Creativity in the Exhale

Pausing to allow space for the muse

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I recently felt a call to be more quiet than usual. Perhaps it’s the coming equinox marking the Northern Hemisphere’s move into the darker side of the year? Or the fact that currently it doesn’t get light here until 8am which gives rise to a hibernating kind of feel. The days are very hot, the nights often stormy. It all calls for a less go, go, go sort of attitude. If you follow astrology, you will know that we are also in a time of many planets being in retrograde, which can offer us a space for reflection before moving forward. I find those times so intensely useful when I let myself pause long enough to have them, when I don’t fight against them.

Last week I decided to take some time off from social media. I only use Instagram, having found the noise of Facebook and Twitter too intense and distracting, the voices shouting the loudest often getting attention over those with something real to say. Sometimes I like Instagram, sometimes I don’t, but I knew that I was being called to take some time out, to get quiet, back to my centre, not to be pulled in whichever direction a post wanted me to go.  

In 2020, when I dedicated myself to the Artist’s Way and got to Week 5, I was at first dismayed by the idea of not reading for a week (if you have done it, maybe you can relate?). However, in the end I went much further. I took out reading, social media, watching shows, listening to podcasts. It was one of the most profound weeks of the course. I noticed that boredom came back into the space. Boredom and silence really are a creative’s best friend, they are where those little whispers get heard and where our creative mind gets to work. And yet, we barely experience it anymore. The gaps, the exhales always quickly followed by the inhale, the lungs replete again before we had a chance to realise they were empty.

So, in removing social media and being more conscious about what I am consuming and how much noise I am allowing in my space, I am offering myself a creative exhale. Ideas I had years back are showing themselves again, new ways of moving forward that I would never have imagined a few weeks ago are showing up, clarity on what lights my creative soul on fire and what pours cold water on it is arriving into the space. The quieter I get, the happier these ideas seem to be to appear, as if they know they will be heard.

It takes time to get quiet, and it isn’t always easy to give myself and my creativity this space. The call to be productive, to get writing, to get back on the production line of creativity is loud. But, I know by now that it is like sowing seeds for the future harvest. If we pull the vegetables up too quick, they will be small, less nutritious. It’s the same with creative ideas. Creativity does not thrive in the production line, it thrives in flow.

So, if you feel called to the pause, to the long exhale, to the listening rather than speaking, the quiet rather than the noise, then try if you can to let yourself make space for it.  This can be a more pronounced practice like I am doing now (time out of social media, deep meditation, watching what I’m consuming etc) or even a daily pause with a cup of tea just to stare out the window in silence for a while, or a gentle walk without taking your phone, leaving your headphones behind. Let the whispers of the muses find their way to you, create space for them to land.

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Mentoring

“If the novice writer is a flower bud packed with creative potential and eager to bloom, then Susannah Rigg is the tender gardener and meteorological muse who nurtures, feeds, and allows that plant to unfurl and live out its biological destiny.” — Anna Dulisse.

These words from one of my mentoring clients seem like the perfect ones to share today. If you would like some tender guidance to help unfurl your writing petals, please feel free to get in touch. I will be reopening my books for new clients in October.

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