I’ve been reading The Magpie Art: Gathering the Brightness of Each Day by Paul Weinfield. You get a lot of choices with this book. You can read it as a daybook of thoughts about the “brightness” of life, as a progression of thoughts through a season (e.g., Love/Spring, Appreciation/Summer, ), or by themes (e.g., clarity, creativity, anxiety). I’m currently moving sequentially through Summer, taking the themes as they come. There’s something about letting a reading come to you in its time, searching for the glimmer of gold that’s meant just for you in this day, this time, this season.
Today’s offering was titled “The Cook and the Fire.” Right off, the author asserts that creativity and joy are the same thing. Instead of buying into the meme of the struggling artist and the joyful consumer, he urges the reader to remember that the art of connecting to creativity and joy is the art of discerning, in every moment, the difference between what you must do and what you must allow. A cook selects, prepares, and cares for the ingredients but doesn’t actually cook them. That is the work of the fire.
The fire of creativity or joy must be tended for the work to be accomplished. Whether by writers or painters or meditators, the fire must be left to do its work while the writer/painter/meditator prepares the “ingredients.” We (yes, I am all of those) have only to take a moment to remember the flame and let it work through us. Further, I believe we tend to the fire of joy as an act of love in the world — the world of creation that is, ultimately, a testament to life and its fertility.
A Streak of Teal 