Sophia's Children

“The arts are not a way of making a living. They are a very human way of making life more bearable. Practicing an art, no matter how well or badly, is a way to make your soul grow, for heaven’s sake. Sing in the shower. Dance to the radio. Tell stories. Write a poem to a friend, even a lousy poem. Do it as well as you possibly can. You will get an enormous reward. You will have created something.”  Kurt Vonnegut, A Man Without a Country

First, happy Valentine’s Day to you. Wishing you an abundance of the Perdita’s Gifts (a.k.a. the Four Loves) today and onward.

For some interesting intel about Valentine’s Day origins, check out this Juno Februa, Lupercalia, and Valentine’s Day post in the Sophia’s Children vault.

Now, back to freak-flag-flying artsy musings …

I came across this insight of Kurt Vonnegut’s on Tanja Stark’s web site (which I found thanks to An Elegant Mystery blog!) … so thanks to both for that.

Great-Depression-era way-shower Florence Scovel Shinn called it “perfect self-expression” — this willingness to dare the uncertainty, the risk, the potential of ‘failure’, the need to step out of the seeming (false) security of rigid routine that’s inherent in creativity of any kind.

And we are, at our heart and core, creative beings. That impulse and natural genius might get squished, squelched, scoffed at, boxed up, buried, and otherwise marginalized and repressed … but it’s there (kind of like the beating heart in Poe’s The Tell-Tale heart … but in a good way!).

Like other essential bits of us, it waits to be noticed, fertilized with our attention, and let back out to play again…let off of that choke-chain to have a good romp.

Go ahead, color outside of the lines. Heck, skip the lines altogether and scribble and doodle with abandon, literally or metaphorically.

Stomp with joyful abandon in post-rain puddles … while wearing ‘good’ shoes (it’s fun, and it’s contagious, I can tell you that!).

Fly your freak flag that you’ve made out of whatever mixed media or found objects that catch your fancy. Or whatever your version of that might be.

Dare the creative adventure (that will, indeed, help to uproot us from false ground, as John O’Donohue worded it!). You can start quiet and small … or take a flying, wild, joyous leap.

Big love,

Jamie

Image credit links: Find Michael Allan Leonard’s site here.

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