Winter 2025
After rain after many days without rain,
It stays cool, private and cleansed, under the trees,
And the dampness there, married now to gravity,
Falls branch to branch, leaf to leaf, down to the ground
Where it will disappear – but not of course, vanish
Except to our eyes. The roots of the oaks will have their share,
And the white threads of the grasses, and the cushion of moss;
A few drops, round as pearls, will enter the moles tunnel;
And soon so many small stones, buried for a thousand years,
Will feel themselves being touched.
Lingering in Happiness, Mary Oliver.
Winter knows to hush, still, listen, so the soul can speak. Angie Weiland-Crosby
Winter, 2025
Do you really need something to show for your innate creativity?
This year the arrival of Winter has coincided with real rain, here where I live in South Australia. We had such a hot summer and so little rain for so many months I recorded rain storms on Spotify to play for myself, ….until now! The ground is squelchy wet at last, the paddocks are turning green and you can almost feel the trees breathing out and relaxing with the water. You can hear the rain falling at night while you’re wrapped up warm in bed, you can pick cold lemons, straight from the tree.
And I can paint and write and do all the things you can do inside in the quiet. Lately, I’ve been doing large watercolours of the native plants on our nature strip, the kangaroo grass and the Diannellas. I like the freedom of movement of watercolour, I like preparing the paper with washes and going in for the details later. This painting titled Kangaroo Grass was painted only recently. I laid a very light wash of Prussian Blue and Raw Umber quite randomly, leaving white paper showing through. I remember my first watercolour teacher telling me: “You have to let the paper speak to the other colours first,” which has always been great painting advice, especially if you’re tempted to paint like you write; ie: by starting at the top left and then just going down the page, filling it in like filling in the lines on the page. (Hint for when you’re painting, DON’T do this.). Try moving your brush across the paper lightly, almost like a dance. Painting isn’t writing letters. Painting is making marks. See if you can feel this difference for yourself.
I was speaking to a good friend of mine for many years the other day (I’m talking about you now Michelle xx) and how pleased she was that her daughter has gone back to her art practice and starting painting again after a few years lay off. Then she said something that took me by surprise; “I suppose I’m creative too, although I’ve got nothing to show for it.” And it got me to thinking, do we really need something to show for our creativity? Does this stem from when we’re in kindergarten and brought home our paintings to put on the fridge? Or is it part of the consumerist economy, that implies that our worth as individuals is directly tied to our ability to produce items for others to consume? Should Michelle, a highly accomplished Counsellor, mother, daughter and who has a beautiful home feel she’s not creative because she doesn’t have paintings to put on her fridge to show other people? Or is this an idea perpetuated by our insidious social media accounts? That the number of books we read, the exercise classes we attend, or even the diets we eat have to become commodities or things to show others on social media as a measure of our worth as a person, complete with edited photographs and background music? And how real or representative of our lives or our creativity are those edited photographs or highlight reels of the real us really?
I don’t want this to be just about social media or not. Nor do I want this to be a debate about consumerism or economics either. I’m interested in exploring creativity in our lives, our innate creativity that we’re born with, because we were all born human beings. (Highly educated chimpanzees/octopi/guide dogs etc who may be able to read this, well done you and please don’t take this as a personal slight).
Isn’t our ability to engage with our lives, our new experiences, our daily life, isn’t that being creative?
We don’t need to display anything to be creative, we don’t need paintings on our fridge, we don’t need songs with our names on them, we don’t need to do a podcast about creativity to be creative. We were born creative and its who we are, because we’re human beings. We don’t have to walk around in art smocks, or to frequent dive bars bemoaning the state of the world and the accountants within it who cause us such anguish. We don’t need a tatoo, or live in a garret in Paris, or dye our hair purple to be creative. We are creative beings, because we’re human beings. We don’t need to try to be something else to be creative and we certainly don’t need a social media account to show it off.
The quiet of this winter hush provides us all with the perfect time to just be, to relax into who we are with certainty and joy. And remember what Frederic Laloux says:_ “Life isn’t asking us to become anything that isn’t already seeded within us.” So lets use the quiet times of this winter to let your own seeds of creativity germinate for you.
