Staying in flight

I have been watching the endlessly fascinating sky, the colours that delight me, the cloud formations that draw themselves across the blue or grey. I have been tracking the birds leaving, their offspring fully fledged.

As the doors close and the days shorten it left me pondering migration and flow, the pulse of a year lived out in ritual and rhythm.

Look at your creative work with thoughts of migration. Where do you want your work to develop to, where is it going? Stay in flight, stay in the loop of creative flow, the ebb and flow of the seasons.As we bed into a new season spend some time looking at what you have made this year and ask yourself, in an ideal world what would it have turned out like? 

“Something told the wild geese

It was time to go.

Though the fields lay golden

Something whispered,—‘Snow.’

Leaves were green and stirring,

Berries, luster-glossed,

But beneath warm feathers

Something cautioned,—‘Frost.’

All the sagging orchards

Steamed with amber spice,

But each wild breast stiffened

At remembered ice.

Something told the wild geese

It was time to fly, —

Summer sun was on their wings,

Winter in their cry.”

~ Rachel Field, “Something Told the Wild Geese”

Birds keep repeating the experience…a pilgrimage…going to the same points to stay nourished and nurtured. Some of those birds lead the formation, some are starting out for the first time. You are in a unique point in your life, you are at a unique point on your creative journey. Do not lose heart, do not compare yourself to others. Be prepared for your own pilgrimage, your own repeating cycle of effort and joy, challenges and failures.

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Murmuration - created for my online course Stitching the Stillness.

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What is it that you need to stay nourished and nurtured as you fly your creative path? Where do you need to stop off this winter to refuel?

Perhaps you could plan a gallery visit or join a library and pick up a section of art books. Perhaps you too need some time outdoors turning your face to the sun. Keep on your creative path, keep your wings in flight. Look to the sky for inspiration.

Let me know if this has resonated with you and how you plan to fuel your artist soul through the months ahead.

Through a Henry Moore at Yorkshire Sculpture Park

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