A grat location for a creativity date.
My passion is writing - on paper and by computer. My writing goal is to evoke emotion, inform, and entertain my reader. I will write and re-write the words until the desired result is achieved.
Each day, I sit at my desk, hunched protectively over my work for six to seven hours. Sitting there for that long is so easy to do. The hours flit by before I know what's happened.
During the writing process my brain never stops. It is a whirl of words and ideas all clambering to the front of my mind wanting to be used. I use many of them, but some have to be relegated to the background to be used at a later time.
Creativity is fun, but what's happening to my body while all that energy circulates in my head? My body, a sagging bag of meat, sits waiting and hoping I'll give it some attention. Sometimes, subconsciously, my feet move restlessly, I scratch my head, my neck or some other part of the body. By the end of the day, I'm sluggish, worn out and absolutely brain dead, but I still sit there because I'm reluctant to move out of my creativity, the place where God and I share some great stuff. We have a fun time, but I'm human. I've been sitting so long, my body becomes stale as a school lunch lurking under the bed during school vacation, and the lethargy and stiffness set up home in the muscles. When I get like this, I know it's time to get out in the real world and get the blood circulating.
I go on a date with my creativity to refill the creative well, and to remind my body it's part of me, too.
There are many ways I refill my creative well. I like to vary the way I do the physical and where I take that time out. Sometimes, I take a morning walk in my suburb. I like the warmth of the newly risen sun on my face, and the smell of the clear moist freshness of a dew-coated morning. The flowers' perfumes and the scent of a gum tree are sharper, and if it's rained overnight there's a raw earthiness blending with those smells promising today is going to be something special. Other times, I head to the beach for a whiff of that salty air to awaken my lungs and purge the stale air that accumlates in there with lack of exercise.
After 4 p.m. is also my favourite time of day. The smells of a day lived is what inspires me. After a day in front of the computer, the open air breathes life into the heaviness that hangs behind my forehead. In the same way as my body gets tired from a day in the gym, so does my brain get tired from a day in the zone.
So I take time out physically and spiritually and develop a sharper and deeper edge to my creativity. I encourage you to do your mind and body a favour - go out and have a date with your creativity. You might be pleasantly surprised how relaxed you feel after the experience.
Remember, creativity comes from the one who created the earth.
"So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them." - Genesis 1:27 NIV
And God rested, too,
"By the seventh day God had finished the work he had been doing; so on the seventh day he rested from all his work. And God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it he rested from all the work of creating that he had done." - Genesis 2:2-3 NIV
God took time out to rest and refresh from his creativity. I want to encourage you today to follow God's example and not only do brain exercise but physical exercise, too. Renew your mind, body and spirit and be ready for the creative work God has set aside especially for you.