Nurturing Our Creativity

What you make matters: Creativity, Glimmers, and Love

I was on a walk last week through my neighborhood and noticed a house with a great selection of children’s art taped to the glass storm door.

This welcoming and hospitable gallery brought a smile to my face. I thought of how, by hanging this work, the parents are showing their children that what they make matters.

I thought of this again reading

Anna Brones

interview with Kerri ni Dochartaigh.

Our creativity is like a little bird. You can either shoo it away, or you can let it come close. I think a lot about the psychology around rearing children, whilst being busy. You’ll not be able to respond to your child in the way they want you to all of the time, but you can respond. That actually can just be a hand on their head, a word of encouragement across the room. To say, “I am busy, but I'm here for you.” -Kerri ni Dochartaigh

Interview from Creative Fuel: The Power of Contrasts, Liminal Spaces, and Cusps

I love the gentle presence of this posture, the acknowledgement of full days, and things to do while still offering a a response of closenes and presence.

Kerri ní Dochartaigh

has a beautiful substack called Glimmers. I participated in a writing class she led where she invited us to focus on our glimmers. Glimmer is a term coined by trauma psychologist, Deb Dana; it is the opposite of a trigger. Triggers activate our nervous system, bringing on panic, anxiety, and other post traumatic symptoms. Glimmers, on the other hand are small moments that spark joy or solace, moments marked by a calm, present, regulated nervous system.

Humans naturally remember hard and painful things more readily than joyful things. In terms of evolution, this served our survival and self-protection. It also can bias our thinking toward the negative; perhaps that is why the concept of triggers is more common than glimmers.

One way to help yourself and others to remember moments of joy and connection is to name them aloud, describing sensory details that help us remember. This is a form of savoring, celebration, and memory making.

It is worth our time to lift up and share the moments that spark joy and connection in our lives.

In the same way the parents displaying their children’s artwork send a message to the creative child, we can send an important message to our creative selves:

“What you love matters.”

“Your presence matters.”

“The connections you make matter.”

Courting creativity is about building relationship in our daily lives. Celebrating this connection might take the form of hanging drawings, paintings, or poems on your door or in your home. Moments of pause, of savoring, and especially of sharing what brings us joy and connection are an equally valid way to honor our creative selves.

For me, winter skies glimmer, they offer a source of wonder and connection. The colors of dawn and dusk draw my attention to the transitions of the days, and to the slowly growing light.

I connect to my neighbors on walks as we delight in the colors, my family group text includes many sky pictures sharing views of changing light in our different cities. I connect with myself in past seasons too; I remember creating collages inspired by past winters’ skies and notice trees that catch my attention year after year for their stark beauty against the light.

I’d love to hear from you too, what glimmers for you in this season, what sparks of joy, connection, and presence are you finding in your daily life?

Thank you for reading and being a part of creative community through this newsletter.

With a grateful heart,

Kathryn

The longer I live, the more deeply I learn that love — whether we call it friendship or family or romance — is the work of mirroring and magnifying each other’s light.

-Maria Popova The Light Between Us