Nature As Your Creative Mentor
Humans are way more impatient than nature. We do something and we like to instantly see the results or at least know that the results are on their way. We are not the best creatures at waiting and we have an inclination to detest the idea of uncertainty.
Whereas nature seems to be quite the opposite. It can allow the time and space needed for creating and growth and not get in its own way. The clouds roll in and the sky does not impatiently ask when they will be leaving and at what exact time the sun will be making its appearance. It lives with a knowing that all in its right time will get completed and there is no rush and no impatience in the process.
Where I live, we are currently entering the season of autumn. The leaves are all transforming into these beautiful red and golden hues and they are falling off their branches readying themselves for the coming winter. And when the branches are bare and the leaves are all disintegrated there will be a barrenness and a silence that will come over the landscape. Yet, nature will not panic, it will not assume leaves will never return. It has a trust in itself, it knows that underneath all that can be seen, there is a growth taking place, invisible to the eye. And all the while as the days get darker and the frost and harsh weather deaden all the lush greens that were there before. There is no admonition by nature. It does not berate or judge itself as slow or not as beautiful or not keeping up appearances. It allows for it all; it knows.
We know too, if only we would allow the space and silence to create without wanting instantaneous results. Deep down underneath all the noise we keep listening to internally and externally, we also know that we are creative beings. We, too, work like nature in seasons. We have periods of overt growth where we see the results of what we have been working towards and we also have periods of time where we are in a creative landscape that looks devoid of life. That looks like we have run out of creative juice, that we will never have another creative idea again, or when what we create is not growing as fast as we would like.
And this is where we differ; we are thinking beings and with the power of thought we judge and criticize the process. We lament over the dark lands and the lack of outcomes. We cease trusting in the process when it becomes invisible to the naked eye. Yet, underneath it all, the creative process is percolating and brewing and once again it will turn into a creative manifestation taken from the seed of your imagination and brought into form, but maybe not on the scheduled time you would prefer.
The plight of the creative is to hold trust in themselves and in the journey of their ideas from formless to form. We would do well to look to nature as our creative mentor and develop the same characteristics that nature displays. Namely to trust the process, trust yourself and know that not everything being created is visible whilst it is being made manifest, it has a period of invisibility, that does not mean creativity is not taking place.
Incredible magic requires an invisible alchemy; hold faith in the process of your creations even when you are experiencing fallow periods. For the spring will return and the blossoms of your ideas will burst forth and you will begin the cycle again.