Creativity is this

This drawing by Tony Toscani, titled Writer’s Block, that I purchased recently at Massey Klein Gallery in New York co-inspired my poem on Creativity. Its mood reflects the focused yet dreamy state of the mind of a writer.

Silence…
A white gap in noise
The pause entrenched in inspiration and expiration when space nurtures the mind
Inspired, I listen to the respite
Whispering promises of eternity, nothingness and peace — the clatter of summer rain and pain.
 
Presence…
Emotions’ keel
The time to heal
Silence creates the aperture for balance  — inspire, calm, expire.
 
Now music can fully express what there can be
Expired noise between each note
Expressing  the fullness of time
The voice in a flowing river.
 
A golden fly passing by noticed
Solitude so cherished in the age of noise
Death so feared by the mortals — from something comes something — that which an explorer seeks
Repent! Creativity musn’t be silenced.
 

I wrote this poem in New York. Before taking off for the noisy Manhattan, I spent a few days in nature. The forests of New Hampshire introduced calm, evenness and an empowering sensibility of any moment into my mind. Forest bathing, known in Japan as shinrin-yoku, improves attention, expands focus and has multiple health benefits. Simply being in the present moment is balancing and nurtures creativity. Some of the best poets like Emily Dickinson and writers of J. D. Salinger fame spent days, even years in recluse seeking creative enlightenment. I read multiple interesting books about silence. From an explorer’s perspective, a widowed actor’s, to a reclusive monk and my own verses on silence. Rumi, as always, wrote it beautifully:

Mindful breathing as much as meditation advance you to the realm beyond sound. Be open to what you hear there, it may illuminate the path you are currently on, inspire an artwork, or simply just calm your anxious or stressed mind.
Creativity appears when we least expect it, but without actually creating space for it to flourish, to open its petals into the full bloom of unique humane awareness and potential, it may wither before you realise it. I keep my notebook ready at all times.