Category Archives: Creativity

Maturity is…

realizing that the brilliant thought is probably not original but feeling good about having thought it anyway.

OK, who said that?  I found it in my iPhone Notes along with poems I like, poem fragments that might grow up some day, reservation numbers, addresses of hot restaurants, and notes to self about this and that (mostly that).  I put it in  my Commonplace Book.  If you don’t have one of these notebooks that contain scraps of wisdom you encounter and hope to remember and maybe even USE, what are you waiting for?

I’ve Googled this quote and nada.  I know it isn’t original with me.  Well, never mind.  How about you take a turn here and send in some thoughts about what maturity means to you.  Use the comment box below and have at it.  All will get automatically published and maybe we’ll dream up some way of acknowledging the quote we deem the best.

Reading Jabberwocky to the Blind

“Remember that not getting what you want is sometimes a wonderful stroke of luck.”  The Dalai Lama.

What I’ve been wanting lately is to teach more yoga classes.   For a variety of reasons, this isn’t happening, but having some extra time on my hands has given me the space to think about other passions, e.g. the reading of poetry out loud.  I have been reading poems at the conclusion of my classes since I began teaching yoga in 1998, and I know some of the poems I’ve chosen, e.g. Mary Oliver’s The Journey, resonate with students so much, I get requests for copies.  I write poetry, too, almost as much today as I did when I took Larry Raab’s poetry workshop at the Breadloaf School of English in Vermont.   Writing poetry is a private affair.  Reading poetry — mine or others — out loud is an act of communion.

Last week, a new door opened and I walked through it with no idea where it may lead.   A friend and fellow yogi who teaches a pro bono class to blind students was casting around for something new to offer them.  I found myself agreeing to read poetry to them the following week on a see-how-it-goes basis.

The class ranges in age from mid-twenties to 60-something, two men, five women.  Two are suffering from macular degeneration and are partially sighted.  All of them seemed eager to experience something and someone new.   After the introductions — I walked around where they were seated and clasped their hands as we exchanged names — I asked them about first poems.  The older among them all recalled having to memorize and recite in class.  They thought it made children dread poetry.  The younger immediately spoke about having Dr. Seuss read to them as children.  A happier memory.

They were eager for me to begin reading so I started off with some light verse from Dr. Seuss:  Do you like green eggs and ham?  I started.  I do not like them, Sam-I-am,  they chorused back.  Wow!  Next, Edward Lear’s The Owl and the Pussy Cat, followed by Jabberwocky (smiles).  Some e e cummings, Robert Frost’s The Road Not Taken (a sigh or two).  Billy Collins’ Dharma — ‘Oh, yes!’  ‘My dog is named that.’  We talked a little about how poems make us feel. ‘Funny inside.’  ‘Emotional.’  ‘Light.’  Next, Walt Whitman’s I Hear America Singing, then A Pot of Red Lentils by Peter Pereira (Please read that again! )  Â Finally, Pablo Neruda’s Ode to My Socks.  ‘Mmm-hmm!’  Applause.

Our class was almost over.  I asked: How would you like to write a poem next time?   (Next time?)  Richard already writes poetry, a woman sitting next to him said.  A brief pause, for Richard to collect himself.  Then, he launched into a recitation of two originals, topped with a third, composed in the moment.   Not just good.  ‘Twas brillig.

The Poetry Foundation

The Writers Almanac Comes to your inbox daily.  Garrison Keillor’s reading of the featured poem is a great way to start the day.

The Poem Hunter

‘Tis the Day After Christmas…

and through our abode,

there lingers a fragrance of cinnamon and cloves.

No stockings were hung here —

the children all grown,

gone to in-laws and ski slopes

with children of their own.

We’re done with the shopping

and decorating trees,

over the holiday stress

that once brought us to our knees.

But one habit remains

though many have flown,

the baking of bread

with the warm taste of home.

So bring on the butter, brew a fresh pot of tea,

’tis the Day After Christmas for you and for me.

One of my favorite memories of this year was a short period of teaching creative writing to elders at a retirement community.  The day I got the assignment, I also found a copy of Judith Viorst‘s wonderful Unexpectedly Eighty: And Other Adaptations at the library.  So I brought it in with me to a session and read the last poem in the collection: After Giving the Matter A Great Deal of Thought. Then, I asked the participants to write that line on the top of a piece of paper and continue on for about ten minutes.  We had such a good time with this exercise, no one wanted the session to end, and I have all kinds of new ideas about doing more of this work.  Creativity bubbles up wherever it can.  You just have to give it space and make it welcome.  Try this exercise for yourself.  It’s a great year-ender.

Here’s a post-Christmas gift for you lovers of poetry who have yet to subscribe to Garrison Keillor’s The Writer’s Almanac:  click here.   I couldn’t live without this daily reminder that, as William Carlos Williams puts it: “It is difficult to get the news from poems, yet men die miserably every day for lack of what is found there.”

Not That Easy Being Green?

Well, easy no (Kermit, my friend), but possible.  You will have to make changes in how you live that seem so small they couldn’t possibly have an impact.  You will risk making friends uncomfortable.  You may be labeled Treehugger — like there’s something wrong with appreciating a reliable source of oxygen.  Don’t be surprised to learn that innovation will probably begin at the grass roots — hey, that’s us, particularly those of us old enough to remember when Global Warming was barely a blip on the radar.  If we keep working, our solutions and ideas will percolate up to those in power, or maybe we’ll create a new power base.

We have to embrace activism but without the us vs. them, blame-and-shame game that tends to alienate people when we can spare no one.  We need to “act as if what we want is already true,” to paraphrase a quote circulating in New Age circles.  Author and expert on the power of intention, Lynne McTaggart had a radical suggestion about the spill in the Gulf in the three-part teleconference series: The Gulf Call to Sacred Action.  She suggested to her listeners that we stop demonizing BP for this disaster which could have occurred at any one of hundreds of deep water drilling sites, and start imagining that BP engineers are successful at capping the leak.  And then, imagine that the massive cleanup that follows unites people and resources in unprecedented, effective ways.  McTaggart is best known for her research into the power of intention (The Intention Experiment, Free Press — Simon & Schuster 2007).  Other visionaries on the call: Deepak Chopra and Jean Houston.

We need to find, fund, nurture, and support people who are working on solutions:

Here are a few examples:

“It’s not that easy being green
Having to spend each day the color of the leaves…
But green’s the color of Spring.
And green can be cool and friendly-like.
And green can be big like an ocean, or important like a mountain,
or tall like a tree…”

Busier Than Ever

What is it about modern life that makes us take such pride in being busy?  The question occurred to me recently when I had a brief encounter on the street with a former colleague who told me she had been busier than ever since we parted company about a year ago.   I politely listened to her catalog of comings and goings, but I could not bring myself to get into the game of dueling packed schedules.  In fact, I didn’t get a chance and that’s just as well because a. it’s not a game worth winning, and b. what I do in any given day isn’t necessarily the most important thing to me.

On many days, I cannot give an accounting of where the time went, nor do I wish to.  This may seem an odd admission for a longtime journal keeper, but a good day for me is when I have paused to appreciate some aspect of my life, or noticed or learned something new, however minuscule.  (For example, I just a second ago realized that I have been misspelling the word ‘minuscule’ forever, and that I am so not alone in this that one online dictionary gives ‘miniscule’ as a ‘variant.’  Nice of them. )  At the end of my day, I feel I’ve lived it well if I exercised a skill or talent; connected with another human being in a meaningful way; laughed; moved my body; performed some small act that may possibly improve the world.  I live in the “smile at the neighbor even when you don’t want to” and  “pick up litter when you see it” scale of  things.  Minuscule, but meaningful…at least, to me.

I suppose it is no surprise that a workaholic culture would make a virtue of busyness.  But, we might well ask, as Thoreau did:  “It is not enough to be busy.  The question is: What are we busy about?”  In truth there is a dark, addictive side to busyness,  according to Sally Kempton, a teacher of meditation and yogic philosophy.   Click here for some ideas on the subject and antidotes worth trying.

I say, if you find yourself obsessed with schedules and constantly crunched for time, don’t compound the problem by bragging about it.  Try something radical: sit down and catch your breath, pick up a musical instrument or a sketchpad,  open a book, call a friend you have been meaning to talk to.  And if you are lucky enough to connect on that first try, let them know you have all the time in the world to talk.  It will be a gift to you both.

Check out:

The Slow Movement

Zen Habits

Rewiring the Brain Through Creativity

Neuroplasticity.  Until the late Dr. Gene D. Cohen mentioned it in his keynote speech at the First Positive Aging Conference at Eckerd College, I had never heard of the term.  It describes the brain’s ability to regenerate and rewire itself throughout the lifespan — a pretty radical idea not too long ago.  You’re going to be hearing a lot more about this as more people come into their 60s and take stock of the years still left to them.  Recommended reading: Dr. Cohen’s ground-breaking book, The Creative Age: Awakening Human Potential in the Second Half of Life. The cover photographs of older people, kayaking, swimming, dancing, and making art hint at creativity as “the secret to living with one’s entire being.”

Most of us already know how important it is to be physically active throughout life.  But the connection between a lower BMI (body mass index) and brain function is less well understood.  Here’s a  link to the Franklin Institute’s excellent research on this subject.  Gene Cohen was perhaps the first, however, to suggest that creativity also had an important role to play in staying mentally fit as we age.

As challenging as it can be to change sedentary habits, awakening our innate creativity through some form of artistic expression requires even more will power.  As JFK once commented in another context, we have become ‘a nation of spectators’ as opposed to the poets, writers, painters, potters, photographers, dancers, singers, or musicians we might yet become.   Dr. Cohen called this late blooming the Encore Phase of life, a “phenomenon [that] taps the inner pressure that many feel to do or say something before it’s too late.  Not to overlook the obvious, the phrase applies strongly to the field of music, reminding us of how many noted musical achievements have come late or at the end of a musician’s or composer’s career or life cycle — like the late works of Verdi, Liszt, and Stravinsky.”

One way to get started is to take inspiration of your favorite elder artist.  Matisse?  Martha Graham?  Tony Bennet?   One in my personal hall of fame is poet laureate, Stanley Kunitz.   Some years ago, I had the privilege of hearing him give a reading at the Geraldine R. Dodge Poetry Festival.  He was in his late nineties then (he died in 2006 at age 100), and looked physically frail.  But when he read the lyrical, Touch Me, his voice was strong and one felt a sense of an artist come into his finest hour.  I have written very little poetry since I left graduate school, but I’ve found my way back to it.  Perhaps for T.S. Eliot, April was ‘the cruelest month.’  But for me it’s National Poetry Month.  I’m juicing up those neurons, one verse at a time.

More on neuroplasticity

The Decade of the Brain