Posts Tagged ‘creativity’
Cultivating Optimism During Difficult Times
Nature is Magnificently Creative and Inspiring If you are not familiar with Bing, it’s a wonderful search engine that presents a different, stunning photograph on their landing page every day. The images are always wonderful, guaranteed to delight and inspire. Today’s image was the incredible photograph of Jersey tiger moths above. Talk about nature as an inspiration for visual…
Read MoreCalming Practice: Creating Mandalas
When I arrived last Wednesday to set up for our new Lunch and Learn Series, Mickey and Linda were already there, setting up the registration table. Our “greeters” Donna and Mae arrived soon thereafter, and Evelyn was not far behind. These five women are our ambassadors. They are experienced, seasoned participants who are well on the…
Read MorePerpetually Stressed?
Overwhelmed? Overloaded? Over-scheduled? Overstimulated? We are bombarded every single day with information from a multitude of sources, and our minds have been trained to absorb this onslaught, this rapid-fire of words and images and sounds. As if this isn’t enough to overwhelm, most of us also have an insane To-Do List. Much is expected and…
Read MoreDon’t be Afraid of Drawing
I stumbled upon this article on Buzzfeed about a graphic artist and her four-year-old daughter who draw together. It reminded me of the surrealist’s game exquisite corpse, which is a fantastic, playful way of drawing collaboratively. Try this when you are feeling down, stuck, or uncertain how you feel: Gather a couple of pals or family members, and don’t…
Read MoreMandalas for Restoring Balance
Last month’s explorations took us into the complicated realm of Balance. We throw that word out a lot these days: “I need more balance in my life.” “Strive to maintain a balanced life.” Ruminating over the meaning of balance, our class came up with word associations like equilibrium, stable, controlled, static, rigidity, precise — none of which made us feel very…
Read MoreGratitude in Difficult Times
I recently found this passage about gratitude among Dana Jennings’s reflections in the New York Times on his cancer journey: When you have cancer, when you’re being cut open and radiated and who knows what else, it can take a great effort to be thankful for the gift of the one life that we have been blessed…
Read MoreMandalas for Harvesting Gratitude
How can we remain grateful in turbulent times? How do we keep our hearts open when we are swallowed by fear and anger and chaos and doubt? During our July workshop, Mandalas for Harvesting Gratitude, we used our creative processes to dig into these difficult questions. Mark Nepo, one of my favorite thinkers and poets, provides one eloquent answer: How can we stay awake…
Read MoreReleasing Anxieties to Gather Inner Strength
As we continue this summer to explore the art of the mandala – creating within a circle – our practices begin to intertwine. Our first workshop addressed how to release anxiety through the process of intuitive mandala drawing, which we featured in our “Mandalas for Centering Strength” post. During the workshop, we discussed the importance of recognizing…
Read MoreMandalas for Centering Strength
Our latest class gathered at Lexington Medical Center to explore the idea of art making as a form of healing. A few had been outside of cancer treatment for many years but still possessed a nagging fear of a recurrence. Others had just finished treatment. One was heading to Duke University on Friday for exploratory…
Read MoreOur Inner Lives
Opening my Gmail this morning, I landed on a message from my daughter containing a link to the article How Not to Be Alone by Jonathan Safran Foer, saying it reminded her of me. I was deeply touched by this gesture, and it reminded me of all the cancer survivors I have worked with and of our…
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