River Wolton reflects on her upcoming course Creativity, Meditation, and the Awakening Factors:
This morning, a heart-shaking and inspiring piece on grief, creativity and the work of artist Helen Acklam appeared on my screen (via Good Grief Festival). This sentence leapt out:
Acklam’s approach is intrinsically physical and spontaneous: as she observes, ‘I think with my hands and body. They are slower than my mind and free from judgement; they can tell a different kind of story’…
Meditation is an inherently creative activity. We are encouraged to arrive little by little in our bodies, ambiguous and unpredictable yes, yet slower than the zip-zap of thought. To tune into, and fashion an appropriate response from the raw materials of emotion, pattern, aspiration. How is it to think with our hands, with our hearts, with our body? To craft a life aligned with our values, longings and imaginings of freedom.
As practitioners, contemplative or creative, we meet inner and outer judgement. It can sink us in storms of confusion and doubt. The early Buddhist map of the Awakening Factors - capacities to cultivate and develop - can be a navigation aid in these challenging waters.
I’ve worked in schools and with community arts projects over several decades and encountered both the pervasiveness of the inner critic, and the delight when creativity pushes through obstacles and finds expression. I’ll bring what I’ve learned about freeing ourselves from judgement to this three session online course starting 29th September, mapping ingredients such as curiosity, courage, and joy onto a contemplative and creative journey.
Through reflections, discussion, and guided meditations, we’ll explore how to take our selves more lightly, weathering the storms of praise, blame, success and failure. A creative journey can be a lonely one, and it’s joyful to meet others who inhabit the intersection between aspiring creatives and meditators. In particular I’m interested in how meditation practice can bring a lighter sense of self to the creative journey, less of ‘My Name in Lights’ and more leaning into ‘What can I serve? What can I bring into being?’
I hope to see you there.
This poem was written when immersed in writer’s block. It’s from Year 366 poems written during 2020. Thank you to Emma Burleigh for her kind permission to use the illustration above.
9 September early morning run I misjudge the tide and soon I’m ankle deep later the sea goes out and kids careen legs flapping with delight across the half-mile beach spades in hand in front of the laptop I’m at the raw edge of coherence one floppy word after another like dead fish but then I remember the toddlers with oversize sunhats and fistfuls of sand learning to run