THE WHEEL OF CREATIVITY®

Today I swam in the English Channel, and she shared her creative harvest with me.

A Day for All Seasons

Today is the September Equinox, one of two days each year when the sun spends as much time below the equator as above. Day and night are equal. Like the Solstice, the Equinox marks a change of season on Earth. In the Northern hemisphere it is the gateway to Autumn, and for thousands of years human cultures around the world and have celebrated with harvest festivals.

• For 3,000 years, the Chinese have given thanks for the summer harvest with their Moon Festival.
• The Japanese Higan Festival is a national holiday, when Buddhists honor the spirits of the dead as they journey from the physical world of suffering to the spiritual world of enlightenment.
• Here in England, celebrants gather at Stonehenge to observe the equal, paradoxical powers of light and darkness.

The Creative Harvest

Harvest is the final station of the Wheel of Creativity, which describes life as a creative journey to which we are each called by our hunger for something more:

• A mother longs for all the children of the world to be fed.
• A scientist dreams for young people to share his love of science.
• A young geek envisions an easier way to interact online.
• A businessman turns toward his passion for organic farming.
• A corporate executive explores her vision for a yoga center in her town.

Many of us would prefer a direct route to Harvest when we feel this creative hunger, but it is the journey itself that takes us there. Every seed needs tending to mature. From the first station (Hunger) to the last (Harvest), our responses determine the quality of our crops. And this is where we always have a choice.

A Different Choice

Here on the south coast of England, the air is crisp with Autumn. This time of year has often made me sad, as I watch winter’s darkness encroach on summer’s long, light days. But today, as I woke, I asked myself how I would acknowledge this day, how could I celebrate the harvest of those days slipping away. The answer that came to me:  “I want to swim in the sea.”

And so, at 10:00 AM, I made the two-block trip to the seaside and dove into the chilly (16.9 °C / 62°F) waters of the English Channel. In that very brief encounter, the sea met me with a thread of her bounty, in a string of seaweed I found floating. My sadness was overshadowed with aliveness, and I was nourished.

The Crops in Your Fields

Coming to Harvest in any area of your life shows you what you have sown and tended. When you’ve come full circle through all 12 stations to this one, the journey you began with hunger is now complete. Not only does your harvest feed you, it also nourishes your world. It’s time to come home and celebrate.

What are you harvesting in your life today? Does it nourish you? Does it nourish your world? Cut the fruit from the tree and eat it. Feed yourself with the produce of your own life. Share it and give thanks. Celebrate the hunger itself, which leads you into your creative life and brings you home again.

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Some days I just feel so much love for the Earth.

Today I was out for a walk, because the sun was out for a few minutes this morning. I had a plan to go one way and got to a turning point and turned a different way. I thought I would come back by way of the village, and instead I turned toward the beach.

I was looking for windsurfers. But when I got to the beach, there weren’t any. So I had this huge expanse of desolate, isolated beach with nobody on it. And it was low tide. The beach was really wide. And so I stopped and I danced.

It reminds me very much of my mermaid impressions, which I do in the sea. It’s the same thing, but the sea was just a bit farther out today. And then there was a piece of sea glass on the beach, which I’ve never found here before. It was an amazing experience.

I realize now that this is the way I make myself feel at home, by touching the earth where I am, putting my feet down, saying, “I’m here,” and experiencing myself in the place where I am. And so it’s been really quite amazing this morning. Surprising. I feel welcomed here… much more than I would if I had had coffee with a friend or had any of the things I think I need. It’s so simple.

Thank you, Earth.

Every moment is like a piece of sea glass. We can either stop and pick it up and count it as precious, or we can pass it. When we’re not present, when I’m not present, I miss all the little jewels of life, like the bird that just flew through my picture as I was taking a picture of my hand.

Life can be magic.

And for those of us who are fortunate enough to be in the place to think about that, let us not fail to do so.

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I suppose I was in a romantic mood. Less than 24 hours after my husband’s return from seven months at sea, we sat at Le Safari on the Cours Saleya in Nice. We just escaped a downpour of rain that had been building since we left the beach an hour earlier. The fruit and vegetable vendors tore down their stalls as the world-famous marché closed for the day, and street cleaners washed everything down.

I’m not sure exactly when I spotted it, but there among the tourists, locals and Saturday workers was a small blue balloon, caressing the bricks of the sidewalk as it floated along. Being a lover of anthropomorphism, I immediately assigned it feelings and thoughts and even a personality. I watched it follow the wind. I observed its effect on the world around it:  the masculine response was to kick it – sometimes gently, sometimes violently – while the children just wanted to play. One moment it was at the far end of the street; the next, carried along by the feet of many strangers, it had returned to my side.

I couldn’t help thinking of the 1956 film by French filmmaker Albert Lamorisse called, Le Ballon Rouge. The Red Balloon won the Palme D’Or at Cannes for Best Short Film, and Lamorisse won the Oscar for Best Original Screenplay for his 34-minute film with almost no dialogue. The film told the story of another balloon, born the same year I was, which befriends a young Parisian boy named Pascal, accompanying him around the city, following him home and to school, until a gang of jealous bullies destroys it.

As the street cleaners made their way through the market today, I heard the same dreaded sound Pascal had heard. Above the twitter of tourists, the stir of place settings and the motors of vendor vehicles, the pop of the blue balloon rang out. And then it was gone.

And that made me think of how similar we humans are. On the day my mother died, as her body lay lifeless in her home hospital bed, I felt the same thing. She is not there. The body is worn out, but the life goes on.

Today, sitting joyfully with my husband at the market, I saw once again that life is more than all this stuff. Life is not the blue balloon, but rather the air that fills it. That blue balloon gave a small bit of air the chance to move through and relate to the world. Our bodies do the same for us. As a tiny shred of blue lay motionless on the ground, the air that had filled it simply returned to its source.

Is it not the same for us? Is not our effect on the world made possible by our sense of separation from it? Do we not have a limited-time offer to make our impact? And when we are gone, does that impact not continue in the hearts and minds of those who’ve met us on the street? Each of those encounters is an opportunity to create something! Enjoy the ride!

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