Here is just a short list:
Magpie Girl, in her email series Magpie Speak, discusses all sorts of aspects about bringing out one's creative side and dealing with the challenges that come with that and hinder one's creativity.
Lauren, over at Suburbalicious Living, talks about the book Women Who Run with the Wolves by Clarissa Pinkola Estes, PhD
. To quote her How-to Guide on what you need to know from the intro: Clarissa writes this book so that women may regain their wild and knowing natures, which she argues have been crushed out of us by years of societal influence requiring women to be demure, clean, and safe. On page 10 (I have the tiny paperback version), she writes a very long list of the symptoms of having "partially severed or lost entirely the relationship with the deep instinctual psyche. Using women's language exclusively, these are: feeling extraordinarily dry, fatigued, frail depressed, confused, gagged, muzzled, unaroused. Feeling frightened, halt or weak, without inspiration, without animation, without soul-fulness, without meaning, shame-bearing, chronically fuming, volatile, stuck, uncreative, compressed, crazed." She goes on for several more paragraphs of symptoms.I am at that point.
Lauren also wrote a post for A Practical Wedding, again mentioning Women Who Run with the Wolves, about The Road Not Taken
. Here, she discusses making choices and how it's ok to mourn the decision you didn't make while still being confident, at-peace with, and happy about the decision you did make.Finally, Tish Harren Warren wrote an article for The Well entitled At a Loss for Words: Finding Prayer Through Liturgy, Silence, and Embodiment, discussing what happens when you no longer have the words to pray.
I bought Women Who Run with the Wolves, and haven't made it much past the intro, but Estes talks about getting sucked into everyday life and losing your sense of what she calls the wild woman.
I've been feeling a loss of creativity, loss of direction, loss of purpose for a while. I've run out of words to pray. It's been simmering, but lately has begun to come to a full boil. I feel that I am entering a period of exploration and learning - learning how to make a place for myself, learning how to listen to my heart and to God, learning how to express and pour out that which is in my heart. My goal for this weekend is to turn the storage room/ second bedroom (that doesn't have a bed yet) into my craft room. M brought me a folding table to use for my creative pursuits, and I am excited to paint, draw, write, knit, sew, create once again. I also want to turn it into a place of santuary, a place of rest, and of peace. I will end with this quote by Stephen DeStaebler because I think it is very true, and especicially relevent.
"Artists don't get down to work until the pain of working is exceeded by the pain of not working."
