Something creative...every day

I want to mention something 'cross-pollinating'-ly fantastic that an old friend in Richmond, VA (and beyond) is doing, and promoting. His name is Noah Scalin, and he is the founder and director of a socially-conscious design firm, ALR. Noah started a personal daily creative project back in 2007: making an artistic skull every day for a year - the 'Skull-A-Day' project. What happened next was remarkable - leading to a great interactive following online, a Webby Award, a book, and even such crazy things as a spot on Martha Stewart's t.v. show! As he has talked to other people who have done their own daily projects for a year, too, he realized how important and transformative connecting to your creativity, every day, can be.

This eventually led to his next big project, a book designed to guide people through their own daily/regular project. The book (and blog - where you can submit what daily creative project you are working on, and see what others are doing) is called 365: A Daily Creativity Journal. The book is designed to be used, and to give inspiration.

It has already inspired my artistic and creative sister-in-law, Heidi Rugg, founder and Director of Barefoot Puppets (and writer of a blog herself), to start her own daily project: a puppet-a-day! It will start on Thursday - you can follow it here.

She has also called to my attention a related article (mentioned and linked to on her blog), that points to a disturbing trend in America - it appears that creativity in American children is on the decline. And this at a time when we are going to need to be perhaps more creative than ever, to face the challenges of peak oil and climate change; according to the research cited in the article, creativity is a bigger indicator of success than IQ. (Heidi suggests we all start to make puppets! And become puppeteers!)

Reading Noah's book (and this article) has encouraged me to be more dedicated to this project (doing it, not just conceptualizing...!), and to think about what other (purely fun!) creative things I could do every day for a year. I have an extensive post card collection, a love of receiving and sending 'snail mail' - and a desire to keep the dying art of hand-written correspondence alive.

Does anyone want a postcard? Please post a comment and let me know if so - I'll write to get your address (if I don't have it already) and put you on the list! Who will be first?

Happy creating, everybody! (And remember - it's important, not just fun! Spread the word!)

Preparing for the next adventure...

When I left my job before heading to Costa Rica, I was dreaming of doing the WWOOF exchange - in France! Since I have become so interested in gardening and sustainable urban living, and love France (I was a French major, speak it pretty well - and have many fond memories of times spent there; studying, volunteering, working, traveling), it seemed a great way to get some more experience growing things, have my own intercultural experience (what I am trained in helping others to navigate), and to practice my French and learn some new and useful vocabulary.

France is also a place where people are passionate about what they do, and how they live their lives. I have no doubt that I will meet people who are really inspired to be living in a way that is not only gentle to the earth and the creatures that inhabit it - but very much in tune with the natural world, too. It should be a time filled with vitality and richness of experience; of true exchange (of different kinds).

I'm going to try to keep my costs down as much possible, and may even blog about that (any interest out there?). To start with, I have a free round-trip ticket on Virgin Atlantic (thanks to voluntary delay in trip across 'the Pond' in 2009!) that I must use by April 8th. So, my departure is set for February 10th from a Washington, DC airport. I have to fly direct and non-stop, so I'll go to London (where I have some friends and family), then go on to France from there.

There are some friends that I have made over the years, and friends of my family, too, that I hope to visit along the way in France. I am in the process of figuring out which farm (or 2?) where I will stay as a WWOOF participant - but I know that it will be in the area known as the 'Gard'. This is home to Nîmes, Montpellier, the 'Pont du Gard', Camargue, and the Cévennes National Park that I have always wanted to visit. I love the south of France, and have loved what little I've seen of this particular area. It is also traversed by some of the old Pilgrimage route to Spain, and contains Cathare history (where Mary Magdalene is said to have settled).

I forget sometimes, having so much to do to get ready, that I am excited! And don't want to forget to write... I will let everyone know that I'm posting again. Please tell me what you all want to hear about, and that will help me to keep it up!

Allez...! (Let's go!)

Message In A Bottle

On Friday, December 17th, 2010 at approximately 7:20pm, a poem I wrote was titled, signed, contact info/blog link given, safely sealed into a bottle - and tossed into the waves off of Plum Island, MA, USA. You can read the poem here. [I intend to create another site with a link here - and that may come soon - but it has proven problematic, and I wanted to get this up as soon as possible(!). Meanwhile, try to read it in the picture I've posted].

Since my apartment has been sold, I have been saying goodbye (or at least - see you later!) to places and people that have become a part of my Boston area home for the last few years. It's funny how places come to mean something sometimes... almost like characters, in their own right, in your story. Boston has been full of some places like that for me. My old neighborhood, Allston/Brighton, has a quirky kind of edgy, creative, culturally diverse grit to it. And now, a garden carved out of gravel that feels like a tough, if also somewhat fragile, friend.

Plum Island, on the North Shore of Massachusetts, has been one of those places for me, and was someplace I felt I wanted to say goodbye to. I have known it best in the winter and very early spring, as a snow-covered, cold-blasted, wind-tossed magical moonscape. It has been synonymous in my mind with one person, the first person with whom I ever visited it. I wanted to honor that connection, and create a ritual that would also be about transforming that into something more...universal. Where does this fit into my blog? Well, it's a poem... and a kind of scattering of art and purpose. And, hopefully, something that will find its way to a connection to someone else's story.

This idea started as a personal goodbye ritual, and then transformed itself into a fun kind of experiment, as well. As often happens to things that spring from inside you, and you turn over to the world and others, to have a life of their own. I look forward to seeing where this bottle has ended up; maybe just down the coast a mile or two - or maybe somewhere far away? Hopefully with a good story, either way. I hope that whoever finds it actually looks up this blog online - and that we hear from them. What fun to be reminded in that way, that as far apart as we might be geographically, the world is still not so small a place, and we are still connected to, and by, the natural world. In all its wind-blown, water-washed and tumbled wonder.

[Author's note: I am going to start filling in the gap between my Costa Rica trip, and the here and now; realizing that I was in danger of losing my momentum altogether, I decided that the best way to proceed would be to begin doing both. A little about reflection, a little living in the now. This last year, it seems to me, has helped me to embrace transition and uncertainty as more of a constant in my life, seeing where life leads me - and also about documenting that experience for others. Somehow that last piece feels like a big part of its meaning... and I can't see where this is going if it's not going at all! So, bear with me readers (whoever you are), and - bring on the nomadic life! I'm feeling as prepared as I'll ever be...and hoping that sharing these stories may prove useful and enjoyable to some of you out there.]