Tending your creative garden (part 1/3) (Archived)

I see dead things. I wander out onto the balcony, coffee cup in hand, and… Oh dear. I love gardening, but I have a brown thumb for anything but ferns. On a positive note, that means there are always sickly plants to replace and empty pots to fill with vibrant brand new plants! I love how colours and shapes fit together. I love trundling down the aisle of Bunnings, my trolley filled with a host of new plants — mixing and matching and creating a garden that has nothing to do with use or function and is entirely about colour and emotion and beauty.

Even a brown thumb-er like me knows that whacking a plant into the ground or a pot is only part of the gardening story. We need to make sure the plant gets just the right amount of sunlight. The time the sun hits them and the length of sunlight really does matter for some plants. They flourish best in just the right position.

What else is needed? Water, of course. We need to water them just the right amount so they are not drowned or dry. Some plants need fertiliser or a certain type of soil. Some thrive on neglect. Others seem to prefer a gentle word or attention.

Our creative energy is very much like the plants we set in pots and gardens. It might be hardwired to unfurl and grow but whether it grows stunted, or wilted, or thrives and then dies is very much affected by the environment.

A busy, chaotic life does not leave much space for whimsy and reflection and fancy. Bucketloads of stress and worry poison the soil into which we cast our dreams. A sense of hopelessness or powerlessness starves our creative energy to a frail and flimsy whisp. Anger and resentment make our minds rigid and small, crushing the soft delicate wings of creativity.

We all cruise through dark patches in our lives. When we kick into survival mode, we become so focused on keeping our faces above the surface to catch one more breath its hard to find energy or time to invest in something that seems such a luxury.

Who are we without dreams? Who do we become when our creative energy is flat and dusty at our heels? More importantly, whose job is it to maintain our creative gardens? To cast sunlight, and water, and fertiliser onto the soil of our creative energy and spark new life?

The sad truth of the matter is no knight in shining armour will come pelting onto the scene to rescue us from our worries and troubles. A solution is unlikely to drop out of the sky and squish our worries flat. The road out of a place of hopelessness or shadow is a path we map out ourselves. We get free of the shadow by setting one foot in front of the other.

Take time out of busyness and worry to check your creative garden. Is it a thick and sturdy thicket of age-old trees? When was the last time they grew new shoots or blossomed? Is it time to yank some snarly nasty weeds out to give the delicate seeds space to unfurl? Are you growing the right sorts of plants in your creative garden? Is it time to pull some old ones out to make space for a new experiment up in the far right-hand corner?

The more time and care we put into our gardens, the more diverse and vibrant and healthy they will grow. These gardens are our own and it is our responsibility to tend to them. Life will not always fold back and make way for our dreams. The world will not always spin around the delicate wings of our creativity. These gardens represent something that is so deep and sacred and integral to who and what we are, they deserve a moment of reflection.

What falls like sunlight on your creative garden? What warms it and makes it reach strong and confidently for the sky? What water nourishes it, swelling it with life and inspiring new growth?

(Posted 1 Mar 2020. Follow me at: https://nicolewalshauthor.com/)