Image is a black and white photo of the full moon with pine branches reaching across from the left side
This morning I woke up, thinking about today’s first full moon of the year. How in some traditions the full moon has been seen as the culmination of events, and a time to release that which no longer serves us.
I started to wonder, instead, of thinking of the full moon, and all of the phases of the moon, as a ripening, and reaching up to pluck it like a sweet berry from the sky, full of starlight and dreams. Inspiration and a seed for the coming month. A reminder of the continual cycle of growth and rest.
I love shifting and exploring different perspectives. It’s part of my creative practice.
May curiosity and awe continue to lead each and everyone of us into exploring the beauty and possibility all around us.
Text in image reads: “Creativity is more than artistic expression”
Engaging with the creative impulse can enrich both your personal and professional lives. It’s more than thinking outside the box. It’s moving forward as if there never was a box at all.
Instinctive Meditation® is one of the ways to attune to your creative instincts. Engaging with the senses, sharpening your internal and external perceptions, and dropping more readily into a state of relaxed awareness all come into play.
In what ways might you explore creativity in the coming days?
Image shows handwritten words on lined notebook paper: Art as revelation of self. Breath as an art material, Breath cycles as life & death. Visual mantra practice.
As so often happens, I was looking for something completely different when I came across an old notebook. I think it was from an expressive arts conference I’d attended years ago.
I turned the page and this phrase was glowing off the page : Breath as an art material. Everything stopped as those words carried me away on a mind journey.
The way breath gives voice to poetry and stories. The collective inhale of a concert band before playing the first note. Blowing on a dandelion and sending off little white skirts as gifts to sky faeries. Shaping molten glass, or inflating two slabs of clay into a pillow. A deep grounding inhale and exhale before stepping onto stage and dancing. The play of rhythm between lovers.
How breath informs our senses. The sense of smell in cooking. More subtly reaching our instincts, sniffing out adventure, or danger, or a potential mate. Communicating emotions when words don’t suffice.
I began to wonder about using breath in other ways in art, such as using a straw to blow watered down paint on a surface.
What would it be like to receive a breath, and use the energy of releasing it through a paintbrush, in movement, or in whatever other way one might imagine? How does how you vary your breath affect the quality of lines, colours, textures, or gestures? What would the flow of creative practice be like while intentionally incorporating breath as one of the art materials?
I invite you to set some time for your favourite creative practice, and intentionally incorporate breath into your process. I’d love to hear what your experience is!
Image shows close up of Reverie lap harp I use in my sound experience offerings
I woke up this morning thinking about the vibration of sound. Literally. Eyes opened. Vibration of sound.
I went spontaneously into meditation around the vibration of sound, specifically music. The memories of laying on the living room floor during our Sunday family listening sessions, the vibrations from the speakers flowing into my ears, and my body through the floor.
I can’t remember the first time our family went to an orchestral concert (I was so lucky we did this!), but suddenly I was transported to the dusty balcony of Northrop Auditorium, sitting on a scritchy burgundy velvet seat, sensing the pre-concert excitement. I don’t remember it then, but this morning I had the distinct memory of feeling the vibrations of the music on my body. I lay there in my bed this morning for a few minutes, reliving that kidhood memory from so long ago.
And later, as an oboe player, from 6th grade to early adulthood. Sitting in a band or orchestra. The vibration of the reed, the pulsation of the sounds around me, becoming one with the flow of music.
Once watching a beloved person share their music on stage, I could see the pulsing vibrations of the music expand over the audience.
How many times music was my solace, my companion, my healer. I hadn’t really thought of it until today how much a component the vibration has been in all this.
In Sanskrit, the word spanda has definitions of vibration, movement, puslation, the Universal Pulsation (and more. I’m learning Sanskrit is interesting in this way). Everything around us is in vibration, appearing as objects, light, sound, subtle energy sensations. A continual dance of expansion and contraction.
The Sanskrit word tantra, contains definitions of “the wire or string of a lute”, and also “strings of the heart” (thank you Lorin Roche, PhD for introducing me to Sanskrit!).
Maybe this is why I enjoy so much incorporating the Reverie harp and monochord in my current musical explorations and offerings. Sometimes I like to lay on the floor, with the Reverie harp on my belly, languidly plucking the strings, and being carried away on the vibrations, much like that little girl, laying on the floor, enraptured by the vibration of sound.
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