Haiku

I handpainted this, completion on July 2, 2000.

There is life within
Also what exists beyond,
Love’s richness abides.

2020/365 – The Reasons Why

Why do I do Creativity Projects? This is not my first one and probably will not be my last. Why do I crazily decide to commit a year to come out in public with some work every day? Most know I regularly work, create most days without posting. Like now, I soon enough decide I should give up because there is a lack of engagement.

The thing is, I believe in LOVE, and believe in creativity as LOVE’s most actionable visible expression. If I do this – if I make myself produce something original each day of the year, maybe one person stumbles across what I am doing and is emboldened to create. If I inspire one to do something gorgeous and lasting out of LOVE, overcoming fear, that he or she would have left undone, it is worth my 365 efforts. The expression of ideas fuels changes in our lives – if we want a better world, we best be busy creating a platform from which it can be built and launched. The basis of a brighter day is LOVE.

I am not here only to make my things, to promote myself, I am here to move, encourage others to have fortitude enough to share their truth, their reality, in freedom and boldness. Together, perhaps, we may all move this populated globe toward an understanding of why we exist. Loving, supporting, helping, encouraging, accepting, inspiring, teaching, nurturing, building, nourishing, protecting, listening, cherishing, being friends, and companions together with every one of us – this is our individual and joint reason and purpose as human beings. We belong, all of us, we are precious.

We have what it takes to LOVE, and we should be busy about making it our business.

I hope that clarifies my mission and why it is important to me. It is no easy thing. The quit dogs me often, but I have never been one to give up.

Join me, do this thing yourself or just come back here when you feel the notion. I hope 2020 has taken off as a blessed year in your life. All the best in all you do.

This time do not let
It flow past you and away,
Capture it with LOVE!

I never know what will be until it comes, and I am grateful that this came in my journal. I like what it has to say. Have a great weekend. Fill it with moments to treasure and make what you dream happen.

Prose Poetry

Sitting in bed after midnight in those black hours where the lamp goldens the air, sometimes I find inspiration there. I turn to a pen and a journal because my mind I want to bare. A hand moving across paper laying down ink seems more connected to me than an electronic device manipulating ions.

However, when I bring it here, you freely see those mistakes I make. It is a bit scary, but I have never wanted much other than to be real. It is as I have almost always been before.

A discussion today involved imperfection being an element of our ideas of value in arts. Another was how freedom undiluted by opinion, especially in arts, allows us to be true to our ideals. So, I hope you like what I do, but I have to let my attachment to your opinion go. I know that is not popular, but it is how I must roll.

I used the scanner today, the clarity seems much better than my phone. I am actually better with the more fundamental forms of technology.

If you only use devices now, as a prompt, try writing by hand. You do not have to share the handwriting, but see if your mental connection is different. You may find your production increases in freshness. Not being able to back up, erase, and edit can hold you to a standard that may be unfamiliar.

I edit better on-screen, but sometimes words line up in more musical ways when I write by hand.

I practiced handwriting extensively throughout my life. My writing hand, the right, is giving me some problems, I have arthritis, but I am keeping it active. Working very hard to retain my legibility so I can keep doing things like the above is essential.

I believe as we age, staying creatively active is a gift to help remain mentally agile. The small motor motions also help brains maintain robust neuronal, axonal, and dendrite activity.

I am thankful for the many blessings given to me. I am amazed at the gifts of which I partake in existing. I hope everyone can find beauty in their lives.

Be well, be you, chase your joy, create!

Tanka

There is a silence
Speaking a symphony, loud,
So many voices
Unheard within the clamor
Of a cold unheeding world.

Knowing, unknowable,
A puzzling undefined, left,
To find a pathway
Where the signposts are missing
And the emptinesses full.

A Tanka is a syllabic form with counts 5-7-5-7-7. Often they provide an opportunity to paint with words. As a prompt, you may wish to write a few. Or you might take time to take photos of these lean Winter times.

Best to all.

Creative Variety

Day Seven – 2020 Creativity Project

Wookie watching Wick

Wookie raptly watching a movie. Edited version.

I have been on the internet since 1991. Creatives are among my favorite people. A baseline normal between creatives, we are all original individuals. Our personalities, gifts, characteristics, styles, spirituality, beliefs, all those, and more make us unusual, and yet we are alike. There is a spark in the room when creatives meet. We chatter, and we immediately find something which we can relate to within one another.

Many of us are introverts, we will find ways to sequester ourselves in privacy. Though we can lay that aside long enough to perform something we believe in. Sometimes, this is almost too hard. What should we write, draw, paint, photograph, what tools use? Is art worthwhile? Is the meaning and connotation of a word correct? Is it perfect, or close enough, no one can see the seams, the erasures? The picture, should it have been edited, or was the original better? Will anyone read, will they care, will someone?

Uncertainty seems to come with the territory, but we can stand loud and proud when we feel we must. Our hearts are open, our minds malleable, our work forever with us. Dreams are waking us to grab tools of record in the dire hours of the night. We study, then find it not enough, and explore more.

When the curtain draws down, we will be begging long enough to get the current work complete. Dame Death can wait…

Maybe I exaggerate, I am a poet who writes stories, essays, and attempts books. I do these Creativity Projects that tax me beyond belief. I believe in making myself work because if I do not commit, I might crawl into a cavern and secret myself away. Figuratively speaking darlings, if I had a cavern, we would have sleepovers on crisp nights.

I did poems today, but I am not satisfied with any of them, then when am I confident of the writing I do? I think it is why I read so much. I can twine my mind in someone else’s creation. Anyway, you are warned.

Down, Upsideways

Touched by the feather
Of a snowy dove named love
My soul reaches up
Toward Heaven way above
Then stretches out and abroad.

I inhale the breeze
Breathing out weighty worry;
Then again process,
Exhaling stores of kindness and joy
Praying health, happiness, prosperity to all.

I hope good fortune
Will find ample opportunity in many lives;
People who shall discover
Grace as comfort always
And fullness of faith as a living fire.

SWAP

Can I be you now?
I know I should not ask,
But you seem self-assured,
Only for today, until
The time day goes undercover
Where we can dream mysteries
We might never encounter if
Our lives did not intersect,
Combine, entwine, meld,
Like no one knows but we
In on the secrets only we two may
Comprehend, understand;
How will our hearts ever beat
Quite the same as prior, after
Sharing who we really are?
Do you realize how precious,
Surpassing grand are the gifts
You within yourself do own?
We might be explorers, ah, home.

Perpetually

Let us live forever
Remembered by generations
Whose opportunity to know
Us is only in the creations
We leave behind in time.
What we share with others
What we release from within,
Those bits and pieces of thought
Captured in any set form
Can transmit over eras
Perhaps helping someone grow
Into a person better suited
To survive whatever may
Become their experience
In living a maximum life.

I hope you found something of worth, I have not felt like I could do this today. The Quits have set in. You know that saying, “You should not be doing this. It is not any good. Give up.” Yeah, my brain has not yet learned, “Never Give Up!” is stronger. Anyway, thank you for visiting. If you wish there is a follow button, or come back when you like.

All the best to you, and keep reaching for your goals, I believe in you. I thank God this marvelous tool brings us together. I hope I did not go over long today. Sometimes, if you knew, I have lots to share.

Wookie watching television, movie. Less edited version.