The Cycle of Imagination & Connection & Wonder

What happens when we open our heart–even for a moment?

I caught this sunstream late one afternoon this week, I want to hold it inside me for darker times

Dear Friend,

In every twenty-four hours we humans live on this earth, we experience all kinds of cycles. (Hello new friends! ‘Cycles’ is our theme for this month). We feel sleepy then alert; frantic then calm; hopeless then cautiously optimistic.

Cycles are part of nature. The day itself is its own little cycle.

Another kind of cycle we go through: heart opens, heart closes, heart opens.

Human life makes it hard to keep our hearts open all of the time. I feel most alive when my heart is open and my creativity flows. Or maybe the cycle is that I call on my creativity–and then my heart opens?

---

Our creative prompt today comes from a poem I read a few weeks ago and fell in love with, Yes by Brian Doyle.

This poem reminds me of other cycles we humans experience–from childhood to adulthood to remembering that our inner child is here with us. From stagnation to imagination. From isolation to connection. From looking at our lives from the perspective of tedium–to looking at them from a place of wonder.

Read the poem below and if you click the arrow above, I’ll read it to you.

Yes
by Brian Doyle

I was on a gleaming elevator in a vast hotel in a huge city
The other day when a man got on with his daughter about
Age four. I asked her what floor they wanted and she said
Seven million. I reached up as high as I could and pressed
An imaginary button and she laughed and some little door
Opened in all three of us, a wordless yes, and we started to
Talk about the elevator’s voice, which sounded like a lady
From Ireland or Scotland, and how the buttons were twice
As big as any giant’s fingers, and how older gents like me
Remembered buildings without thirteenth floors, isn’t that
Funny, that an ancient superstition would still be reflected
In modern buildings? By now the girl was dancing and her
Dad and I were grinning at her ebullience but then the lady
Spoke their floor and the door opened. The girl leapt away,
But the dad hesitated a second and said quietly hey thanks,
And I knew just what he meant – something like thanks for
Being four years old for a minute. We have those moments
When we are all the same age, from the same country, with
The same language on our teeth, and it never lasts too long,
But it always feels weirdly familiar, doesn’t it? Like we are
Home again for a moment, with family we hardly get to see.

Writing Practice: Set aside 5-7 minutes for this practice. Write in a journal or open a ‘Journey with The Season’ document where you can return each Sunday.

Prompt: Write about a time when you inspired by play, laughter or an opening to imagination in another person. Write about a time when as a child, an adult helped you to experience the magic in the world. Alternately, write about a time when you had a similar feeling of momentary connection, what Brian Doyle describes as 'When we are all the same age, from the same country, with / The same language on our teeth...'

I’d love to read your responses to this prompt!

Deepening practice: I am SO inspired by this new initiative from Poet Laureate Ada Limón, You Are Here. Take a look at the video below where she describes her project, We can all participate by responding to this prompt: What would you write in response to the landscape around you?

Wishing you a week of imagination, connection, moments of beauty & moments of play! With love, Gabrielle Ariella