THE WHEEL OF CREATIVITY®

It’s Easter Sunday. My step kids have gone home. And my husband is at sea. So I decided to get myself up from the computer where I’ve been spending a lot of time lately and go for a walk.

I took my iPod to keep me company and stave off those lonely holiday blues. But no sooner had I closed the door behind me than Life grabbed me by the senses. I was so impressed; I could not put the earbuds in my ears.

So off I went, down the quiet tree-covered lane I like to walk, with Life as my close companion, resurrecting me by the senses, restoring my connection with it in the creativity of Nature all around me.

Life’s raw improvisation, as I moved through it, was more exciting than any creative composition I had heard before. A few notes…

• Birds with such beautiful voices they could have taught me to sing
• Winter-stricken trees dressing up in new Spring greens and pastels
• The deep green bush sharing its pink camellias with the sidewalk below
• The little two-seater prop plane flying along the beach
• The man in the red sweatshirt who turned onto the lane ahead of me
• Five boys on bicycles discovering the depths of new voices
• Crossing the street, an untended green belt between me and the beach
• Meandering paths through mossy mounds of earth slightly lower than me
• A mini-prairie covered with bushes bursting with tiny yellow flowers whose scent reminded me of my childhood in Texas
• The sounds of hard wheels hitting the steel waves of the local skateboard park
• Stripes of colorful beach huts framing the seaside just beyond
• Then the sea, its perpetual percussion stirring up stones on the beach
• The long, wide beach at low tide, sandy patches stripped bare of stone by the waves
• Seagulls returning to the water, squawking at me for disturbing their peace
• A dozen smaller birds, for whom I was an excuse to catch the wind one more time, flying and soaring longer than was necessary
• The thundering roar of the roller coaster at the local Family Fun Fair
• The chute flying ahead on the beach, telling me there was at least one kite surfer out today
• The rich carpet of fresh green grass as I turned back toward home.

Another lane, with different birds, different trees, different flowers; and the story was the same. Life was beckoning me to live it, to feel it with all my senses, to appreciate the incredible richness of this moment. I could not have been lonely if I tried.

Wherever you are today, whomever you’re with (or not with), your world is equally as rich, your senses equally as hungry. So just for this day, step back from the computer, leave the iPod at home, and let Life in… in… in, to resurrect your senses with all that’s around you, and reconnect you with Life itself.

Happy Easter.

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Several weeks ago, when I was doing my grocery shopping at Carrefour (the WalMart of France), I saw this egg in the tray. I picked it up and held it in my hand; and instantly we drew a small crowd of people who found the egg equally disturbing. “C’est bizarre” was their assessment. Well, that cinched it. I had to have it.

I have always been attracted to the fringe:

• The broken lemon drops
• The forgotten fruit
• The questions without answers
• The mystery schools
• The contrarians
• The cutting edges

This egg would find good company there.

Over the past few weeks, I have often thought about the hen who laid this egg. What did she think of her egg? What did she feel? Did she love it or reject it? Did it hurt her? Did she ever even see it or was it snatched from her beforehand?

If I were in the United States, I seriously doubt whether my egg would have even made it to the supermarket. Eggs are supposed to look a certain way, you know. And this is not it. But not seeing the egg in the tray that day would have been a loss indeed.

Over the past few weeks, I have come to love this egg. It is not a golden egg. It is not a normal egg. It is an original egg. Every time I see this egg, it speaks to me as one who is willing to be different from the rest, stand out in the crowd, catalyze the reactions of others, speak with a voice all its own. And I will treasure it forever.

My friend Peter Fox, solar physicist and computer scientist, describes creativity in science as having “an original thought.” In other words, you have to be willing to see things differently. He observes, “As a scientist, you have to have some element of confidence in yourself, because otherwise you don’t open yourself up to the creative thought. There’s the point where you have to trust that at some level your intuition is right.”

We are drawn to the original like a car accident, as long as it’s happening to someone else; but we are reluctant to own it in ourselves. We live in a world of plastic surgery, social networks, and “irresistible content.” Marketing gurus tell us to write our books based on keyword searches:  find the words others are using, title your chapters with those words, and sell more books. I can’t help wondering where Michelangelo would fit into all this.

Where, along the way, did we decide that things have to look a certain way in life? Uniform, predictable, safe. Where is the imagination in that? Where is the diversity? Where is Life? What kinds of possibilities might appear through us if we did not reject the unusual, the bizarre and the original out of hand?

What hope do we have for creativity and innovation if we reject the original in and around us? If we continue to create from the outside in, what role can originality possibly play in our lives? What solutions would never appear in the world?

Am I alone in my concerns?

Do you have an original egg to share?

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