Today's Creativity Reflection:
The Beauty Emerges
The world needs your creative gifts. Allow your beauty to emerge.
By Kristi Tencarre
A butterfly in flight is a beautiful sight to behold. It is calming to watch. A butterfly was made to soar. When it is fluttering in the air, it is doing what it was made to do. It is living its purpose. It reached maturity and can now bring forth life. The same is true with our art. Sarah Ban Breathnach writes, "It takes a lifetime to create the work of art for which we were born." Our whole life is preparation for the work(s) for which we were meant to create. There are many forms of creativity and many diverse paths to creation. A butterfly begins in an egg with a hard outer shell and a waxy interior that protects the egg. Not all eggs are the same shape and size. So it is with us as creative beings. We are all individuals. Our life experience determines the shape our art takes.
Transform Your Inner and Outer World Through Creative Engagement
Elemental Muses
Earth, Creative Bedrock: Standing on Solid Ground
When I reflect upon the element of earth, this is what comes immediately to mind: The importance of allowing your creative work to be the foundation you stand upon. Inspiration is not just some flight of fancy. It is the air you breathe; the water you gulp down when you are thirsty; the bread that fills your belly. The process and products of your creative work will feed your soul, if you let them. They can fill your belly, too, providing an important source of income, and an influx of resources and contacts you wouldn't have access to otherwise.
Books & Printables
Trickster Word Search Puzzles
By Chris Dunmire, Unpuzzler
Great for April Fool's or any day pranking! Teachers and Parents: Enjoy pulling off a creatively delightful (and harmless!) joke at home or in the classroom. What looks like an ordinary activity soon turns into an unforgettable experience is expecation vs. reality. These six reprintable eye-catching impossible-to-solve word-find puzzles have stumped even the smartest of students and puzzle enthusisasts (because the words are really hidden good so they can't be found!) and have delighted teachers, parents, and pranksters worldwide since 2005.
Creative Careers Interviews
Pat Conway: Poet, Photog, Librarian, Bird Watcher, and Bee Keeper
By Molly Anderson-Childers
Q: Talk a little about the healing power of creative work. I know you've faced some tough times and I greatly admire your strength and grace in the presence of sorrow. How does your work help you to persevere through dark times?
A: Writing and the passing of time has probably helped me more than anything in times of grief. At the age of ten, my best friend died from a gunshot wound to the head. I remember that my family didn't know what to do to help me get through this terrible time in my young life. I closed myself off, and wouldn't go anywhere or do anything but play instrumental music on the stereo. I started writing poetry at that time. Through subsequent losses; my first child, my husband, dear friends, and family members, my poetry has come forth. Some of my best poems were written out of grief and recovery from it.
Writing from the Deeper Self
Learning and Playing by Heart
By Naomi Rose
I'm sitting at the piano, my hands on the keys, feeling the music pour out from this relationship. No matter how disconnected or dulled I may feel before I sit down on the wooden piano bench, as soon as my hands touch the keys ~ even before I press down and hear sound coming back ~ something in me relaxes. I am home. It is not always like this with writing, for me. But with piano, the very tactility of the touch ~ the smooth white keys under the pads of my fingertips ~ releases some kind of endorphin response. My body relaxes, my heart recognizes that, "Ah, now I will be able to express in my own true mode," and I feel befriended by the piano itself, and the realization of what will take place between us, even if I have no preconceived idea of what I will play. It is the touch that brings the music forth.
Rethinking Depression
Your Existential Program
By Eric Maisel, PhD
The following existential program is designed to help you "verify your truth by making it real in your own life" and to support you in eliminating the unhappiness that comes from inauthentic living. Not all unhappiness will vanish if you follow this program; you're a human being, after all, and not immune to pain. But a lot of your unhappiness will. This existential program emphasizes the existential, the cognitive, and the behavioral. Living authentically means organizing your life around your answers to three fundamental questions.
Fostering Creativity
Robert Henri's 'The Art Spirit', Creative Genius, and Individuality
By Abby Connors
One of my favorite books is called The Art Spirit. It was written by the early twentieth-century American artist Robert Henri in 1923. “The Art Spirit” is a collection of Henri’s lectures and portions of his correspondence with his students, and it contains insightful, beautiful, and inspiring ideas about not only painting, but the arts in general. Henri lived at a time when art was firmly in the hands of art schools and academies which used very conservative and conventional approaches to artistic technique. In contrast, Henri believed in art as an expression of love for life.
Write Right Now! Prompt
365 Pictures: See Today's Prompt
Rock Painting Tutorial
Painted Messages and Quotes 'Written in Stone'
By Ernestina Gallina
Imagine your favorite saying on a rock, a meaningful message for a friend, an expression of love or devotion written on the pages of an old book. This project will show you how to paint an old open book that you can personalize with your own text, for a very special gift that will last forever because it's "written in stone!" Choose smooth rocks that through the years have been gently smoothed and molded into the shape of a small ball.