New Year's Day

Thank you, all of you pioneers, you creative beings! You know who you are...

As the last few weeks of 2009 have wound down, I have been thinking a lot about originality and creativity.  I remember flashbacks of moments in my life when I have felt absolutely creative, full of the untouchable spark that lights the moment like a comet in the sky of daily activity, just as I remember the sensations of weaving the tapestry of “ordinary” moments, time ticking by.  I remember once many years ago (eons) when I was visiting a musician friend (Tom W) in Madison, Wisconsin.  I’d never been to Madison, and had never visited my friend in his old “haunts” there. We’d met in graduate school. He was, and is, a musician extraordinaire, a tinkerer, an inventive mind, a family man, someone whose thoughts hum always, and his fingers follow, his voice humming too.  One night during the visit a number of his friends dropped in, and each of them seemed to play different instruments.  There was a piano in the room, so I wandered to the bench and listened. The room was rather dark (it was winter, so very cold outside), lit by lamps, and so many hands, voices, people playing different instruments was its own cacophony which delighted and fascinated me. The hum of creativity and their complete attention to the music-making in the moment was wonderful. I looked around for some sheet music. (I’d studied piano.) I was inspired and encouraged to join in. Yet I realized the block in my mind of, without the music, what could I add?  These were all musicians, each playing, doing “their thing.” I’m no musician. The thought surprised me, and I’ve thought about it since, whenever prompted – by the comet spark of Music within me, by the joy of others’ in their delight of creating, by the disparity of those who revel in it and those who keep to the more “ordinary” moments as though they have no music within them.  We are all made of music.

I love encouragement. Visiting my family during Christmas, I had the privilege of basking in the beautiful creative joy of my almost three-year-old niece. Her wonder, delight, expressed in laughter, her soft inquiring voice, that insistent smile, and the way she moves – all reminded me of the joy of just expression, when shared as the love of life.  As she anticipated the arrival of her grandparents, she ran to the door, carrying her doll, looked through the panes to see if the car was theirs, then jumped up and down with absolute delight, saying, This is Fun!!!  I laugh every time I think of her, and of her joy which she shared so freely.

I resolve to celebrate and share ever more these moments of life, and the joy of health, laughter, family, friends, creation itself and all I can add to it.  To the sweeping strokes of blue I’ve felt this year (2009), I will add more of the gold, the glints of light and white cloud which so delight me as I capture the images of sky above and around me.  My mind is ready for more, the nuances of exploration as we think through and live the joys of creation.  Here’s to the music makers within us all! The art of expression.  Art encourages us to live beautifully – as a friend pointed out last night, the four levels of us as energy encourage us to consciously choose, to live, to know – who we are, who we want to be, the potential within us, and the joy of understanding that we are Spirit beings learning to be human. Happy New Year(s)!