Renew Your Spirit
Nature has a way of renewing itself quickly and swiftly. In the late 1960s Lake Erie, which is up the road from where I live, was declared dead. Today it is alive, although it is facing new challenges. If you have ever seen how quickly a forest renews itself after a fire, you will understand the meaning of this quote. I believe nature uses adversity as a way of cleansing itself from rot and then creating new opportunities.
And since we are a part of nature, we also have this gift. When adversity strikes, we can seize the opportunity and renew ourselves. We can change our course and discover new paths to follow. Each change of jobs in my career has opened new doors. One path has led to another. Adversity has created an opportunity to grow. Being fired from a job opened new doors. Each failure was a new beginning.
Learn to let go of your old tired habits and plant new ones. Are you stuck in a job you don't like? Seek a new one. Are you tired of painting the same subjects over and over? Find new subjects. Step outside your comfort zone. Are you tired of writing the same story over and over? Expand your subject matter. Sometimes we find ourselves in a rut. We need to renew ourselves. We need to let go of where we are so we can find our way to where we want to be.
Nature teaches the importance of rejuvenation and revitalization. What are you doing to keep your art fresh? Are you challenging yourself to write new books about subjects you have no experience with? What are you doing to keep from becoming bored with what you do? Develop habits that will keep you revitalized. Renew your spirit with hope for new beginnings.
"Creativity is the residue of time wasted."
— Albert Einstein, Theoretical Physicist, 1879 - 1955
Do you waste time? Or spend time daydreaming? Do you take walks alone? Or sit thinking about nothing? Does your family think you are lazy and won't amount to anything? Contrary to popular opinion, a little bit of laziness is good for the creative soul.
By relaxing and being silly, we free our creative spirits from the shackles of the Puritan work ethic. As the old saying goes: all work and no play makes Jack a very boring lad. Play is fertilizer for the creative spirit. So go play. Daydream to your heart’s content. Einstein has given you permission.
"What is one to do on a bleak day but drift for a while through the streets — drift with the stream."
— Dag Hammarskjold, Swedish Diplomat, 1905 - 1961
Drifting is an art that many of us have never learned. In our fast-paced world where we seek to climb the ladder of success and produce more and more creative work, we never stop and rest. Even our vacations are full of doing. We joke about going back to work to rest from our vacation.
In farming, there is a concept of letting the field lay fallow for a year — not to plant any crops. The soil needs a break to replenish itself. Good farmers know the importance of leaving a field fallow to restore the nutrients in the soil.
And the same is true of creative leaders. We must learn to rest — to drift without direction or purpose, to lay fallow to replenish and restore our souls. We cannot work all the time. We must learn to enjoy a warm afternoon simply for the sake of enjoying.
One simply has to observe the seasons to understand how nature renews itself. The seasons are the touchstones of our lives. They remind us of who we are and what we are all about. The seasons measure the passing of time.
Our lives are like the seasons. Our youth is the spring of our lives — full of energy, excitement, and enthusiasm. We seek to discover the meaning of life and the world into which we are born. Why are we here? Who do we want to become? What is our destiny?
In the summer of our lives, we settle into the world, mating and raising a family. We find employment to pay our bills and hopefully, provide us with a sense of purpose. The questions of our youth become less important as we are in pursuit of life's abundance. Like the squirrels, we are searching for nuts and burying them for the coming winter.
In the autumn of our lives, we return to the melancholy of our youth. We think again about the meaning of life and our purpose for being here. We question and challenge the decisions we have made. Have we settled for too little? Have we given in too easily to the demands of life? If our time in this life is limited, what changes do we want to make?
In the winter of our years, we know the end is near. We can feel the coming death in our bones. We will return to the soil from which we came. We watch our friends and companions of this life pass on to a world beyond our grasp. We live in memory of what has been — hopeful that our passing will be blessed.
The seasons have also been a touchstone of my creative life — beginning with the wild and crazy hopes and dreams of spring. I wanted to be a poet and a novelist — a rich and famous world traveler. In the summer, I chose to find a job to support a family. The writing was relegated to the early morning hours while everyone slept.
By the autumn of my years, I had written thousands of poems and published a few. I have learned that I was more interested in the process of creating than in fame and fortune. Winter has arrived and I wonder what will happen to my creative work after I am gone. Will it disappear? Or will it find a home somewhere?
Do you take the time to be with yourself without the noise and chaos of the world in which you live? Do you spend time with your soul in meditation or prayer? Have you learned how to relax — to slow the pace of your life?
Take time today to pause for a few minutes and listen to the spirit within your flesh. Find comfort in the small acts like the dance of a child, the breeze in the trees, the scampering of a squirrel, or the hug of a friend. Gently love the world in which you find yourself.
Harold Kushner wrote a book, The Lord Is My Shepherd: Healing Wisdom of the Twenty-Third Psalm, in which he meditates on the meaning of the Twenty-Third Psalm. The words I quoted above come from the chapter entitled: He Restoreth My Soul.
Kushner tells the story of a group of people who were on safari in Africa and hired porters to carry their supplies. After three days the porters insisted on stopping for a day to rest. The porters claimed they were stopping not because they were tired, but because they had walked too far too fast and they needed time for their souls to catch up. Have you traveled too fast and left your soul too far behind? Do you need to wait for your soul to catch up?
As a speaker, I traveled a lot — both by car and by plane. Every time I returned home, it took me a day or two to renew my spirit and allow my soul to catch up. And sometimes I felt like my soul did not catch up with my body before I was back on the road chasing the tiger. In my case, my writing of poetry helped my soul to find its way back to the body and restored my sense of who I was.