What remains?

When creative work just isn't possible, what can we hold onto?

Hello friends

Creative work requires energy, health, time, focus, space, money. Take these away from us and what remains of our creative practice?

This is the question I found myself pondering with a mentoring client who has been going through a difficult time recently, and whose writing had ground to a halt as a result.

A sea of brushed steel, rain incoming

As we gently explored this question together, holding it with kindness and curiosity, we realised that even when all the external aspects of a creative practice are stripped away, something yet remains. An indestructible kernel. A stance towards the world as it’s given to us moment by moment. A stance of attentiveness, of curiosity. Of noticing. My client named it as simply ‘presence’.

This realisation felt like an insight: attentive presence is prerequisite to any creative activity. But it also holds value for its own sake.

It is the antidote to the distraction and shallowness of so much of our everyday life. It is the tiny seed from which the urge to make or write may grow. It is a space we can keep open, into which our creativity might, come better days, be welcomed back. It is a space in which we can, more simply, come home to ourselves.

Summer clouds over Orkney Mainland from Costa Hill

Sometimes, it’s true, we neglect our creative practice because we are distracted, lured by an easier option, by bright entertainment, by the endless scroll.

But there are also hard seasons, in all of our lives, when circumstances sorely test even the most faithful commitment to our creative work. Then, we often judge ourselves harshly for failing to be productive, for having little or nothing to show for ourselves.

But sometimes our body just can’t. Our brain is so fogged and heavy that sustained thought is impossible. Our heart is broken. We are flattened by grief. We are too hard-pressed by the urgent need to earn money, or exhausted by caring responsibilities.

If this is you, right now, it’s OK to ease off. Ask yourself, what is the very smallest thing I can do that will keep a space open for my creativity to move back into when the time is right? If I can’t write, paint, or make anything right now, what small, regular practice can I sustain, that will sustain me in turn?

Is it a daily practice of silence?

Of quiet looking?

Of walking, outside, without earbuds or phone?

Of birdwatching?

Of knitting or crochet or cooking?

Of drinking my morning coffee with full awareness, not absently scrolling emails?

Of simply sitting, hands quiet in my lap, doing exactly nothing? For ten minutes?

Can I let this moment of presence be enough?

Thickening cloud over the North Sea

As the wonderful solitary nun Sister Maggie Ross argued, this commitment alone can be transformative, building within us a well of silence that serves as a buttress against the constant noise that surrounds us. We become more autonomous. More balanced.

And if it helps to be in community with others who are also holding open a space in their lives for a creative practice, you are welcome to join us on the Life Raft. If you can’t make, write, draw, read, or even think, you can just sit quietly, resting in the supportive presence of others seeking to keep open a creative space in their week.

Join the Life Raft Creative Co-Working Session

You are welcome our creative co-working session every Wednesday from 3 pm to 4.30 pm UK time. It’s very simple. We say hello, share what we’ll be doing for our hour together, then leave our cameras on and work together in quiet companionship, before signing off with a quick check-in chat. That’s it! If you miss a session or can’t make it live, a recording is usually made available to paid subscribers (though not this week as I was away.) You can find them in the subscriber chat HERE.

until next week!

Sam