Lately I feel as if I have been presented with a sumptuous feast of creative opportunities. Just like the fashion system, categories and boundaries for how I think about life and work are softening and becoming ever more fluid. Huge open spaces call to me waiting to be filled with something new, something that has never been there before. They still remain amorphous shadows but faint outlines are beginning to appear. I feel a new burst of creative energy as I wait patiently here in the “not knowing”. I become more convinced in my life as as a fashion person and as a professor of social welfare that during this time in history the way forward is through ideas that have not been thought before. Technology has brought a kind of fourth “industrial revolution” where the old is becoming obsolete and the new has not yet started to form. It is only beginning but it is happening fast.
During uncertain times such as these fear makes some of us want to regress, go back and nostalgia reigns. I have moments of melancholia that it is hard not to succumb to. It is in these “in-between times” that I find it ever more important to surround myself with those thinkers and creatives who embrace fluidity, who work across and in-between the margins and see not the destruction of something old but the creation of something new. This is probably an artifact of me having embraced interdisciplinarity as a path to utopian and pragmatic problem-solving for most of my career. I have received comments and emails recently from those who are trying to find how to live creatively in the in-between time. They are ready to move into this undefined space with a new idea, a different way of being, a different way to work or even a different way of dressing. All risks, all important. They feel emboldened by seeing someone like myself climbing stairs when I have no idea what or who awaits me on top. I hope you know that you give me courage and inspiration to further climb and not be afraid of what I might find or who I may encounter. I feel you at my back, right behind me. In times of destruction and dismantling there has always been a powerful human urge to respond by procreating. I am feeling more and more that this creative urge is what must be nurtured now. Fashion has been giving me a new language and way to engage in a different kind of conversation. For me it is the center of my mind map and right now webs are forming all over my page.
What creative urge are you nurturing right now?
Thank you for being such a role model– I love the image of climbing the stairs to an unknown destination, just trusting that it is right to climb ever onwards. And yes, you are grateful to us, your community of readers, as support to your own journey. The mutuality of all this is so important. You make me want to work even harder to carve out space from my work and family responsibilities to engage my own creativity, whether that is designing and making (or remaking!) my own clothing, or painting, or writing. . .
This post reminds me of the closing verse that Rudolf Steiner gave to close the first "teacher training" of Waldorf teachers in 1919; it is still used to close faculty meetings in Waldorf schools around the world today. These words could easily describe what you are doing.
Thank you for sharing and writing this lovely and inspirational comment. Creative expression is a life force.
Thank you for being such a role model– I love the image of climbing the stairs to an unknown destination, just trusting that it is right to climb ever onwards. And yes, you are grateful to us, your community of readers, as support to your own journey. The mutuality of all this is so important. You make me want to work even harder to carve out space from my work and family responsibilities to engage my own creativity, whether that is designing and making (or remaking!) my own clothing, or painting, or writing. . .
This post reminds me of the closing verse that Rudolf Steiner gave to close the first "teacher training" of Waldorf teachers in 1919; it is still used to close faculty meetings in Waldorf schools around the world today. These words could easily describe what you are doing.
Thank you for sharing and writing this lovely and inspirational comment. Creative expression is a life force.
you are such a great inspiration ..
& my cosmic friend ….
Thanks for being a companion on the journey.
you are such a great inspiration ..
& my cosmic friend ….
Thanks for being a companion on the journey.
Just discovered you today and really needed to hear what you said. I’ve begun editing a novel I wrote 20 years ago. Needed to read this– "They feel emboldened by seeing someone like myself climbing stairs when I have no idea what or who awaits me on top. " Filled with fear, but somewhere there must be a whisper of hope…Nancy O
Worst that can happen is in the same place you began. Go for it!
Just discovered you today and really needed to hear what you said. I’ve begun editing a novel I wrote 20 years ago. Needed to read this– "They feel emboldened by seeing someone like myself climbing stairs when I have no idea what or who awaits me on top. " Filled with fear, but somewhere there must be a whisper of hope…Nancy O
Worst that can happen is in the same place you began. Go for it!
Always inspiring!
Linda B , thxs for sharing… "sharpening thy feeling for responsibility for the soul".
Listening…Nancy
My readers have the most eloquent comments in the blogosphere.
Always inspiring!
Linda B , thxs for sharing… "sharpening thy feeling for responsibility for the soul".
Listening…Nancy
My readers have the most eloquent comments in the blogosphere.
The concept of the "in-between" hit home and helped me put a name to a feeling. I have been ruminating on the concept of, "and see not the destruction of something old but the creation of something new." Helps me feel less powerless in this unknown time. Thank you for sharing and inspiring!
– Kimber
Same for me, time to be changing from the individual up, not top down. At least for me that is no longer working.
The concept of the "in-between" hit home and helped me put a name to a feeling. I have been ruminating on the concept of, "and see not the destruction of something old but the creation of something new." Helps me feel less powerless in this unknown time. Thank you for sharing and inspiring!
– Kimber
Same for me, time to be changing from the individual up, not top down. At least for me that is no longer working.