Spring feels like a fertile time for some poetry. On the Native American medicine wheel, a metaphysical and existential, earth-based framework that’s always resonated deeply with me, it’s the time of illumination, air and light, all of our winged cousins, the earth waking up and starting its cycles once again. It’s a time of refreshing and of rebirth. A buzzy, lite-brite time of hope and newness and possibility-energy. All the little yellows. Time to lift the lip of the world and have a peek at what’s been going on behind the scenes.
While we were hunkered down puzzling and woodstoving and hot-chocolating our way through the winter freeze, there were seeds nestled underground tucked in slumber, biding their time. Dreaming, waiting. And finally, finally—at least in Vermont where I am—here they come.
Slowly, the earth is coloring herself back in. 🌼
As I’ve noted otherwhere, I grew up in northern New England and am very familiar with its yearly rhythms, but spring, you guys. It’s a joy and a thrill and a revelation every. Single. Time. It may be muddy and erratic and sometimes even cruel, as T.S. Eliot famously said of April (“the cruelest month”!), but this has got to be the most delightful time of the year too, every year easy. At least in this neck of the wood of the world.
I love to open my new poetry classes and workshops by sharing this Billy Collins piece.
As a reminder, a warning, an encouragement, an introduction. To what? To reading poems without an agenda. To reading creative work. . . creatively.
Not just the published work of established poets we might encounter, but our own and each other’s work, too. And not just poems, but music, prose, visual art, all of it. Engage curiosity, play, openness, humor, the energies of adventure and whimsy and discovery. Read like an artist. Read like a mystic. Read like a child. Stop reading like you’re on the clock or you’re wearing a uniform, stop treating the poem like it’s done something wrong. Wrong is relative.
When’s the last time you really thought about how you actually treat your own creative work? In the beginning, in the muddly middle, at the false “end” of a first full version or draft? Consider this an invitation to take a moment and reflect.
What are you doing with or to your OWN poems, paintings, compositions, creations?
With what energies are you approaching them?
Is what you’re doing working?
Spring is a time to turn our faces to the light. The earth wakes up, shakes off her long muffled dream, gets down to business and up to mischief. Let the wild rumpus start! Whatever you’re doing to your poems or songs or stories or artworks or craft/works (hopefully not tying them to a chair!), a great barometer for if what you’re doing is working or not is how you feel about it. If you’re tying your poem to a chair, how does it make you feel? And what energy is it infusing your poem with?
How does your poem seem to feel about it?
Even when we’re working with tough subject matter, I really do think that if your creative process doesn’t feel good, if it doesn’t excite, brighten, delight, or propel you, you either need to change what you’re doing or change the way you’re doing it. I really don’t like being so black and white about things—but it’s true.
Taking our (or others’) creative work too seriously is a sure road to self-doubt, anxiety, overthinking, burnout, flailing, failing. Ray Bradbury famously said, “You only fail if you stop writing”, but whatever your creative medium, I think you also fail if you stop enjoying it. ✨ Many of us have a bad habit of taking poetry, in particular, much too seriously. Writing it, reading it, considering it.
I defy that.
Inventing or encountering a poem is an art like any other art and the process of engaging its medium (language) can be as flexible, playful, exhilarating, and joyful as you’d like. Weighing poetry down with solemnity, humorlessness, severity, or rigid, relentless analysis is 100% unnecessary and fully your choice. You always get to choose how you engage.
Here’s Jordan Peele, half of the iconic comedy duo Key & Peele:
Follow the fun. Why? Because it works. 💫
Just like with anything, we need to consider how we want to feel and be, and then make sure whatever we’re doing (and how we’re doing it) reflects that.
Spring is the perfect time to take stock. This can be applied to any area of our lives, patently creative or otherwise.
What are you doing, what do you want to do next?
How is it feeling, how would you like it to feel?
What’s one teensy action you can take, something real and doable, to cultivate a little more of that lovely aspirational feeling right away?
Sketch it out, start where you are. Be your own gardener. Plant some new seeds, then tend them. See what grows. Be a good one.
Regardless what’s happening in the various other areas of our day-to-day experience, our creative processes and projects should be sources of motivation, adventure, wonder, and richness in our lives. They should allow us to live and move through the world in a more interesting and engaged way, both alone and together. No matter what’s going on, we need to loosen up, lighten up, and befriend our creative processes and projects so they can brighten, bolster, and bloom us—not tie us up, cut us off, shut us down.
And finally, in the spirit of looking over things and taking stock, here’s a little wheel of ideas about the HOW of it all:
LOVE ALIVE AND THE LITTLE BRIGHT BEADS: Falling (back) in love with your creative work 🌱 Support for refreshing and fortifying your relationship with your creativity and your creative practice.
FITS & STARTS: Tuning the wild piano your own way 🌱 Support for getting behind your own process and being a better inner advocate for your unique creative needs and ways of being and doing things.
GOOD ONE: Popsicles and socks and they all start shining 🌱 For support doing your very, very best and bumping the vibe up.
HOW TO GET UNSTUCK: On frazzles, feelings, creative frosts, and beginning again 🌱 For support when you’re feeling stuck and need a hand out of the mud.
Here’s our shareable sparkle for the star-circle this week:
What are your plans for your creative garden this spring? What seeds are you planting and how will you water them? While you’re waiting for something new to nose up from underground, how will you know that they’re growing?
🌱
Love & light from the margins,
ali ✨
Star in the Margin is free and open to all, but does require lots of time, love, and energy! If you’re into the vibe and want to cheer me on. . .
Related reading:
Swamp Daisy Music All Day
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Mar 9
Greetings from daylight savings and the first inklings of spring! Are we there yet? Wow, Vermont is an icy muddy melty MESS. There’s a reason (there are so many reasons) why spring cleaning is a thing. This time of year makes me feel like I need to scrub not just my entryway and my car and my boots, but wow, my head. Mud season of the mind! Anyone?
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