Noticing Your Creative Life

Where I live there are members of the community who work hard to create rituals, celebrate solstices and create FREE opportunities to celebrate creativity and connection and nourish a creative life. We have just celebrated the winter solstice with the annual Winter Magic Festival and after a weekend of absorbing the creativity that flows through the community I find myself feeling so thankful for all the art that surrounds us in our lives. In particular the offerings, small and large, free or not, that may go unnoticed or taken for granted.

One of the events over the weekend was watching my friends Blue Hill perform original songs. Songs that were raw, honest, beautiful and heartbreaking. At the end of their set they thanked the audience, but really we were the ones who should be thanking them. Thanking them for sharing so vulnerably that we were able to feel deeply, sit and let their music fill our cups and hearts.

Every week I experience the gift of attending my dance class, safely being a beginner again with group of people who celebrate each other whether it’s a small or big win. This group has become family and our teacher, Beckie gives so much to us, holds space, works overtime, creates opportunities for us all the grow and she does this because she loves dance. She wants more people to feel the joy and the freedom that comes when you learn to connect to your body and the gift of music around us. You can read this beautiful article about Beckie and her experiences with dance here. We had the exciting opportunity to dance at Winter Magic over the weekend, in front of a pretty large crowd too. We put ourselves out there, stood, even with the nerves, we were vulnerable and in our offering we were celebrated and cheered on by the crowd and each other.

The art around us isn’t always in the form of a performance or show, it is also in the way our friends and family teach us what they know. When we share a recipe, a gardening tip, a book we loved we are sharing a creative life. My beautiful friends (Sarah and Mem) recently taught me how to wet felt a bowl, to be completely honest I found it tricky – being a beginner is hard! But I look at my bowl and if I really take the time to notice it I see the the generosity of my friends gifting me their time and knowledge, the little hands that helped me layer the felt and the laughter as we chatted and learnt together.

Then there is the public art, the free moments where someone has gone “I’m going to take this space and create something beautiful” for no other reason than to add art to the world. I’m always reminded of this in one of the local carparks as I stand and wait for the elevator doors to open, I see this mosaic, this intentional act of adding art to the mundane. Why do we do it? Why do we see bus stops, water tanks, buildings, sides of bins, carpark level signs as canvas for us to create? It brings us joy even if we don’t consciously realise, it feeds the deep innate creative part of what makes us human. Katoomba has a guided street art walk you can experience too!

I’m excited to be able to offer a chance to nourish and notice your creative life too. I’ve started teaching workshops again and being able to share my core belief of innate creativity is as much a gift to me as it (hopefully) is to my students.

What will you notice, share, celebrate and learn this week? I’m going to notice the art that surrounds me, the murals, mosaics and street art and take a moment to breathe it in. The creative offerings that spring from wanting to add art to everyones lives. Notice the music in the background, make it louder and let it fill my body to the point that I can’t help but move. How about you?