Renewing the Creative Fire

WoolFelt Lampshade byNahoko Koyama and Alexander Garnett of Mixko.

Once, when it was deepest, darkest night, the kind of night when the land is black and the trees look like gnarled hand and the sky is dark midnight-blue, an old man staggered through the forest, half-blinded by the limbs of trees. The boughs scratched his face, and he held out a tiny lantern in one hand. The candle inside the lantern was burning lower and lower. The man had long yellow hair, cracked yellow teeth, and curved yellow fingernails. He was hunched over and his back was rounded like a bag of flour. He was so furrowed his skin hung in furbelows from his chin and armpits and from his hips. He held on to a tree and pulled himself forward, and then grasped another tree and pulled himself forward, and with this rowing motion and his hard breathing he made his way through the forest. Every bone in his feet painted like fire. The owls in the trees screeched right along with his joints as he propelled himself forward in the dark. Way off in the distance, there was a tiny flickering light, a cottage, a fire, a home, a place of rest, and he laboured toward that little light. Just as he reached the door, he was so tired, so exhausted, the tiny light in his little lantern died, and the old man fell through the door and collapsed. Inside was an old woman sitting before a beautiful roaring fire, and now she hurried to his side, gathered him into her arms, and carried him to the fire. She held him in her arms as a mother holds her child. She sat and rocked him in her rocking chair. There they were, the poor frail old man, just a sack of bones, and the strong old woman rocking him back and forth saying, “There, there. There, there. There, there.” And she rocked him all through the night, and by the time it was not yet morning but almost, he had grown much younger, he was now a beautiful young man with golden hair and long strong limbs. And she rocked him. “There, there, There, there. There, there.” And as morning approached even more closely, the young man had turned into a very small and very beautiful child with golden hair plaited like wheat. Just at the moment of dawn, the old woman plucked three hairs very quickly from the child’s beautiful head and threw them to the tiles. They sound like this: Tiiiiiiig! Tiiiiiiig! Tiiiiiiig! And the little child in her arms crawled down from her lap and ran to the door. Looking back at the old woman for a moment, he gave her a dazzling smile, then turned and flew up into the sky to become the brilliant morning sun.*

Post It Notes Lamp by Aaron Rutledge

Estes says that focus is composed of sensing, hearing, and following the directions of the soul voice.

Plastic Bottle Lamp by Reta & Vana Howell

And that to lose focus is to lose energy.

Crocheted Doiley Lamp by Ceylan Sahin

But there is no need to panic when we lose our momentum or focus…..we must calmly hold the idea and be with it a while. The absolutely wrong thing to do when we’ve lost focus is to rush about struggling to pack it all back together again.

Microfilm Lamp by 2nddraft

Rushing is not the thing to do….sitting and rocking is the thing to do.

Polymer Clay Candle Holders by Amanda Hunt at Polyclarific

Patience, peace, and rocking renew ideas.

Wood Sconce by Roy Gumpel from Woodstock Lamps

So…just sit down and be still. Take the idea and rock it to and fro.

Photograph and Ceramic Lamp by Donna Brady of Resurface

Keep some of it and throw some away, and it will renew itself.

Jeeves by Jake Phipps at Hidden Art Shop

You need do no more. Toaster Lamp from Metalight

*Rumanian folk tale The Three Gold Hairs as recounted in Women Who Run With The Wolves by Clarissa Pinkola Estes.