my own process to be what it is, it all got sooo much easier. The things I used to call procrastination (wandering around the house, getting tea or water, checking out who’s posted what blog entries or Twittered something interesting…) I now see as part of the flow, part of allowing what wants to be expressed to have its formative time.
Yep. It’s all good. And congratulations!
I begin just as you described–one foot on the gas, one on the brake! I’ve been using that exact metaphor in my conversations with myself this whole year. I’m on the brink of something new and amazing, I’m moving forward, yet old fears and ruts of wrong self-images are stomping on the brake. I’m getting motion-sickness from the shimmy. :-)
Reminds me of learning to drive a manual shift (another project I’m working on). So I’ll use the same approach to both–just keep moving forward until I get coordinated and put the pedal to the metal all the way!
I love your first post–I’m subscribing and looking forward to getting to know you! Welcome to blogging!
Twitter: HiroBoga
Jess, thank you for leaving the first ever comment here! And for your appreciation and support. xo
Mark, I love that heart-centered service is the beginning of creativity for you. Responding to needs and deadlines . . . YES! The necessary spark for creative beginnings.
Mona, the creative cycle you describe is true for me too. A few years ago, when I’d just published my second book and was feeling completely empty of anything to say, it was comforting to read Louise Gluck’s description, in “Proofs and Theories” of her own creative process. She said that she had long periods (five years or more) when she wrote nothing at all. It wasn’t fallow time, she said–there just wasn’t anything there, until the wheel turned and she could write again. Honoring the cycle, and its timing.
Jennifer, it’s amazing how (despite all the books you’ve written) that old bug-bear of self-doubt still visits and lingers . . . Something deep in us says an ecstatic and undeniable Yes to who we are and the light we carry into the world. And something atavistic and hard says Who Do You Think You Are (big, booming, Biblical voice-over) and rolls over on us. Ugh! It helps to have friends who can look at our work-in-progress and say what we cannot yet see . . . that it’s good. And, as Havi says, allowing room for stuckness helps too.
Ms Girl Pie, you have me SO intrigued. Please tell us more about being raised in a state of natural creativity! I can hear it in the ease and fluidity of your mini-posts on Twitter, and in your voice wherever it appears. I’d love to know how that was nurtured in you . . .
Dear Sonia, thank you for the warm welcome. I look forward to reading your blog. Especially once I can figure out how to get thelinks to people’s latest blog posts show up alongside their comments.
And Havi, dear Havi, without you this baby blog would have stayed in the womb for another year or so–the world’s oldest unborn child! Thank you for . . . oh, everything. Especially for the wisdom of making room for stuckness and empathy and Shiva Nata and safety . . . the womb from which creativity emerges for you.
My heart is brimmingly grateful for each of you. Thank you for sharing and celebrating this beginning with me. Love to you all,
Hiro
Congratulations on your first blog!
My creativity is waiting impatiently for teleportation to be invented. I’m the sort that has an idea and then wants it to ‘be’ immediately…. learning to have patience with the development process whilst not losing focus on the goal has been a journey in itself. :)
Love and blessing to you, Hiro
La~ xx
Congrats on your blog post! It is wonderful to read you in more than 140 characters. My creative process works best when I roll out of bed at 3 a.m. I allow no one to talk to me and I move right into my office and begin work. For about 3 hours I am in wonderful space where the day to day world had not yet intruded.
Twitter: HiroBoga
Grace, I’ve loved reading your posts on Mark Silver’s Tent forum, and in Twitter. It’s an honour to hear your voice here.
Christine, what a wonderful, funny (and oh-I-know-the-feeling!) image: “getting motion-sickness from the shimmy”. I look forward to the blur of you blasting by on the highway, shifting gears with SUCH insouciance.
Laura Maeve, thank you for your love and blessings. I had this clear image of you tapping your foot impatiently, waiting for your next idea to be beamed into reality. Then again, Athena was born full-blown from her father’s forehead, so you never know–everyone creates in their own way!
Twitter: HiroBoga
@TCStaples Yes! It’s that uninterrupted flow from the inner world of sleep and soul to the intimate space between you and your work . . . Lovely that you get out of bed at 3 am to meet your muse.
A blog full of Hiro? What a delight!
My creative process is shy and elusive. It needs space and time and for me to not hurry it along with fancy talk of schedules, deadlines and productivity tricks. If I try to rush, it turns its back, folds its arms and refuses to return until I’m willing to be more reasonable. In short, my creative process is much smarter than I am.
We’re both looking forward to hanging out here with you, dear Hiro.
Twitter: HiroBoga
Dear Lisa, you and your creative process together, playing in my sandbox! It doesn’t get much better than this. :-)
You’re so right about not trying to rush. Thank you for the reminder that we’re always in relationship with our creativity, which means giving it love and respect and room to be.
Reminds me of when my kids were little. If I melted into their timing, we had so much fun together. If I had an agenda or schedule of my own and tried to hurry them up, it usually ended badly, with one or all of us in tears.
Welcome to this place where words and hearts, minds and souls collide, and where old and new friends gather to form new communities. Thank you for sharing your voice to the ever-growing, ever-terrific conversations. I’m so glad to now be getting to know you, so happy to see three women I already know here (kisses to Jenn, Jess, and Havi), and delighted beyond measure to have the opportunity to get to know other fine people.
Kudos to you for stepping into this, Hiro.
As for my creative process, I can’t describe it well, except to say that it’s like mania–without the dysfunction. I’m claircognizant, and so things “come” to me, and with them, almost immediate and clear paths forward to birth or move me closer to the things I’ve come to know. When that happens, I’m lit up. Maybe better…like a Lamborghini with a flat stretch of road and no cops to be found.
But until something comes? Nothingness of a sort, unfortunately. I’ve learned I can’t force it…there’s no way to make it happen. So when there’s nothing, I wait.
And in that space, I continue my journey, meet new people, go deeper with those I love, spend time being and not worrying about doing, and trust that something will make itself known to me soon enough and the cycle will begin again.
Thanks for the opportunity to join the conversation :)
Twitter: HiroBoga
Stacy, it’s lovely to hear your voice here. And so interesting to read the wide variety of ways in which each of us engages with our creative process.
I love the way in which you meet that space of waiting–going deeper with those you love, trusting the return of creativity . . . such gentle wisdom.
Thank you for enriching the conversation with your experience and insights.
Welcome to the world of blogging! I love your blog already, after just the first post. :)
My creativity emerges when I allow space and time for it. When I allow time for me to just be, it flows out of me saying, “Hey! It’s about time!”
Twitter: victoriashmoria
Such a beautiful first post…and congratulations on getting started! I can’t wait to read more.
I’ve been out of touch with my creative process for a while…we’re slowly getting reacquainted.
Some things I learned recently, though, are that I need to release my expectations around timing and results. An idea is ready to be born when it’s ready, and tantrums don’t speed the process for me. I’m also learning that working on a project has intrinsic value, regardless of whether it ever gets finished, and whether anyone likes it or not.
Hurray, hurray, blogging Hiro! I can’t wait to see the workings of *your* butterfly mind.
My creativity comes in two kinds. There’s a crazy hyper butterfly mind kind where ideas pop into my head and crowd around desperate to be given physical form. That tends to come in very short bursts, and has to be got on paper quickly, before my mind races on to the next thing.
Then there’s a calm kind. That kind is undemanding, doesn’t pester me. I’ve learnt I can just sit down any time and work and there will always be *something* there. Thanks to good old Julia Cameron I’ve learnt I don’t have to feel ‘inspired’ to create – I don’t have to feel anything – that as long as I sit down prepared to put something on paper, prepared to write absolute rubbish if I have to, something will come out. This process is amazing me at the moment, because I’ve previously been a visual type creator rather than a verbal type creator, but I’m writing so much right now, and I’m amazed at the flow of it. I always know, though, as soon as it’s time to stop. There comes a point when it’s time to stop and I have to go away and do something else.
Twitter: HiroBoga
Sheila, yes, it’s really about honoring our creativity by giving it the time it needs, isn’t it? Whatever we nurture, flourishes.
Victoria, thank you for the reminder to let go of expectations and to trust that things will emerge in their own timing. Tantrums do get in the way. :-)
Kate, I love that you’re finding that deeper rock-bed of creativity too–the kind that’s there no matter what.
The wisdom, experience and understanding that each of us brings to our own creative process is truly amazing to me. We’re in relationship with our creativity from the moment we’re born, so of course we understand how it works–it’s just wonderful to see our collective insights gathered together here, in one place.
Makes me think it woud be a grand idea to put together an anthology of writings/musings/essays on the creative process . . . a prismatic view through the many different kinds of relationships we have with it.
Hiro, how lovely that you’ve started this blog, and started it with an invitation for us all to join in! (by the way, I think CommentLuv is the plugin you want — it allows a commenter’s last blog post to show up as a link along with their comment).
I have also (like Victoria B) been out of touch with my own creative process for quite a while. So my journey right now is to find my way back to that process (or let it discover me, whichever metaphor you prefer). Frankly, I am terrified. The going so far has been very, very hard, and lonely. I am so grateful to you, fellow creative traveler, for joining me (all of us, really, of course).
When I read your description of your day, I felt a tinge of… well, I’ll be totally honest… resentment. All that time to read. Daily prayer and meditation. Sounds blissful to me, because my average day marches to the beat of my young children, who are wonderful in many ways but do not allow time for quiet introspection.
And then I read your comment about melting into your children’s routine when they were small, and I was properly ashamed of myself. Is there an emoticon for a sheepish grin-and-shrug?
My struggles with motherhood (and all the societal baggage that comes with it) have been intertwined with my creative journey in many ways. I would love to hear your thoughts on all of this. Whether you choose to write about motherhood or not, count me in as a reader and fellow traveler!
Hi Hiro,
Congratulations on your first blog post! It’s so very like a poem which is so very like you! Beautiful and inspiring, mysterious and open. It’s wonderful to be a witness to your maiden voyage.
My creative process? Approach, avoidance, circling around an idea, becoming giddy with clarity and getting hopelessly lost, fear, joyful, joyous joy, frozen panic, self doubt and back again into the bliss of flow.
Can’t wait to see what comes from you next!
Congratulations, Hiro! Lovely to witness your birthing process, and your poetry. I am still grappling with birthing my own blog, feeling the tumult (kicking?) internally but not yet quite broken through into the light of day.
I know that safety and permission are my keys to releasing and expressing creativity, and trusting, listening for, that inner voice/thought/emotion/flight of fancy saying “I”m ready!” My biggest challenge is turning the intangible into tangible form.
I look forward to seeing more of you! xox
hiro
happy to see you’ve got more accelerator than brakes! now your life is even more full!
i’m finding that my creative process works best early mornings with tea after morning pages and heart meditation, or anytime i have an opportunity to walk out in nature.
or if i stick the giutat netween me and the door. that works too…
For me, sometimes, creativity is like waking up pregnant. There’s a sense that whatever it is is just going to have to be birthed. There’s no way around it. It just has to come out. And I am then the fingers through which it pours.
It also sometimes gestates when I’m out in fresh air and moving my body in some form of exercise. That seems to stop all the blah blah blah, and voila, oh my, here it comes, ready or not!
Thanks for sparking this reflection, Hiroboga. And, I love your title ;)
Twitter: HiroBoga
Ah, dear Wendy, I’d resent me too, if I were being mom to small children and hadn’t time to wipe my own nose. Your post reminds me of the sheer courage, stamina, patience, endurance and everything else it takes to stay semi-sane, let alone connected with our creative selves, in the crucible of motherhood. This deserves a post–and a conversation–of its own, so we’ll open the floor to it in my next blog post.
Chris, yes–approach, avoidance, circling, flow, bliss . . . this relationship holds it all!
Manya, so good that you give yourself safety and permssion. I know your right container will emerge for you very soon.
Chas, early mornings are such a sacred time for me too–that feeling of openness, softness, innocence, before the world comes rushing in.
Heidi, I love your metaphor of pregnancy, gestation and birth. Yes!
Hiro, I loved reading your blog post. I can SO relate. My own experience with creativity mirrors your experience quite closely.
I was inspired to read Marks comment about needs of others being a source of creativity. That is a helpful thing for me to think about.
It’s wonderful to see you writing a blog!
Diving in, with beautiful music is my preferred method of creative process. I write intensively, for a few hours, in the dark of the night. I’m hardly aware of what I’m doing – it can feel like possession.
But I really understand that sense of change coming, and the feeling of having one foot on the brake and one on the accelerator at the same time!
Joely Black (@TheCharmQuark on Twitter)´s last blog post..If you build it, they will come; if you don’t, they’ll demand you do
Beautiful post – Hiro. I love the way you express yourself as your imagery of one step on the gas and one step on the brake rings so true.
Thank you for sharing your thoughts with us – I feel so blessed that our paths have crossed.
Hi Hiro — it’s Jenny from Blogging Therapy class. Just wanted to say congrats on this first blog post! It’s really inspiring me to take another mental step towards ACTUALLY publishing my first post and not just dreaming about it!
Having spent much of my education and working life valuing the rational / logical, I am gaining a belated new appreciation for the powers of creativity. But given newbie status in this space, for now I find it easiest to let it come out when I give myself permission to NOT have a point to whatever it is I’m doing, and it helps greatly to do this in the company of others doing the same (but not necessarily together).
Take care, talk soon!
Jenny
My own creativity is sometimes in the back seat to my own need to grow and change. I’ll delay it until my psyche seems more settled, and then gratefully settle back into word crafting. And it, thank Whoever is in charge of these things, rises to meet me.
Twitter: CrowTarotTours
Greetings!
Thank you for this. You describe the Journey perfectly. (And with Avian references too, which just makes it all the more fun! :-D)
“Words of a feather flock together”?
Bright Blessings & Good Fortune! :-)
-Birdy! :>