Notes from Women's Creativity Book, part II

Okay it's been awhile and I did keep reading but then I stopped, then I had to return the book to the library. Blah, blah, blah. You know how this goes. Long ago I had written notes which I'm going transcribe here and potentially add more since the reading I did the other night sparked much pondering.

Ealy talks about women being more process than product; how when close to completion we tend to lose interest and not finish, or that sometimes we rush through the end. She offers seeing the completion before starting which seems like a good idea except perhaps I'm more product oriented but lack the discipline to get there. I imagine the end result - garment finished, fit body, renovated home but need to spend more time how to get there rather than by inspired by the end concept.

I am annoyed by the references to "gifts" women specifically have in terms of creativity. It feels just as sexist and simplistic as saying men have special abilities or constructs that allow for creativity to blossom.

Ealy begins talking about solitude being necessary for creativity. I get that and found in reading The Peabody Sisters of Salem a great example of the specific difficulty for women who have children to do their art (Sophia is the sister I am thinking of). I also get that true solitude is hard to be comfortable with in this culture. The united states is not geared that way as a nation.

Now I wrote the above about solitude about two months ago, before my trip to California where I carved out a great deal of solitude and allowed the feelings to flow, worked on staying with harder emotions and not just running back to work or finding people to randomly talk with to divert me. It was a powerful and important thing to do. It is a goal for me now to find ways to create that in the rest of my life. I have always loved being alone in my home, wherever that is, but it is not the same as being silent. Silence is something to be avoided, at least for the most part in my past.

Since retrieving this book the other days from the library I read the chapter titled, Quieting the Inner You. Rather apt given my goals, no? She talks about "creative concepts always being available but we have to learn how to listen to them" (I would change to learned how to listen for them). This is akin to conversations I had with ACL (sorry about typing that wrong last time, though with this spelling I think of the knee ligament that frequently is a source of pain. I know. My mind is a scary place. ) about psychic messages, about being able to "tune in" and hear/see things. We both believe that everyone has the ability but few people actually spend time accessing it, and actively seek to make that a stronger piece of our lives. This is parallel to what Early says. Of course accessing these powers, or flow is all part of the same process whether one uses it for design, psychic tuning in, writing, etc; it requires a silence, an attention, a clearing, a willingness to feel.

Clearing my mind is a hard task but I have learned a few things that work. Ealy references a breathing/counting pattern that is similar to things I have used. Another technique I learned is from Birthing From Within (great, great book) that is called something like focused inattention. Yes, I should look it up, maybe later. It involves focusing for a moment what you see, feel, hear and going to the next sense sensation. I find this works for helping me fall asleep when my mind likes to spin convoluted webs of stress and regret which make me anxious. Instead I let the thoughts come and ask myself to go to the next physical sensation I have: the breeze on my leg, the sound of rain hitting the window, listening to my dog pant, noticing the pull of the sheet as TGF shifts position. By the time I have done this a few times, an unrelated thought may wander in and I can cast it off using this process. The idea is not to dwell on any one thing, not to spin from that initial sensation or thought but to move as gracefully as possible to the next and the next, letting the mind float and skim, not bogging down in any thought regardless of how hard or happy.

Notes from Woman's Creativity, part 1

From The Woman's Book of Creativity.

First I promise I will not be doing all my exercises here, but for now this is a convenient place for me to keep track of some things.

Ealy references the book, The Art of Thought (1926) which outlines a paradigm that she says people who study creativity grabbed on to and haven't really let go of (keep in mind this book was written over 10 years ago). The paradigm has four steps in the process:
1. Preparation - gather all important information
2. Incubation - the mind puts things on the back burner, allowing the unconscious to process things
3. Illumination - where a "solution" is suddenly brought into focus
4. Verification - "giving an outward form to the creative idea" (p. 6).

This paradigm was creative studying men, since the 1920s there has been great debate about whether women's brains work the same way with most people in "the field" say no, which means the above may not offer much to half the population. On the other hand I think many of us use a combination of linear processing, as expressed by the above, and a more "holistic" form. Holistic simply seems to mean not linear for a lot of people but maybe "relational" would be a better descriptive. Reviewing some of the things I have done I see both methods used, sometimes individual tasks seem to require one or the other, but I can also see how I tend towards a combination of processing a great deal of the time.

Page 11

What's your definition of creativity?
Ealy asks us to complete this statement: For me, creativity is.....

When I read this the other night I had an immediate answer that seems to have vanished into the ether since then. Perhaps one part of my answer is "fulfillment". That's what I am thinking at this point. {Added after writing the rest of post, as I edited.} Rereading this answer it's not very descriptive is it? By fulfillment I am thinking about how without creativity there is a lack of passion, drive that goes beyond doing what is necessary to have a place to sleep and food to eat. It is that intangible quality that lights us up intrinsically, that offers us a haven when other things are going downhill or inertia threatens our spirit.

An exercise on page 16 asks the reader to think of the creative people you know and list their behaviors or qualities. Which do you have? Which would you like to inhabit more?

Thinking of a number of people my answers include:
- ability to find joy in the most basic experiences
- interest in a lot of topics, not simply their craft
- physically active
- disciplined
- enjoy down time
- social
- express themselves verbally and in written form
- deeply appreciate others' creativity
- supportive of their friends
- challenge themselves to learn new forms of their art
- a good sense of humor
- finish things
- follow through on intentions

I am sure there are others but it's a start. Immediately I know I am not disciplined and need to be more physically active. This is not just because I think it will enhance my creativity (though I believe it will) but for a million other reasons as well. While I finish some things, I could have a higher output, or not. Not sure if actually finishing everything one starts is necessarily to define oneself as creative but it is a dimension that is important to me. Follow through in all areas is something I think is the quality I want to work on the most because it encompasses the other two in terms of meeting the goals I set for myself, doing things that I know will make me happier, healthier, and more me.

Ealy suggests picking one word, writing it on a colored index card, making about 10 of these and putting them where you will see them regularly. After a few weeks choose a new word/quality on a different colored card and repeat. I like that she asks her readers to concentrate on just one thing. Visual prompts like these cause a push-pull response in my head. It seems so simple, silly almost, but when I have done it (okay it's only been like twice) it did help. I suspect a quick jaunt to an office supply store (one of my favorite places to shop -EVER. Organizational opportunities everywhere, pretty pens with which to write brilliant essays, colorful folders for storing tidbits, {drool}) to pick up some index cards. TGF will probably tolerate this invasion on her visual plane, however I'll try to be mindful when placing these things about the house.