The Shed Notebook: You Do Not Need to Leave Your Room

Here is another favorite quote from The Daily Peace.

"You do not need to leave your room. Remain sitting at your table and listen. Do not even listen; simply wait. The world will freely offer itself to you to be unmasked; it has ot choice. It will roll in ecstasy at your feet.   Franz Kafka

The Shed Notebook: Need A Creativity Boost?

Recently I did a talk to at a PEO meeting about creativity. After a long winter and a spring starting out with rain and gray skies, I hoped to provide a little seasonal boost to the audience. Yes, we are all creative. Go forth and follow your muse. You might find somethink on the list to spark your creativity.

According to psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, author of Creativity: Flow and the Psychology of Discovery and Invention "creativity is the vivid expression of who we are in the world—our imagination begets our thoughts, our thoughts beget our words, our words beget our actions, our actions beget our experience, our collective experience and expression begets our culture. Each of us is contributing to the creation of the cultures we participate in."

The world is not divided into two groups of the creative and the uncreative. If there’s a distinction, it’s between those who are creatively productive and those with unexpressed potential. We’re creative by default. We’re genetically predisposed to create. Each of us, to varying degrees, is intrinsically motivated to create, to be original and to solve challenging problems. The question to ask is not, “Am I creative?” but rather, “What inspires me to create?”

Sometimes we are just not inspired to be creative.

Here is a list you can turn to when you want to spark creativity in your day.

Journal

Carry a camera or your phone and take photos

Spend time with a group for the purpose of creating what you love

Coloring and/or doodling

Create something with your hands

Do yoga

Unplug and just do nothing

Try something new: a new recipe, a new stitch, new pattern, new route walking

Allow yourself to have fun

Browse in a fabric shop, yarn store, book store,  pottery shop, or art museum

Create plants into beautiful arrangements in pots or garden beds.

April is National Poetry Month: Good Advice from William Stafford

William Stafford composed this poem twenty-six days before he died. I have read and reread many poems by William Stafford, but I don't recall this one. Now I am thinking to myself, " What is my thread?" When I come up with an answer, it will be another blog post. Enjoy these words.


The Way It Is

There’s a thread you follow. It goes among
things that change. But it doesn’t change.
People wonder about what you are pursuing.
You have to explain about the thread.
But it is hard for others to see.
While you hold it you can’t get lost.
Tragedies happen; people get hurt
or die; and you suffer and get old.
Nothing you do can stop time’s unfolding.
You don’t ever let go of the thread.

By William Stafford, from The Way It Is, 1998

April is National Poetry Month: There Is a Place

There Is a Place

There is a place

where the museum houses thousands of paintings

seen nowhere else in the world,

the colors so bright they grab your eyes

and hold you there, looking,

where the library is filled with brand new books

waiting for you to open them first,

to tell stories only you could know,

where fresh cherries have no pits,

where puppies never grow old.

There is such a place,

hidden deep

in me.

- Janet Wong

The Shed Notebook: Strength and Resolution

A quote today from A Daily Peace:

"Tenderness and kindness are not signs of weakness and despair, 

but manifestations of strength and resolution."    

Kahlil Gibran

The Shed Notebook: Mom's Memory Garden

I knew last summer I would acquire plants and garden decor from Mom's garden next door after her death. My brother and his wife weren't clear how they wanted to approach the backyard, so they generously gave my sister and me permission to dig up what we wanted. I also inherited some garden signs and decor favorites Mom had collected. 

As we sat in our own backyard last fall, JEJ came up with an idea of building one more raised bed in the narrow space on the side of the house so I could create Mom's Memory Garden. He got the bed built last fall. We are going to add a gate and fence to keep our canine "kids" out. I am now getting excited about planning and planting it.

I know a rose given in honor of Mom from the Pearson/Brown family will be front and center. I will include plants from Mom's garden, then fill it up with her favorite flowers. My friend Chris gifted Mom with a beautiful  yellow metal flower that will be placed in the garden, along with a perfect statue I found today with angel wings and a nice saying. It is also a vase and will hold flowers!

 I will be excited to post pictures when it is completed.