Next Chapter Bookclub

 
As part of my foray into the world of blogs and online community, I’ve joined Jamie Ridley’s 12 Secrets of Highly Creative Women book club for creative women bloggers.
 
The book has been on my shelves as a beloved resource for the past several years, so I was delighted to see that fellow co-active coach Jamie was starting the group and creating community for creative women bloggers on the web. Hallelujah! What fun.
 
In the first chapter, author Gail McMeekin asks us to honor our creative callings in whatever form they come.
 
Creative callings express themselves in a hundred ways – a pull towards certain people, places, climates, activities, art forms, images and colors, foods, textures. Our job as creators is to be open to all of it, and to hone our ability to listen to the whispers of longing and curiosity.
 
Our work also is to identify what activities absorb us in a state of flow, what I call an individual’s personal “thrillprint”, and do those things with commitment.
 
For me, all of that depends on suspending jugement around your creative callings. Its important for me to remember that I am creating for the joy and expression and health it brings me–anything else is a bonus. I find that without this attitude I get too caught up in the high of a positive reception and the low of a negative one.
 
Honoring creative callings is also only possible when we make time for downtime, for minutes staring out the window, sitting in the tub, walking, doing nothing time. Every such moment tends the soil to grow creative ideas. I whole heartedly believe in regularly make time for vacation and rest to enable you be more creative.
 
Here are just a few of the things calling me these days

• Reading poetry aloud
• Gallery wandering
• Blogging
• Films that embrace the fantastical and surreal, like Persepolis
• Heart wrenching performances, like Sean Penn in Milk
• The lights of the city at night

Love,
 
Tara