Basic Creativity Reminders

I met with a couple of new clients this week, to see if we would match for me to help them manifest their creative practice time and/or projects. I have grown to love this work, this one-on-one (secretly my favorite way to interact in all cases) support. It keeps me on my toes, keeps me and them focused, and often makes me interpret, re-state or understanding things in a new way all the time, which is good overall for me as a practitioner and as a teacher, both.

These appointments, as beginning appointments often do, reminded me of some really basic, key things we often overlook. That, combined with having just returned from teaching a week-long contemplative writing retreat, have put the importance of structure back in the forefront of my mind. So I wanted to write a post with some of my favorite suggestions, tools, and ideas for how to make sure you do the things you want to do in your life, but can't seem to find/make time to do.

Cocoon, Creativity and Life

I co-taught a Shambhala Training Level II recently at the Madison Shambhala Center. This is the first time I have taught this material, and I was nervous as hell. The main teachings in Level II relate to "cocoon" - Trungpa Rinpoche's image for the solid sense of self we build with our habits and avoidance of life.

As you can see in this post, I've been working personally with doubt and choice, agency and hiding out a lot lately.

So I know it is important. Really, really important. But it is so, so hard. Why?

The Power of Narrative

Earlier this week I taught a day-long contemplative arts compendium - presenting practices like haiku, Miksang and contemplative writing all in short hour or two-long snippets. In the micro haiku workshop, which went surprisingly easier than I thought, one woman came back from her perception walk with a few photos and a few short narratives in haiku form. Though I had encouraged the students to cut as close to direct perception as they could, viewing their thoughts as another set of sensory data, I had not explicitly said to avoid narrative. I find it better not to say "don't do this," especially in a short workshop.


And paired with the photos that the narratives explained/interpreted, her work really shone. One shot was an abstract, textural photo of part of a tree trunk, beautifully shot and totally simple, with a lot of space. Her haiku referred to an elephant that she saw there. By itself, the haiku would be too metaphorical, too abstract. By itself, the photo was really more of a texture shot. Together, they made something quite poetic - not haiku, other than in form, and not quite Miksang, other than in form. I told her so, as she apologized when she heard others' haiku and realized that she has a penchant for narrative. I said that her pairing was simply less haiku and more senryu (human-based experience, with more room for metaphor/narrative) and/or a haiga (an image and haiku matched together). In other words, forbidding narrative would have cut off this experience for her, which was rich and affirmative. Especially in a short workshop, where they are going out for a first pass to just see and smell what they experienced.

Bridging the Gap of Shame

I met with a client this week via Skype. She lives in another country. We have been emailing weekly for the last six months or so. After she took some writing classes with me, first when I was visiting on retreat, then online, she realized she wanted to get back to other kinds of making. Writing isn't her main form - getting a regular writing practice got her into realizing she wanted to get back to other kinds of physical making - sewing, drawing, photography.

She was the first "client" really, the first official person to take me on in my newer capacity as creativity coach. I was nervous - could I help her get her creative juices flowing? I had all kinds of doubts - self-doubts, not about her - and went forward anyway. I am so glad I did.

Groundless Inspiration.

Confession time:


When I have not written in this blog for awhile, like recently, it's not because of block.
Or not the kind of writer's block one would normally think of: a lack, a drying up, an inability.
Instead, I have been too inspired.

Too inspired. Tired from being inspired. Not opening books that I know will spark off my mind. Too many ideas, and I cannot get them all down on page or screen. If I could write each time I get an idea, I would be writing all the time. I can't keep it all organized. I know that, especially as I increasingly guide people through the process of book-length memoirs, I should not say this out loud. I should tell you that I have an ideas document, that I use Evernote, that I know how to make all these thoughts manifest into being.

But some days, after teaching, reading, talking so much (so much richness! my god! no complaints!) the last thing I want to do is process more. Chogyam Trungpa says there is no such thing as a moment off, no such thing as vacation. But I need space, and I think - since he taught meditation - this he would understand. Room for the ideas to run around, disappear and reappear in a form that is more digested and bloggable, bookable, speakable.

Last night, on a quiet walk at Olbrich Botanical Gardens, sans camera or notebook with my wife, I cried and said lately, since getting back from a busy, full and wonderful teaching and personal trip to Toronto for eleven days, I have felt utterly overwhelmed. Too much. Too much good work, too much energy, too much to read.

What a "problem" to have! I wake grateful for this "issue" every day, and also, I know that it is one that I will be working with, if I am truly as blessed as it seems, the rest of my (hopefully long) life. Some days all falls into place, organizes itself. The memoir writing is clear, the blogs perk up and fill themselves with my thoughts, the client and student appointments, the classes, sharpen and soften in the right rhythms. Most days.

In fact, the days where this does not occur are the days when I am "off," when I have to structure my own time. I fight between the part of me that wants time "off," truly off, on the beach off, technology off off, and the parts of me that recognize my need for structure: yoga, exercise, writing, cleaning. If I know what is next, I can relax and let go. This is my own personal balance, but I recognize in many of my students how universal it is. Because it is personal for all of us, and intuitive, while we may find systems or ways of understanding it, it changes - and should stay this flexible - from day to day, week to week, month to month.

The groundlessness that accompanies a day off after weeks of work is so so so familiar to me. In particular, I got trained into it working in technical theater, when my only days off were either once a week - Mondays - in which I slept and drank, or weeks on end, waiting for another gig, where I'd get lost and depressed, anxious and come up with projects I would never complete.

Of course, it turns out groundlessness - not knowing what will happen next, the sudden anxiety or panic of open time without a plan - is so universal and human. Some of us have an acquired taste for it and others hate it - and the hatred can come in the form of overplanning for me. But can I love that open time with just the right amount of structure? Each time I hit an open - or relatively open - patch, I have to remind myself that I can. That's what I am doing right now, in fact. And in the process of writing this, a friend writes to see if I want to go see a photography exhibit with her today. I say to myself: why yes. I can. I have my blog posts done for the week, I can schedule some email catch up for later. It's a gorgeous day. Let's do it.

And for just a moment, the groundlessness feels liberating. The secret is: it always is. The inspiration is groundless, always is, and is always liberating.

Remind me next time, ok? I have a hard time remembering, just like every other human being.

React V. Create

In an article titled "Overcoming Writer's Block Without Willpower" in Writer's Digest, the November/December Issue yet to be online, Mike Bechtle posits that we can work with neuroscience to understand how to better negotiate Writer's Block. What he juxtaposes is the mind that creates (fresh ideas, openness, concentration) versus the mind that reacts (our source of willpower and distraction). Reacting mind is reiterated, exasperated, by our "modern world" - we "react" when we go to our phones to see if anyone called, ditto email, Facebook, etc. This reaction mind inhibits creativity. So far, so good. I agree, and really like the framing.

However, he goes on to state that removing technology will really help us to sink back into more time to think, more space in which creativity naturally happens. He points to it, but never actually goes that far: the source is there all the time, available, but we overlook it. However, he does not even address how to cultivate a connection, not just how to cut off distraction.

Homage to Bass

 (image is mine - my brother Alex Hall used it as the cover for his EP of the same name)


The chances of me waking up, getting out of the shower, coming home and hearing Bass are very strong. If Dylan's in a good music mood and willing to chug out the beats, this is what will greet me. The funny part is that this has been a likely opportunity since I was thirteen, not just in the last five years.

More Than I Can Say

Ever since attending a creativity - success and pitfall - talk with singer/songwriter Suzanne Vega a week ago, my mind has coursed over how I play/work and interact with the whole that is bigger than the sum of its parts. This wasn't a direct theme of her talk, but she spoke numerous times to intuition - paying attention to what Chogyam Trungpa would call "first thought, best thought" - not the first chronological thought to come (which often seems to be neurotic) but the primal first thought, the core thought, the root basic wisdom. It often doesn't fit quite logically, seems un-linear and incongruent. Vega gave many examples of this under the auspices of intuition, which a few weeks ago a student asked about. It is, ironically, so hard to define, so ineffable, by nature. All we can do is point to it, a bit like relating to the moon, only the moon is actually inside of us.

Last night I taught the second of two (too short, but fitting to the form, the students and I joked) Haiku class through Olbrich Botanical Gardens. Haiku, the Nature of Haiku, as the course was titled, is just this: the empty space, the what-isn't-being-said but somehow can still be felt by the listener. Basho is famous for saying that less than half an experience should actually be "documented" in the haiku - "less is more" as a student said in her introduction, is something worth (ironically) aspiring to. Why is it that less is more? Because, it seems, the more space there is, the richer the situation is. When we are filled with neurotic thought (and believe me I know that state well) there is little room for potential, for realization, for connection. One analogy from the readings placed the two main images of the haiku in relation to each other like sparkplugs - there needs to be enough space for the electricity to jump, but not so much that it cannot reach across the divide. This is the middle path - an opening that is "just right" - not too big, not too small, and utterly empty of expectation.

This is a lot to say, and still, it is not it. There is no way to say it. I smile as I write this - I am not frustrated by that, not today at least. The breeze flowing into my office window reminds me that space is mobile and full, that room is worthwhile making room for. Aviva's paws pushing at my back from behind me on my chair (her favorite place to curl up while I am working) remind me of the same, pointing to the same heart, the same space inside.

"so many words about it
the only language is you don't open your lips"
ikkyu