I’ve always loved the last line in The Lorax. “Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing will get better. It’s not.” There’s hope in this line and there’s desperation too. I feel that right now as I see people outraged at the abuse of power, the loss of life that didn’t have to happen, the pain of generations of people who have watched in fear, waited for change, and struggle to understand. People do care. I care. I’m sorry for the injustice that is heaped upon others because of skin color, because of fear, because of differences in belief. It’s wrong. It’s a struggle I grieve from the outside. My place in this world has afforded me distance to watch and to respond if I want to. That’s wrong too. I’m sorry for looking the other way when I see injustice. I let fear drive my actions and I hide from hard things. I think when we don’t know what to do, we walk away. But that doesn’t change anything. So I’m turning my posture towards the heat of the flames. I still don’t know what to do. But I see you, I see your fight. I hear your cries for justice. I want that for you. We can’t have peace until every human is valued as beautifully and wonderfully made.

 

Words matter,

they heal wounds and dig scars

they puncture and protect

they call attention and curse.

Words cannot undo injustice,

they cannot breathe a new breath

they cannot give back what was stolen

they cannot revive what is gone.

Winds have come to carry the sound.

Slowly, listen to the man’s words

I can’t breathe

What words will our sons and daughters hear tonight?

The refugee, the orphan, the condemned, the ignored, the battered all cry out.

Look hate in the eyes, protest its grip on us.

Tell their stories and build new ones.

Words tear down and words build up – which will you choose?

 

 

The word nurturing conjures up images of mother’s with babies in arms, or nurses by sick beds. While these are real images of what it means to nurture, I wanted to explore what the word means with regards to creativity. How can we nurture creativity? Do we carry it gently in our arms or give is lots of rest and food? While creativity is not really an external thing like some appendage, it is more internal like a heart or lung that give life or breath. So how do we nurture what gives us life or breath? As a verb nurture means to care for and encourage the growth or development of. In order to do this we need to acknowledge that creativity can grow or develop. If creativity is the use of the imagination or original ideas then we can see that for our original ideas to grow or become numerous, encouraging them to do so is possible. If you look at the care work that a mother or nurse performs in their nurturing you see work. Hard work. Exhaustive work. Selfless time serving others. Focused on other’s health or benefit not their own. If creativity is the focus of our work then finding ways that benefit creativity, imagination, original thinking would be our work.

One of the ways I have found to do this is through reading. Reading other’s thoughts often inspires my own. And then time away to noodle on those thoughts. Many people get creative inspiration in the shower. Maybe it’s because their brain has time to run away with their thoughts. Nothing else has their attention so the imagination is free to roam, to try out scenarios, to figure. If we just fill, fill, fill our brains with information it doesn’t go in any faster. We can only take in at a rate that our funnel allows. Everything else is just wasted. Like filling a cup of coffee, no matter how much we want to drink the whole pot, we can’t fit it in the cup. We have to stop, walk away from the pot, sip at it, and then there is room for more. Creativity is similar, we need to fill our minds with materials (ideas we have read or seen) and then walk away and sip at them, taking them into places in our mind where we figure them, we roll them around and see if they have merit or usefulness. And then after a while we add some more. But without the figuring time there is no room for more.

Practically speaking, in order to nurture our creative mind, we must add to it and then we must let our brain play with it. What we add is important. We must make choices. Not everything is a healthy choice. Not everything contributes to our creativity. If we want it to grow, we must nurture it with good quality food. Good quality creative juices come from quality creative sources. There are many…literature, arts, film, discussion. We must sort out what is junk food, we all know what junk food looks like – lots of flavor to hide the sugar or empty calories. What does good quality creativity look like? It is like good quality food, it is colorful in a natural way, it is not covered in something that hides its false quality, it is delicious to our senses, it is satisfying to our soul. We find good quality food from farmers directly – have you ever tasted a real home-grown tomato or strawberry? We find good quality creative inspiration from makers directly – something you have an innate passion in, something you connect with on a deeper level. The more we appreciate the creative inspiration when we see it, the more we recognize the imposter.

Now that we have added to our creative reservoir, we must give time to absorb, to think, to ponder on it. This time is essential for growth. Just as those tomatoes and strawberries need a long time on the vine to soak in as much sun and nutrients as possible to produce ripe fruit, so do our creative juices need time to ripen. How much time, depends on the fruit. As the creativity opens the scent takes over and shows the masterpiece for what it is. Delectable! As this Peony begins to unfold I just know the wait will be worth the explosion of sight and smell. The work of nurturing is hard, arduous, often isolating, but the result is magical!

 

I can hear the wind when I’m in the forest, but I can’t hear it out in the open. It doesn’t bank against anything, it doesn’t rustle leaves or knock twigs together. In the open it just goes where it wants, silent, leaving no evidence of its path. But in the trees, it is clumsy, lurking along or swiftly courageous. The wind playfully swings by, in, and around as I look up to see what it is doing. I speak and the wind carries away my words, lost in the forest dropped off ledges or dipped in pools. But out in the open, sun beating down, mountains loom and voice disappears forever in the vastness. Open calls cling to no one. Distance is just too much for my voice here. But in the trees, my words bounce off trunks and clang with each other, testing their power, pushing each other as brothers often do. My words are strong, some are weak, they fight, they chase, they let loose against the tall stand of fir and cypress. Poplar grays and deep soft pine. How can anyone ever hear what I have to say? Is it a game I play as I toss about in the woods. Ha! I might just stay a while and see who responds. Will they sing out loud? Will they catch the same note I just threw out? Who listens when I speak?