When Inspiration Strikes

Like everything in life, I think things come easier with practice.

Practice, practice, practice is a mantra for a worker-bee. (Me. I’m a Taurus.)

Practice makes perfect, so they say.

I don’t seek perfect; I think perfect destroys creative endeavors.

With creative, the last thing we want is perfect, contrived, arranged. Why civilization still seeks artistry is the human aspect it brings -- the real, the honest, the soul-connection. We are awed by talent. When we hear Adele’s voice singing or Michael Bublé or Celine Dion, people whose genetic talent exceeds most of us, we revel in it.

It lifts us, inspires us.

To witness talented musicians play instruments that sound ethereal, poetry or songwriting or photography that moves us to tears, drawings or sculpture or rigging of video game characters that are so life-like they take our breath away is to me – life itself.

It’s our humanity showing in all its glory, and it’s what connects us.

After years of exploring, and practicing, whether through solitary running of the roads of my neighborhood, or through reading, or chatting with people leading lives with aspects I sought for myself, I have now come to a place where magic happens to me with some noted frequency.

Leap and the net will appear.

An example of how I live, roaming through my days, is that I ask a question of the universe. I am in constant conversation. I ask. And then I wait. Quietly.

And now, sometimes with lightening speed, the answer comes to me.

I took a much-needed hiatus from marketing my 3rd book, Eventide, in the summer of 2018, upsetting the flow of my entire life, to move to a brand new home, move a 2nd son south, discard much of the weight of what my life has been for the last 25 years.

I felt I was living in purgatory for the last 10 years (i.e. the college years for my sons) and I was so ready to move on, leap to the next phase. Go!

I’d had enough of the challenging college years. We had come to a place of stagnation. Results were not happening despite efforts by all of us. So, I threw everything up in the air, totally upset the apple cart, shook everything up, and presto-magic, things shifted.

Results began to happen.

We, very quickly, moved to the next phase. Thank God my family is used to this (me) enough that they can weather it and rise to the challenge.

This morning, I was ready to go back to Eventide. It’s now the right time. The book deserves my attention and my push to move it further. Readers have told me that. They like it. They ask for a sequel which at first was surprising to me – How can I do that? The ending of the mystery was pretty final.

So, I did today what I’ve practiced, what I’ve learned to do.

I did yoga and relished in my teacher’s kind, gentle words of going with it, being gentle on myself, listening to my body.

I walked.

I watched Annie Lebovitz on MasterClass.com teach the art of portrait photography.

I read my dear friend, Susanna Liller’s, new book The Heroine’s Journey. Highlighted it. Paused to linger on her words. Ponder them, how they rang true for me.

Bingo. Presto-magic.

All of these rhythms and inspiring things posed thoughts to me I wasn’t thinking on my own. They moved me to send a couple more agent email attempts. But as I was sending them, I asked the universe, How should I do this differently? What am I supposed to try next?

And then in the middle of Annie Lebovitz, the answer whispered to me.

I marveled at how quickly now, after practice, the universe replies to me when I ask. And now I hear it.

I hear it quickly. I don’t pooh-pooh it away as nothing. I listen, after so many occasions of witnessing its veracity.

Eventide the website….and creating my own trailer in video. We’ve always seen it as a movie but how do I get there? Maybe I create the teaser of the visual myself.

This was suggested to me several months ago and I was intrigued, inspired, but I tucked it away. It wasn’t the time yet. I wasn’t ready.

But now, when something is right, it repeats itself to me more loudly today. And today I hear.

I asked for how to go about it differently; I cannot deny or turn away from the answer that came to me, through Annie Lebovitz, within hours.

And now…figuring out how to do it….is all the fun, isn’t it?

When inspiration strikes, we are so blessed.

We need to be brave enough to ask, quiet and open enough to listen..and ride the wave, without control or rigidity, when the answer comes. This, I now know is true.

(Stock photo from pixels.com)