Today's menu: A big helping of Dickinson and a Sunset

I'm on a quest to get back my creative flow that somehow got buried alive by all that seem to have priority over my creative endeavors.  I tend to do that with things that feel like play. 

As we have come to realize, living a simple life, does not mean that it is an easy or leisurely life. On the contrary; no packets of frozen veggies or ready made meals await us when we come in from the studios. It is the life we chose and prefer but it is very easy to lose sight of what our main aim is. To live contemplatively, with creativity, silence and nature as our nurturers, and to create a place where people can come to recharge and be restored.

So when I get to the stage that I feel completely stunted, especially where my writing is concerned, I have to allow the laundry to wait until tomorrow and feed my starved inner artist. The diet is simple but shows immediate results: 

What I need is sparks. Tiny morsels of seemingly insignificant happenings that sets the gears in motion inside my creative engine room. It may be words from a poem that paint a picture. It may simply be a word. The word "windswept" once triggered a whole range of crockery! It may be an image from a magazine or a ball of yarn or a song. It is available everywhere, all the time and mostly free of charge.

But the prerequisite to finding it is that it be served on a plate of Permission-to-play, lined with Time-to-do-so. And I need to stop using Responsibility-to-make-ends-meet and Duty and simply tuck in with my hands. 

Today's spark I received, courtesy of Ms. Emily Dickinson and an obliging sunset.

Matilda

Sunset at Barrowfield
Photo by Matilda Angus

She sweeps with many-colored brooms,

And leaves the shreds behind;

Oh, housewife in the evening west,

Come back, and dust the pond!

You dropped a purple ravelling in,

You dropped an amber thread;

And now you've littered all the East

With duds of emerald!

And still she plies her spotted brooms,

And still the aprons fly,

Till brooms fade softly into stars - 

And then I come away.

- Emily Dickinson