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With cupped hands my young son held this creature gently. The butterfly's interruption had been unexpected. We all stopped to take it in.
Photo by Dollar Gill
It clung to him softly giving him a moment to contemplate its being. We puzzled at its blue spots and beady eyes. A winged reminder beauty and wonder drops by unannounced. Instinctively I captured the image to keep for myself.
My son in very practiced at holding still for my camera. The true magic of that moment was fleeting. The other prize is this digital memory. Animate or inanimate, I look first through my naked eyes and then through the lens. There is more for me to see from this perspective. Adding curiosity and compassion.
Soaked in art from our culture making some for myself is a treat. I gave up drawing and story telling just like I gave up childhood. With some good luck and coaching I have come back to these joys .
I work to my own inspirations as I am creating. At times it is fun and uplifting. Other times cruelly frustrating. Whatever the outcome, when I am done there's are peace. It's not always good and its often not great, but it's mine. It probably doesn't look like the image in my mind yet its just perfect as it is.
Elizabeth Gilbert wrote in Big Magic "art does not have to be important or save the world." I checked and today there's 7.770 ish billion and counting. So that's probably just as well. My photos and paintings won't save any of them. Almost all of them won't see them. Though if I'm bold a few might. They’re certainly not important. They are only slightly so to me. Yet I love it, I really do. For years outlets of creativity usually gave way to sensible things like being an accountant and paying my bills.
Gilbert writes of courage and persistence in living a creative life. Her soothing reassurances left me eager to explore. She speaks of enchantment and divinity. I worked with productivity and flow, of being in "the zone". These are all concepts and are true, if they are true for us. The romantic ideal Gilbert showed me was far more attractive. I was enrolled to be hit by Big Magic.
I reminisced as she talked of welcoming in the creative energy. Recalling times I have lost myself in a project. The books spread over the kitchen table, the pallets of wet paint piled up in the sink. running down the street, barefoot on the bitumen to get the power lines out of my sunset shot before the sun disappears.
Snorkeling off Lady Elliot Island in Queensland ended with me crawling up the beach on fours in my bikini dry reaching. I spend way too long underwater being swept back and forth by the current, holding the rope on the boats anchor amidst a school of fish trying to get THE photo.
Creativity for me looks like photography, painting in acrylic, water colours and pastels. Also, hand lettering and calligraphy, sketch note drawings, needle work and building miniature models. I recently made a chance decision to join a painting class. There’s four other gals who have different approaches. It was daunting to walk in the first day, our easels set up in the center of a studio, the walls covered in paintings for sale. Over the weeks those painting have revealed all kinds of colours and shapes. I see light and shade in a whole new way. I look deeper now at the skyline and moon at night.
Creative pursuits energetically generate the power and freedom to come out in the world inside a new personal reality.
"Have fierce trust in putting your work out into the world" Elizabeth Gilbert
Big love, Frances 💗
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Sources Big Magic Elizabeth Gilbert