I woke up this morning to the words, “These are the first birds I’ve drawn since I was 10 years old and I’m 67” and I saw a page full of Silvereyes and Wrens and Blue Tits, and it stretched my smile as wide as the Pacific.
We have developed some funny notions around creativity and art that are crippling and boring and make our world more black and white than colour so there’s little that delights me more than seeing the rampant swirling of pencils hinting to the possibility of a mind allowing itself to be unleashed.
Something that’s important to remember:
We always have the right of return. We can begin again at any time.
Just because you stopped or got put off or life became life-ey doesn’t mean that you don’t get the change just to begin again.
Everything is waiting for you. The widest point is the one between you and the start.
A principle I work to when it comes to navigating this wild and vast world (and to prove my point, 500,000,000 birds were migrating across the US just last night. Vast and wild I tell you!) is allowing yourself to be new.
Letting yourself be new means that allow yourself to meet the page or the pencils or the *insert whatever the thing you want to do is here* and see what happens.
You don’t go in with preconceived ideas. You don’t entertain good or bad or right or wrong. You allow yourself to be a creative explorer, open to what shows us, allowing yourself to be guided outside of a mind that is doing its best to convince you that things need to be a certain way.
Let yourself be new. Who knows, you might find yourself in a position where ten minutes ago, the paper was white and now a whole flock of birds are living on your page.
Onwards.
xx Jane
