But what comes before creating?

I realized I was forgetting a critical step (or two) in my creative process

In last week's letter I apologized for not offering you a way out of the Create-Consume-Anxious-Collapse pipeline, but — I lied!

There’s an obvious way out (/way in) that I manage to forget and remember and forget and remember constantly - so maybe you do, too?

“Create Before You Consume” is just one part of a much longer equation. The crucial front end of the formula deals with what comes before creating stuff…

The interstitial, open and “unrewarded”.

I range from anxious to aggro to fatigued to distracted to despondent when I haven’t had adequate time to simply be receptive.

I know this!

And yet…

By virtue of the world we live in and the way my stars are aligned and the nature of my hyper-activated, chaos-realm-epigenetic-inheritance, this can be a difficult state to remember & access! Much to my surprise. Every time!

I loved connecting with a bunch of you last week on the “Create Before You Consume” maxim I picked up from the scroll-hole¹. My auntie-mom suggested the even more appropriate aphorism: Create Before Being Consumed. [= fixed it.]

But on Monday I woke up totally disoriented, floating somewhere a million miles away from the center of myself and realized it was a do-not-pass-go, mandatory-zone-the-fuck-out day.

Having spent several weeks traversing the hell realms of concurrent illnesses/emergencies that have so frequently & mythically piled onto my life, every last little synapse had fired, every last muscle had flexed, and I was suddenly (and it comes more and more swiftly these days): all the way DONE.

It used to take a bit more to get me to this point. Like, the fucking cancer diagnosis or being surrounded by a fast-moving fire or waking up to an FBI raid— all of which has made for some “really great stories”, to be sure!—

But the fact is that every part of me is tired. And to deny or deflect around that fact is to my peril.

I need what we all need right now, which is: A three-week vacation with an en-suite hot tub, basic human rights, a 99% more stable income, comprehensive health care & any form of a safety net whatsoever. But in lieu of those things, I needed to remind myself this week of what I know brings me back from the abyss…

So I made myself a new sign to tap for when I’m face down groaning into the carpet, having trouble remembering this basic wisdom I manage to forget:

before you create, receive.  
open
presence
experience
listen
notice
feel
wander
connect
watch
sense
ask questions
absorb
and 
do nothing.

My question for you: What needs to come before you create?

My morning sketchbook ritual is a sort of active meditation through which I find the most consistent, free, open receptivity that feeds the rest of my life.

I also find it in blessed stretches of time in nature— and in sitting meditation, too— but my most consistent dose comes from my sketchbook practice.

I decided to write myself through what this step-before-creation feels like in action. Honestly, writing it out made me feel both extremely privileged and also deeply tender toward myself— That I should afford myself this much care!

from Will McPhail

If you work this question in your notebooks, I look forward to hearing what you find…

What comes first:

I’m wrapping myself in a big red robe that makes me smile first thing and filling & turning on the kettle. I’m making dark coffee in my big mug. I’m lighting the good incense with the same silver lighter. And I’m leaving a little trail of warm glowing lights around the room while I lay my hands on my notebook (and give the binding a squeeze to making sure there’s still a pen wedged in there— and there always is.) And when I sit down, I’m just sitting with this familiar companion—my book— soft, open in my lap— open, open— and I’m holding my favorite pen just above it with the cap still on and I’m just looking out the window. I’m noticing what the light is doing at this hour and what the stars are doing, if there are stars. Where’s Venus? Where’s the moon? Noticing the quality & the direction of the clouds, gauging the windspeed above the prairie. Looking for frost and fog and naming birds. I try summoning a cat to pet for a while and I sip from my favorite mug and I hold my pen in my right hand, ready, and I stare out the window. Sometimes I’m listening to music. Sometimes I just listen. And sometimes, when I’m very, very lucky, this gets to last for hours. I’m holding my pen over the page — with the cat and the mug and Venus and the freight trains — and I uncap my pen when something interesting comes in. A vision. A word. An understanding. Something with bells on it. That first thing always leads me to the next thing, the next, the next and, sooner or later, into the rest of my day… and sometimes leads me to the rest of my week or year— and some have lead me to the rest of my life…

Without this practice I slide precipitously into energetic disarray. 

With it? I leave myself a map to follow, threads to pull on, images to ponder:

I scry. 

Love to you all! Get some rest!

Here’s The Sacred Pause from Tara Brach.— See you next week.

xo,

1. The internet tells us the source of this phrase is Marie Forleo. I admittedly don’t know much about Ms. Forleo— but as someone who has consumed a fair amount of similar…content… to hers, she seems to fall into the category I like to call “Business Posi-snazzity”. Particularly of the lady-entrepreneur / scarcity mindset / abundance etc etc etc / “stay young forever” / “you can have it all” vibe…