Last week I drew up an article for The Infinite Field Magazine about how to create a living space that welcomes in Nature and the Divine. As you know, my purpose is to continually explore the natural world, examining how our relationships with nature impact our physical, emotional, and spiritual selves. The article focused a bit more on the logistical aspects of how to implement what you learn into your life far away from the site of learning.
This vein of thinking is all very new to me, and I find myself still thinking about the "how to's." Personally, my relationship with the natural world is the source of the vast majority of my creative inspiration. Is there a way to craft an inspirational space?I believe that positive energy can be created to fill a space. I believe that rooms and people can be filled with color. I believe that color and light are inspirational in and of themselves. So, yes, I suppose spaces can become what we need them to be.
“Creativity” means the way that you think and live your life. You do not have to be the next Picasso to enjoy the colors and sounds of life around you; Mozart is not the only one whom a beautiful piece of music has ever moved to tears. Yes, scrapbooking is creative. If it entails making something evocative, or even beautiful, from your own energies, where nothing existed before, then it is creative.
Creative thought and creative living is worth pursuing; I believe that cultivating a means of expressing creativity is vital to physical health. The quality of a creative life is much higher than a boring one. Creative people are open to exploration and new chances; they communicate with the souls around them and are capable of turning the proverbial lemon into lemonade. If nothing else, they have infinitely better sex lives.
Without further rambling, here are five ways to build an inspirational space:
1) Turn off the television! No one has ever created something great while staring at the black box.
2) While you are at it, turn off the email, instant messaging, your cell phone, and anything else that remotely smacks of technology. The creative process, an encompassing one, simply does not optimally engage when technology competes for the mind’s eye and energy.
3) Turn the radio up. Try classical, jazz, or anything else without lyrics or a singer – other people’s words can make it hard to hear your own. Since your own words are nothing but the faintest of whispers when you first begin to uncover your creative process, you cannot allow anything to interfere.
4) Surround yourself with colors, images, quotations, or anything that makes you feel that creative pull in your mind, your heart, and your gut. Pictures of Alaska, momentoes, and sketches do it for me.
5) Visualize the creative self while you are filling your space with inspirational objects, sights, and sounds. On the bulletin board above the desk where I write, wedged in between soaring landscapes, I keep a picture of myself on the Copper River with no makeup, camping hair, a sunburn, and an absolutely happy smile. A similar picture of myself is propped behind the easel where I paint. That is the me I want to be – that is the portrait of a happy, creative woman. That ideal, my ideal, reminds me to harness the energy of that woman whenever I pick up a pen or a paintbrush. Putting up pictures of yourself is neither modest nor socially acceptable, but it can be inspiring, and that is what matters.How will you know if your space is inspirational? You will know when you write, paint, daydream, or doodle. You will know when the energy in this space is so positive that animals spend their time there, too, just to take it all in. Not there yet? Then light a candle, add more lamps, open a window, change out objects, or slap a brighter coat of paint on the walls.... but don't give up. A creative life is one worth exploring; a space to base such explorations is worth building.
Max, one of my usually-wild cats, who must be removed from his favorite napping spot on my desk before I can get any work done. It was only after I made a commitment to making that room an inspirational one that he began sleeping there. The bulletin board in the background is my "Alaska board."
