Susan Seddon-Boulet

Do you know that you are beautiful? That the Goddess sings through your voice? That your words are Her words; your song, Her song. That the smoothness of your skin, the glisten of your sweat, your tousled hair – all are a delightful expression of your beauty and your passion. It radiates from you, this glow of pure expression.

May it overwhelm you. May this joy and light be embodied by you and every woman on the planet, a gift to yourself that takes you to the exultant heights of your creativity and ecstasy. For that is what you are. Pure, passionate creation.

May you hear this in the wind, the waves, the whisper of your lover. May you feel it in the warmth of the sun, the flow of your steps, the freshness of your breath. May you know it in your heart, your bones and your belly.

Happy Valentine’s Day.

Her voice caught me from the first note, swelling through the concert hall in a wave of sound. I didn’t speak the language – wouldn’t understand a thing until the English aria near the end. It didn’t matter. In fact, I barely glanced at the translations included with the program. I didn’t want to be distracted.

Just a single voice and a piano player. Her expressions danced from anger to sorrow to thoughtful to flirtatious – I could feel the emotion without understanding the words. She leaned against the grand piano when it fit the music. I appreciated the beauty of her, the invitation to be watched and admired. Her accompanist beautiful too, as she swayed with the playing, her foot pumping the pedals. The curves of the women and the piano, the golden lines of the stage, the black and white of her dresses. I wrapped myself in the sheer sensuality of the experience, let my mind wander on the notes, a Fantasia of ideas and images…

I found myself wanting to write. I was surprised and delighted by this desire. In the past, musical and theater performances have made me want to get on stage and act or sing. I’ve felt inadequate or sometimes better than the performer. I became caught in comparisons.

This time, I only thought about talents I already have. My imagination took me into fantastic journeys of well-crafted words. I relished the thought of fine-tuning the drafts until I was satisfied. Then offering it up to whoever wanted listen, like me, here, in this concert hall.

I thought about other art that had inspired me. Not just performances, but also great books and movies, poetry slams, galleries of art. Soaring architecture and brilliant sculpture and delicious, beautiful plates of food.

I realized that in my search for creativity, I had always thought it should be original - an idea fueled by inspiration from some divine source. And none of that mattered here. I could fly on the inspiration of this voice and this piano player wherever it wanted to take me. I could build on this music, this experience, make it a part of whatever I was trying to create.

The last piece was Samuel Barber’s “Knoxville: Summer of 1915”. Barber had read a poem by James Agee and was so inspired he put it to music. I smiled with appreciation at the synchronicity. A musician, inspired by a poet to create a beautiful work, to be enjoyed by me almost 60 years later. Inspiration doesn’t emerge from a vacuum – it’s right here, on the wings of these poets and composers and singers. It’s in the boldness of someone willing to get on stage and put their soul out there.

If you are missing that creative spark, try indulging in a live performance. Or pick up a really great book. Read some poetry, go to a gallery. Let the sheer magnificence of human imagination revive your passion. It surely did mine.

Creation is one of the most fundamental aspects of being human. We revere the work of artists, playrights, writers, dancers, craftsmen, speakers, poets, musicians. They have the power to touch souls, raise emotions, inspire hope, incite passion. They speak the unspoken, unveil the mysteries of consciousness and the universe. They tell tales of anger, pain, joy, peace.

You are one of those people. You have the power to express the deep mysteries of who you are, what you feel, and what you believe. In fact, you are the only with that ability. The stories you write, the songs you sing, the paint you splatter on a canvas - you are the only that can do that and fully express the range of who and what you are. The beautiful and agonizing pieces of your experience.

Don’t let comparisons with other artists deter you from this task. Ignore the mind that says “You suck at this. Go back to bed.” Let the barbs of critics pass you by and conjure the deep wells of your experience into physical form. Fall into that place where the gods speak through you - where your brush or pen or voice or whatever you are doing seems to flow. And until it flows, wade around in the muck, slogging through mediums and ideas until you find that place of inspiration - where something wells up and demands to be heard. Then let it out. Let it out!

Recently, Salon writer Cary Tennis wrote a great piece of advice to a writer sabotaging her work with distractions. He talked about what it takes to make it happen - the fears you need to wade through, the technical details, the cultural obstacles. He talks of writing - and I think he would say creating - as a call.

For that’s what it is: It is a call. It might not be clear exactly what it is yet. But something is calling you and you have to answer the call. It might be frightening to answer — it might be asking you to face certain fears about your own competence and value. It may be asking you to take up a challenge. But I believe that whatever it is you are trying to accomplish, it is best to begin with your own motivation and your own desire, and work from that place, rather than concentrate on the phenomenon of distractions and try to eliminate them. You will find more energy in focusing on your objective than in focusing on defeating the distractions.

…In other words, in order to overcome this habit of distractions, I recommend that you focus first on becoming who you are as a writer, and that you embark on a journey. I recommend that you enact a long-term plan, not just to start writing but to become a writer in the world. Join the worldwide community of writers.

In a sense, expressing yourself creatively is a deeply personal process that paradoxically allows you to enter into a broader world of creators. And if we are all fundamentally and imperatively creators, it seems that creation makes us more fully human.

This is one of my favorite morning rituals…one that I have been doing on and off for over 10 years: Morning Pages.

I found it in Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s Way, and I know she’s talked about it in many of her other books. Googling “morning pages” gets all kinds of great results too, and this site was full of helpful hints.

It works like this:

First thing in the morning - still in bed even - reach over and grab your ragged notebook and writing instrument (I love a good smooth pen). Start writing, three longhand pages of whatever is traveling through your mind. Don’t stop until you get to the end - 30 minutes later give or take. Try not to get interrupted.

The idea is to dump all the chaos of that morning out-of-control mind onto those pages. Just get it down and out of the way so you can really get your creative juices pumping.

When I started, I found that if I didn’t get out of bed, I’d be asleep half a page in. Sometimes a quarter. So I’d have some water and nestle in a chair. You wouldn’t believe the lively curses that I could muster some days. The boring drone of complaints and annoyances. Mostly about relationships and money and the combination thereof, interjected with heavy doses of self criticism. My dreams would come by here and there for a visit. Sometimes I’d repeat myself over and over: “I’m tired. I don’t know what to write.”

Then, something happened. Sheer inspiration. Flowing from my pen, first thing in the morning. Stories, images, ideas. I would dance as I wrote, or at least, felt like I was dancing. Creativity flowed through my body and out my pen.

I don’t know - maybe I finally dumped enough sludge from my mind that interesting things could emerge. It didn’t matter to me…I could hardly wait to get to that page to see what might come out. What possibilities it might present for my day. If I decided to act on them, that is, and there was freedom in knowing I didn’t have to.

In fact, Julia Cameron recommends that you don’t do anything with those pages. That you write and store it away for months before you read it. If you ever read it at all. I cheated at that after it got really good, transcribing my inspirations to my computer right away (and I don’t regret it). But mostly, I let the negativity lie.

Once, I did pick up one of my old notebooks. I was bemused to see that some things hadn’t really changed. Still angry about the same things. Guess I can work on that a bit harder. And I was happy to see that some of them had changed…that I’d actually forgotten how much those things used to annoy me. I closed the books and returned them to their dusty shelf. 

I have a few clients that I’ve encouraged toward the practice as well. Recently, one of them told me that after the first page of trivialities, she found herself listing all the things she was grateful for - a list that had grown substantially since she had found her joy.

I’ve heard of prayers emerging, business ideas, all kinds of inspiration. I think it comes from getting the mind out of the way and giving the deeper inner voice room to speak.

One last bit of advice before you jump in: At first, take it seriously. Do it everyday, in the morning, first thing. After that (could be a couple weeks, a couple months), don’t worry if you miss a day or two, or a few weeks. Get a feel for how it works best for you and follow that guideline instead.