Discovering the right medium is often a tidal moment in the creative life of an individual.*
(Ken Robinson)

AMEN!

*From Sir Ken Robinson’s Out of Our Minds.

the whole universe appears as an infinite storm of beauty*
(John Muir)

It was John Muir who wrote,

When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the universe.*

When we have found our thread of beauty it will take us on quite a journey if we are open ourselves to the places and people it leads us to.

*John Muir, quoted in Maria Popova’s Brain Pickings: The Universe as an Infinite Storm of Beauty.

What we call the beginning is often the end. And to male an end is to make a beginning. The end is where we begin from.*
(T. S. Eliot)

Before getting stuck with the thought that the years leading up to this moment have been wasted or have brought you to a blank end, take a little time to notice where you are.

Identify your talents, articulate your values and notice what you’re energised by … and not.

You may just find that you’ve accomplished quite a lot providing yourself with a new place to begin.

*T. S. Eliot, quoted in Benjamin Hardy’s Personality Isn’t Permanent.

It’s true that how we spend our days is how we end up spending our lives. We can deliberately choose to spend them wisely.*
(Bernadette Jiwa)

Just a When it comes to the main thing, I need to ask:

Am I sharing my heart and spirit in this?

(*From Bernadette Jiwa’s The Story of Telling blog: Always, Sometimes, Never.)

Thank you to all followers and subscribers of thin|silence, including those who have recently subscribed.

I just wanted to let you know it means a lot to me that you are part of this challenge to blog and doodle every day about the things that catch my attention.

It began as a challenge for a year back in 2014, but I find I just can’t stop.

Never mind who you are. Search for the person you aspire to be.*
(Robert Brault)

One way in which aspiration can feel different to inspiration, is how it provides a path to walk each day, and while we’re walking rather than waiting, inspiration may join us.

*Robert Brault, quoted in Benjamin Hardy’s Personality Isn’t Permanent.

I is a dream-blowing giant.*
(The BFG)

The bigger your future the better your present.**
(Dan Sullivan)

As regular as clockwork, the sun rises and sets, encompassing another day.

We may sometimes take it for granted, saying, There’s always another day.

But a day is an extraordinary phenomenon in the universe, holding more than a few surprises for us, and providing many moments for dreaming.

There are plenty of practical things to be done, many ordinary tasks to be performed, but, as you feel the day’s breadth and length, its height and depth, may you also dream, and then believe your dream into being.

Dreams enable us to open a future we may never have otherwise know was possible.

Just a little stillness, gazing, silence, reading, listening can help.

*The Big Friendly Giant, from Roald Dahl’s The BFG;
**Dan Sullivan, quoted in Benjamin Hardy’s Personality Isn’t Permanent.

Knowledge of the self is as important as knowledge of the external world.*
(Ken Robinson)

You desire truth in the inward being; therefore teach me wisdom in my secret heart. **

Whether all the ducks in our outer world line up or not, there comes an itch.

For those who don’t find some way of distracting themselves there’s the itch for meaning and purpose.

Then we notice there are some ducks to line up on the inside, too.

*From Sir Ken Robinson’s Out of Our Minds;
**Psalm 51:6.

Discovering the right medium is often a tidal moment in the creative life of an individual. … Creativity can be inhibited by the wrong medium.*
(Ken Robinson)

many of us have a shot at creating experiences and projects whose effects can continue longe after we are gone**
(Victoria Labalme)

In 2006, newly arrived in Edinburgh, I sought to make connections with people and began meeting with a group of artists who would meet up over lunch to support one another.

The introductions shared what each artist used as their medium.

Then it was my turn.

Pause.

People, I said.

I wasn’t really sure about this, but as I said it, I knew I liked it.

I like it even more today.

It’s not about making people, but freeing them from what constrains, not unlike the characters Michelangelo saw within the blocks of stone he selected for his art.

All of which makes me wonder, what’s your favourite medium for bringing something meaningful into the world?

*From Sir Ken Robinson’s Out of Our Minds;
**Victoria Labalme, from her post for gapingvoid: Risk Forward: Victoria Labalme.

Creativity is a dialogue between the ideas and the media in which they are being formed.*
(Ken Robinson)

Great storytellers hone their craft by having the courage to tell unpolished stories.**
(Bernadette Jiwa)

We must find our most flourishing environments.

Some years ago, I kept a note of all the most energising moments in a day. I didn’t sit down and concentrate to create the list, but carried it with me for about three weeks so that I could add to it when something happened that energised me.^

I would note down any or all of the following: what I was doing, why I was doing it, who I was doing it with or for, and when I was doing it – for instance, was I starting something.

What I was noticing were the experiences that were most satisfying and fulfilling to me. In noticing them, I would have the ability to make more of them happen with an increasing dexterity and knowledge.

When I reflected on my list’s noteworthy experiences I found three themes that have become my enriching environments:

To begin the day journaling as I expose myself to ideas from disparate sources: I love the idea that people who may never have a conversation in real-time for various reasons, end up having a conversation in my journal.

To begin turning these ideas into something that will be useful to others: this blog and doodle has become an expression of this as I explore possibilities; it also means bringing something into my work with others as soon as I can.

To work with people in 1:1 conversations of possibility completes my trio of enriching environments. These are not fixed experiences, but are intended to be open to surprise, for me as well as the other.

These three environments, or media as Ken Robinson would name them, can also be understood to be processes or systems.

Each has its shape and order that I can trust to produce something: I don’t have to hang around for inspiration.

I love inspiration, but it usually arrives as a result of one or more of these environments. Robert McKee identifies the work of research for a writer in a similar vein:

The mastery of story demands the invention of far more material than you can use, followed by astute choices of inclusion and exclusion. Why? Because experienced writers never trust so-called inspiration.^^

You can begin to keep your list today.

You’re looking for extremely energised experiences and you will probably notice these before or after you have been living them.

In a few weeks time, you’ll probably have twenty to thirty experiences on your list. You’re ready for the next stage.

For this, you may try the following method. Write each of your notes on a separate piece of paper and pop similar experiences into piles. Is there a phrase within each pile that summarises what it contains? If not, come up with one. What are you left with?

Do some of the themes fit together? In which case bring them together and come up with a new label. Take another look.

I tend to work with threes when it comes to things like this, being both memorable and providing complexity. Themes can be: connecting with nature, centring or grounding activities, talking with others about ideas in an open way, working deeply by yourself without interruption … .

Take these for a test run. Come up with one small articulation for each environment or medium and see how it goes in a day.

Robinson sees two dimensions to creative processes: the generative and the evaluative, anticipating John O’Donohue’s words on imagination:

The imagination has a deep sense of irony. It is wide awake to the limitation of its own suggestions and showings.*^,

Here are four questions you can ask of our experiences:

Am Is successful when I do this?
Do I do this intuitively?
Do I grow as a result of doing this?
Does this meet a need in me?

Have fun.

*From Sir Ken Robinson’s Out of Our Minds;
**From Bernadette Jiwa’s What Great Storytellers Know;
^I also kept a list of things that robbed me of energy in a more than normal way;
^^From Robert McKee‘s newsletter: Where To Find True Inspiration;
*^From John O’Donohue’s Divine Beauty.