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the hour for making

do you have a special time when you are at your most creative?

i have tried and tried to set my creative hour during the daytime, but no matter what i do, i find that it’s not til the sun goes down that the world is quiet enough for me to really get into my creative process.

for 2011 i am in a process of opening and learning and questioning.

the last phase of my life was in many ways defined by trying to know more than i could possibly know, in part because i was a young executive director, in part because it’s hard to make the distinction between facilitation and leadership and often in my effort to support transformation through facilitation, i would find myself in a position of leadership. it didn’t fall on me, i took it on…but when i think about shifts i want to make in my life, a major one is learning to hold the boundaries of facilitation more carefully, and explore what facilitative leadership and collective leadership really means.

this is challenging for an introvert virgo with a wild side, but i am committed.

one part of this practice is continuously putting myself in situations where i know, and everyone else around me knows, i am not an expert.

a second part of this practice is approaching the world with curiosity and questions and an eagerness to learn – rather than my default judgments and criticisms. it’s so much easier for me to make time to critique than to create, but i know when i make the choice to create it is more powerful than any old tired critiques.

part three is getting my house in order. i do this often, and it always liberates my mind from clutter. little improvements – getting the bookshelf i needed, the butter dish, rearranging things to be more instinctual – release my mind from obstacles and worry.

and the fourth part is what has me up so late: creating. tamara warren said, as many other wise writers have said, write every day. so i am writing, or creating art, every day. nothing i create fits into the hour i set aside for it, the creation time stretches for hours and i have to make way for it, move my reasoning self out of the way so a story can really emerge from me.

and then i feel awake, and alive, and unfinished – like there is a reason for all that i feel and think.

what is your hour for making?