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Reflections

Category: Creativity

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Inspiration as Grace

The other essay in the Theological Aesthetics book I am reading that has especially moved me is by the liberation theologian Leonardo Boff from his book Liberating Grace: “The poet, the musician, and the writer feel overtaken by inspiration.  On the one hand, it is they who do the work. Their energy and their deepest selves are totally involved. The effort to express themselves often leads to complete exhaustion. On the other hand, they feel possessed by something that is above them, outside them, or within them. It drives them to create, compelling them to express their inner experience to

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Art in the Cracks of the Day

Driving Under the Influence of Poetry Scribbling on scraps of paper On the seat next to me As my car sails down The freeways. Words tumbling out Around that sharp turn. Poems dashed off at stop lights They will not wait for me To sit politely at a desk. Poems on the run. No speed limit for them. They race in my head As I keep one eye on the road. Few know of these dangers. So, watch out for the drivers With a pen in their hand And a poem in their heart. Beware! -Pamela McCauley Pamela is a

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Being an artist means. . .

Being an artist means: not numbering and counting, but ripening like a tree, which doesn’t force its sap, and stands confidently in the storms of spring, not afraid that afterward summer may not come. It does come. But it comes only to those who are patient, who are there as if eternity lay before them, so unconcernedly silent and vast. I learn it every day of my life, learn it with pain I am grateful for: patience is everything! -Rainer Maria Rilke from Letters to a Young Poet I am a pretty patient person.  I usually don’t mind the periods of

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The Promise of New Beginnings

Sometimes the light of the new day feels faint like the late December sun rising over Chesterman Beach in Tofino (above).  There is mist around us, we can’t quite make out the shape of the future, but we place our hopes in the faint glow making its way upward across the sky. While I have some mixed feelings about the celebration of New Year’s, I also find hope in it as a way for people to recollect and renew.  Like Thanksgiving, I appreciate the importance of secular holidays that celebrate important values like gratitude and remembering.  While resolutions often seem to lead to unrealistic

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Inspiration

The word inspiration comes from the Latin root spiritus which means Spirit or breath.  To be inspired is to be filled with the spirit or to be breathed into.  This is what happened when Mary received the Spirit of God into her womb.  The Spirit continues to move and breathe into each one of us, each moment of each day.  Are you willing to receive?  Have you made a welcoming space for the Spirit to move within you?  In my blog journeying today I discovered some poetic and visual inspiration: Cathleen at Back Road Journey writes about Dreams of Darkness, an invitation to “sing from deep within.”

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Just a few simple offerings

Michelle has left a comment under my previous post of her Litany for the Wounded with ways to help support the work she is doing, so please click here to go read! (scroll all the way down)She is doing such meaningful work and Michelle is a woman with a passion for justice and being present to those on the margins. And once you have read that, go over to Story Midwife and read the incredible post Trish has written about creating an Altar of Attending for women who are dying.  I drink in great writing about grief and dying like wine and

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Living Between the Ancient and the New

A simple post tonight as I am very tired from two full days of teaching.  Our first session of Awakening the Creative Spirit was wonderful with twelve holy women participating.  This first session focused on an overview of all the arts and we had everyone use a collage process to focus on the question “What does your soul long for?”  Such richness revealed in that exploration.  As I made mine, a very simple one weaving together images of rootedness and the flow of ocean, I was tempted to add more images to it.  But, it felt done with all that spaciousness and simplicity.  While

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