Endment got me thinking about seeds yesterday. I was telling my friend that I want to take this clay sculpture class that was recently recommended to me. I have this dilemma in that the timing of the class isn't very good. I'll miss part of it and it's up in Santa Fe and I'm just not prepared to give more weeks of time to another class up there so soon. I think this teacher will teach again in the area, but I inquired about it and he hasn't committed to anything specific yet. So, I was feeling like if I don't take this class being offered now then I've missed my chance forever. Of course that means I'm thinking about it in a way that is just causing me all this anxiety. My friend was very loose about it and said it's a seed - and don't you think it's nice to have these possibilities waiting for later. oh, she's right. It's nice to have some seeds stored away for later. I don't have to go take this class right now. I can look at it as a seed. Hopefully, I will get the chance to plant it later. Because of Endment I'd been musing about seeds and then this came up in the conversation in a way that made me suddenly shift my constricted thinking.
Then, this morning I read Greenishlady. She was talking about the Artist Way exercise from week 11 that instructs you to buy a special creativity notebook. Give each of these categories it's own page - health, possessions, leisure, relationships, creativity, career, and spirituality. Then under each category write 10 wishes. I didn't do this exercise. Greenishlady was mentioning that she did it the first time she went through the Artist Way and forgot about the notebook. Much later she discovered how many of her wishes had actually come true over the years.
Well, in my head I put this together with the seed idea and bing! - that's it. I get it. As artists we generate a lot of ideas, vibes, possibilities and it's important to have storage for these seeds. Putting them in a notebook and then just letting the notebook be forgotten is almost like planting a wildflower garden. You put the seeds out there into the field - you don't know what you're gonna get to grow - but you just plant and let it be. That exercise in the AW isn't about tending a garden - it's about planting wild seeds or even storing some for later.
To be a creative alive person we need to have lots of little places to tuck away seed ideas and I think whether you put them all in one special notebook or write them down and store them away in every nook and cranny of your home - the act of writing them down is like magic. It gives them a special fertility. On a similar note this is a special week. I'm not an astrologer - but I like astrology because it is a creative language - so I dip into it every once in a while. On Wednesday there is a new moon solar eclipse. It happens at 3:16am in the Mountain Time Zone - 5:16am Eastern Time. In these days leading up to the new moon in Aries - (a sign of new beginnings and spring) muse about your wishes. Then after the new moon occurs preferable in the 24 hours following write them down. Try it - you don't even have to believe any of it - but there is something fertile and magical about writing down your wishes - generating seeds - if nothing else you are participating in spring.
I leave you with this thought. My friend yesterday was reminding me of one of my favorite Mary Oliver poems The Summer Day. I leave you with the last few lines of that poem:
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?
