Listening feels so important in teaching - our listening as teachers helps students to hear themselves too. I think of all the times a teacher or mentor helped me hear myself in the context of sharing and conversation. You are doing important work with your listening.
These images of winter are beautiful and draw me in, inviting me to linger and ponder. Thank you for them. Here in Saskatchewan, winter has been a long, hard slog and we are welcoming a change and a step toward spring. Melting snow and sunshine is making me feel alive these days and feasting on words and images from other creatives like you sweetens the season.
Loved this, friend! Have you read The Artist's Way? I'm going through it with a group of writers right now, and your post reminded me of what I'm reading. She talks about the importance of taking our creative selves on a weekly date, to nurture them. I see you doing that with your winter walks.
This spoke to me this morning. I've been working on a small creative project and I've been going very slowly with it. I left my cutter, card stock and selected words out in one corner of my dining table. As the days move forward I keep looking and yesterday I noticed a shift. I felt the creativity was shifting because I was infusing this project with something from me. I started to get insight into what it was about and how it would unfold. In the late afternoon I had a virtual gathering and discussed it some more and even more insights were revealed. Sometimes it needs to brew and steep and other times we need to send it our energy to help it breathe into life.
Santina, I have continued to think of your narrative here about keeping your project out and noticing when you felt creativity shift. When I am working on things I like to have them around and visible. This can be an organizational challenge but what you wrote also helped me realize that by keeping things visible, I am in some way infusing them with energy. Often things are simmering, there is warmth there - I can't store it away but I can let it rest and simmer a while on a back burner.
I love how you narrate your process here Santina. This idea of letting things brew and steep but also knowing when we need to send energy. I love how it sounds like your shift came just by having the project out and visible and seeing it. Maybe that being seen helped the project to come back into conversation with you and your creativity.
Good job Kathryn. Thank you for sharing. I send myself an email when something hits me. In the subject, I'll put, "Blog: Reflect on the Conversation with XYZ about her sister and her child."
I love this. I send myself emails too, and I use the notes app on my phone. However, I am more likely to forget things in notes. Email is great because my future self will return to a thought when I get back to my inbox on the computer. Thanks for sharing your practice.
Kathryn, right now I love your letter, and the wave-like ripples in the snow you fotographed, and the fact that you, like me, seem to be just driven to get outside and get with the beauty of it all.
I love feeling your accompaniment, companionship and kinship in this drive to get outside into the beauty. The snow arrived quickly here and was washed away almost as quickly by the rains that followed. So grateful to have had the quiet time with the transformed landscape.
Listening is something I feel drawn to in my teaching practice…thank you for the reminder of the depth of listening and how important it is!
Listening feels so important in teaching - our listening as teachers helps students to hear themselves too. I think of all the times a teacher or mentor helped me hear myself in the context of sharing and conversation. You are doing important work with your listening.
These images of winter are beautiful and draw me in, inviting me to linger and ponder. Thank you for them. Here in Saskatchewan, winter has been a long, hard slog and we are welcoming a change and a step toward spring. Melting snow and sunshine is making me feel alive these days and feasting on words and images from other creatives like you sweetens the season.
Thank you, lovely to hear your observations of steps toward spring and the aliveness that brings.
Loved this, friend! Have you read The Artist's Way? I'm going through it with a group of writers right now, and your post reminded me of what I'm reading. She talks about the importance of taking our creative selves on a weekly date, to nurture them. I see you doing that with your winter walks.
Yes, I think the idea of regular dates with our creativity is one of my favorite take-aways from that book.
This spoke to me this morning. I've been working on a small creative project and I've been going very slowly with it. I left my cutter, card stock and selected words out in one corner of my dining table. As the days move forward I keep looking and yesterday I noticed a shift. I felt the creativity was shifting because I was infusing this project with something from me. I started to get insight into what it was about and how it would unfold. In the late afternoon I had a virtual gathering and discussed it some more and even more insights were revealed. Sometimes it needs to brew and steep and other times we need to send it our energy to help it breathe into life.
Santina, I have continued to think of your narrative here about keeping your project out and noticing when you felt creativity shift. When I am working on things I like to have them around and visible. This can be an organizational challenge but what you wrote also helped me realize that by keeping things visible, I am in some way infusing them with energy. Often things are simmering, there is warmth there - I can't store it away but I can let it rest and simmer a while on a back burner.
I love how you narrate your process here Santina. This idea of letting things brew and steep but also knowing when we need to send energy. I love how it sounds like your shift came just by having the project out and visible and seeing it. Maybe that being seen helped the project to come back into conversation with you and your creativity.
Good job Kathryn. Thank you for sharing. I send myself an email when something hits me. In the subject, I'll put, "Blog: Reflect on the Conversation with XYZ about her sister and her child."
I love this. I send myself emails too, and I use the notes app on my phone. However, I am more likely to forget things in notes. Email is great because my future self will return to a thought when I get back to my inbox on the computer. Thanks for sharing your practice.
Kathryn, right now I love your letter, and the wave-like ripples in the snow you fotographed, and the fact that you, like me, seem to be just driven to get outside and get with the beauty of it all.
I love feeling your accompaniment, companionship and kinship in this drive to get outside into the beauty. The snow arrived quickly here and was washed away almost as quickly by the rains that followed. So grateful to have had the quiet time with the transformed landscape.