Reclaiming Creativity

I ran across the term, "Creative Rainbow Mother" recently. Actually, it is talked about in the book, "If Women Rose Rooted", chosen for the first book of the CME book club. Upon reading the term, I smiled, thinking it sounded funny. After reading about the term I laughed realizing I just might be a Creative Rainbow Mother. (ha)

While I am down to earth, love raising my children, am deeply connected to family, rooted to home, and have an intense need to care for others, I also have another side. I am an artist. With that title comes the constant need to fly free, to strike out alone, to seek creative inspiration and tend to my own ideas and plans.

Drawing inspired by the many winter walks the kids and I took. Making our home in the woods despite and maybe because of the cold...

This type of mother:

"...needs to descend into her creative depths, she can't live otherwise. She has the energy of the seer, the priestess, ,the artist, the poet. That sort of woman, in order to be a mother effectively, inspires her children rather than doing everything for them and living through them."

An interesting thing happened today. For the first time in four and a half years I felt like the artist self and the mother self shared an authentic handshake. This happened while walking through the woods alone with my camera.

Even though at times my life can start to feel compartmentalized, I always love when I can find and feed points of intersection. Reclaiming creativity as a mother most certainly has it's challenges but it's all about how you frame it.

And you don't have to be a "Creative Rainbow Mother" to be creative either. I truly believe that every women has a fire within that needs tending. Be intentional about questioning habits and perhaps breaking old ones to make way for new, will then lead to inspiration. And that inspiration, if consistent enough, will be what it takes to light the creative spark. Bring that fire within to it's full potential.

In everyone’s life, at some time, our inner fire goes out. It is then burst into flame by an encounter with another human being. We should all be thankful for those people who rekindle the inner spirit.

—Albert Schweitzer

Could the encounter mentioned above be an encounter not only with person but also with place? Could becoming acutely aware of our surroundings and finding our place in the natural world rekindle our inner spirit? Or perhaps it is who we surround ourself with as well as were we spend our time.

So many questions. But the one question I will leave you with today I suppose is, are you willing to reclaim your creativity? And what will be the first step you take (or the next if you've already begun) to get you there?

No need for grand gestures (unless of course that's your thing). For me a simple walk alone in the woods with my camera will suffice. We all have our thing. That thing that makes us tick. For me right now it's the beauty of realizing how the outdoors is weaving a web through all areas of my life, bringing each aspect into alignment. I believe in some way the outdoors can do this for everyone - a different line for each of course - but a web for sure. The web of life, right?

You'll be amazed at the subtle transformation that unfolds when you make room for inspiration. Make room for letting the outdoors in. Becoming tuned into the planet we live on, putting your finger on the heartbeat of the world, will most certainly spark something. I mean how could it not?? Something different in all of us I'm sure. But something amazing nonetheless.