I think all of us have experienced the long stretches in our lives when nothing much seems to be happening. When we think of these as time wasting, we’ll probably call them dry spells, but I think we’re probably not realizing what is taking place. We are all creative in some way…all of us. We may not think so if we compare ourselves with actors, singers, writers, artists…people displaying what I call the “flashier” creativities, but make no mistake…we are always hatching something! It may be a new accounting method, a new recipe or a new ways of fixing a mechanical device. This is creativity without a doubt. The thing is, we usually aren’t in a hatching mode all the time, and here is when our long stretches can kick in.
...times when the fertile fields lie fallow...
It’s a mistake to get irritated at these and not know them for what they are…times when the fertile fields lie fallow for a while, at rest, only to reemerge when the time is right. Old timers used to talk about planting at the dark of the moon when the sky was quiet so that a crop could get a good start. Maybe there is something to these dark moon times in us. Maybe they indicate a place of actual inner stretching, an opening of boundaries so we can both take in and let out.
A juicy spell follows...
Anyone who knows and can count on him or herself knows that after a dry pause, a juicy spell follows like dawn follows darkness. I cannot remember how many long stretches I have passed through as a writer. I never called them “writer’s block” because I came to know they would always pass and so I looked at the stretches as “the disinclination to write.” I am stoked to write, and I know this. What I came to understand was that there are spaces in us that need to be honored and held as timely. The flow of creativity never deserts us, especially if we are not flogging ourselves, trying to hurry it along.
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