Autumn Greetings! I used to say that fall is my favorite season; what's more accurate is that autumn is the time during which I most often feel giddy, excited and alive for no apparent reason, or...for every reason in the world. 

Trees glow with fire-dipped boughs, the air cools as nights become longer, and the smell of wet earth underlies woodsmoke. Autumn is the mystery season, a going-within time to explore the depths of soul. Everything about fall calls us back to the earth, whether the transforming natural landscape, the routines and patterns of the school year that root us in family schedules, or the harvest of those last vegetables before the ground becomes frigid. 

But what about garnering inspiration? Where do we find illumination when nature's own creative energy is spent moving toward the darkness of the season? How does the finality inherent in this season afford us a window into the creative and a means for moving forward in our lives?

The next section of this newsletter offers a glimpse into this notion of harvesting inspiration.

TEALarbor stories' newsletters offer inspiration, encouragement, and 

Beauty and pain are the most vocal muses for my own writing. 

 

Beauty  Like every other arts event I've habitually and passionately attended over the last thirty years, this valley's September studio tour breathed life into my being. I nourished my soul with paintings, ceramics, pottery, furniture, glassware, turned wood, textiles, collage, jewelry, sculpture, lighting, beadwork and photography. Each evening I came home awash in ideas for my current book project, a new infusion of energy and insights for working more deeply with clients, and the impulse to dabble in my own artistic pursuits: all of this by simply immersing myself in the visual and tactile beauty of others' creative endeavors.

 

Pain  Most familiar to me in the form of loss and death, emotional pain is a significant threshold toward creative expression. Sitting several nights ago at the bedside of a new friend who is dying moved me closer and deeper into my own writing. This man's unabashed declaration of his imminent death coupled with a wise sense of humor reminded me of the preciousness of now and the bare naked truth of finality. I saw the sacred presence of the moment write itself into my starkly honest journal entry the following morning. Immersion in another's transition to death unfolded a deeper layer of my own mortality, inspiring my willingness to hold nothing back on the written page.

 

Many of us find it easy to see how those things we consider aesthetically pleasing offer us creative inspiration. We are not as eager to talk about pain, however. In the midst of it, we can become cut off from pain's potential for growth, renewal, and transformative beauty. Grief, sorrow, or the need to just hang on and ride it out require all the energy we can muster. But these two are inextricably linked; pain and beauty. They are both touchstones for harvesting inspiration.

 

Most of my clients have a story about the pain that brought them to their knees (in collapse or in supplication) and the seed of beauty contained within the heart of the hardship. Limitless beauty is borne from difficulty through the transformative act of writing. Whether memoir, thesis/dissertation, business plan, application, résumé, novel, chapbook, journal, professional treatise, essay, or the simple commitment to "just write," each author has been tested by the crucible that makes honest writing possible. Former clients have expressed well their experience of the beauty and pain of the processes and life transitions that led to their writing successes (testimonials). 

 

Please consider how TEALarbor stories can support you as you         courageously seek creative inspiration through the pain and beauty of your own life; inquire via email.