The other day, I was talking to a friend who reminded me of the sacredness that exists in the mundane.
She sent me a quote from a book she was reading:
“Revel in the repetition,” it said. “Love is built through it”.
In a culture of creative practice that has convinced us we must feel endlessly and constantly inspired we must revel in the simplicity of repetition. We must understand it, perhaps, as the key to keeping on. To embrace that love is built through it.
A completely different friend was describing to me something similar.
‘I don’t always feel like writing,’ she said, ‘and yet I do write every day. I am the work horse, putting on my harness to plough the field. I do this regardless of the weather, because this is a practice I have chosen and there is beauty is continuing through the parts that don’t feel brilliant.’
‘In fact,’ she added, ‘these are the exact conditions needed for brilliance to occur. I show up for what’s needed and get to work.’
There’s another piece I want to add:
I think that this whole “showing up” business is how we make ourselves available for creative collaboration. Not with another human (although that may for some of us be the case) but –**gestures to the world that is out there**– with whatever that energy is that infuses our thoughts.
Take, for instance, the amazing Dahlia that’s popped up in my garden. She is, without a doubt, a co-conspirator. I imagine her petals as skirts, adorning my own body and in my mind, I skim across the floor, and I am twirling.
Us humans frequently forget that our creative selves are rarely the consequence of us alone, but more often, as I read recently ‘an intimate and passionate negotiation and co-authoring with our animal and vegetal collaborators.’
We are a braided river with the world, and if we are lucky, things pop up in our path that cause us to remember and to notice.
The Dahlia is my #4 Small Happinesses, for the majesty and beauty she brings the world, and for my eyes that pause long enough to see it.