by Heather Plett | Jan 4, 2012 | Creativity, mandala
Yesterday while making a doodle mandala (above) I had a flashback to all of those lengthy board meetings where I used to sit doodling through endless discussions about program parameters, policy adjustments, partnership agreements, and balance sheets.
Back in those board meeting days, I felt a little silly doodling – like I was an oddball at that table full of highly intelligent people with my pages full of childish scribbles – and yet I was management so I was expected to be present and the doodling helped keep me awake and semi-engaged.
It’s not that I wasn’t good at my job or that I didn’t fit at the table – I was and I did. I was really good at communicating about hunger and I knew how to lead people in doing the work of fundraising and educating. What I wasn’t very good at though, was feigning interest in programs, policies, and financial columns.
And so I doodled. At the very least, my right brain thanked me for keeping it happy.
Yesterday while I doodled and remembered those board meetings, I had a sudden epiphany. “What if THIS is the important stuff? What if the doodling – the stuff we all tend to dismiss as silly and trivial while the more important work is being done – is actually just as valuable as the programs and policies?”
Maybe we’ll get further if we throw doodling, art, play, and silliness into our conversations about policies and programs.
Maybe the world really needs coloured markers and vision boards as much as it needs perfectly balanced financial columns.
Maybe we’ll get better at solving the world’s big problems if we bring artists and dancers to the table along with the economists.
Maybe I would have served the board of directors as much (or even more) by teaching them to play and doodle than I was able to serve them with my carefully written reports and proposals on fundraising and social marketing.
Maybe the corporate world needs as many play sessions as there are board meetings.
Maybe the experts and decision-makers at every organization need to pair up with children and play games and have story time in between work sessions.
And that, my friends, is why I no longer sit at those board meetings. At first I thought it was because I wanted to make a living as a consultant, peddling those same skills that convinced that board of directors I was competent and worth what they were paying me.
But the truth is, I’m not there anymore because I chose doodling over policy discussions, creativity over branding, play over work, art over strategic plans, stories over annual reports. Not that those other things aren’t necessary – I just knew I could serve the world better if I followed my true passions and taught people how to make mandalas or tell stories instead of managing another strategic planning session.
Now, if I were to be hired as a consultant by a board of directors like the one I once worked with, I would hand them coloured markers, make them sit in a circle, and tell them to play, create, and imagine themselves into new stories. I wouldn’t sit through endless discussions about the way things have always been done – I would pass a talking piece around the circle and insist that they tell me their real stories. I wouldn’t make an action plan, I’d get down on the floor and paint a growing tree.
I don’t wonder anymore – I KNOW that doodling is important stuff.
by Heather Plett | Dec 6, 2011 | Uncategorized
mementos left at a common grave for stillborn babies
I have become an intimate friend of grief.
As a young child, watching my grandfather die on the front lawn, I first came to know grief as the jagged, breathless song on my grandmother’s lips.
I have carried death in my womb and laboured with great sobs of agony while I birthed a child named Matthew and his siamese twin named Grief.
I have raced frantically across the prairies, a newly fatherless daughter, holding fresh grief like a dagger in my chest.
In the ditch where a storm washed away the blood of my father, I have fallen to my knees and cried out to a distant God who came to me only as Grief incarnate.
I have worn grief as my garment to three funerals in as many months – father, grandmother, uncle.
I have thrown rocks at grief when it threatened to suffocate me both times my beloved’s life hung on the thread he’d attempted to sever.
Grief has come to me as anger, as agony, as fear, as guilt, as a tender companion, as the milk in my unsuckled breasts, as colours on a canvas, as a poem, and as a collection of story threads in my overflowing basket. Grief is both wildly unpredictable and comfortably reliable. Grief pokes its head into my life when I least expect it or when it’s the most inconvenient and then goes into hiding when I’m sure it will be present.
Grief is not one emotion or one experience but many, many emotions, experiences, thoughts, waves, daggers, and physical manifestations.
Grief has been my enemy, my compass, my friend, my lover, my teacher, my poem, my muse, my dance partner, my task-master, and my spiritual director.
Grief is also my paintbrush, my pen, and my musical accompaniment. I have painted my grief, danced my grief, walked with my grief, made mandalas of my grief, painted grief on my body, photographed my grief, made collages out of the things that brought grief to my life, and found almost every creative way possible to metabolize and give shape and form to my grief. Grief is always near at hand when I am most honest in whatever art form I engage in.
Grief does not give us easy journeys. Grief throws rocks in our paths and takes away all the guideposts and maps. It refuses to show up in well-ordered stages along a straight path. Instead, it welcomes us to a tumultuous, chaotic dance.
Without a roadmap for our grief, sometimes the best thing we can reach for is a trusted guide… someone who understands the dance of grief and knows that no two dance partners are the same. Someone who will help us find the practices that will best strengthen and encourage us along our own unique paths.
This past year, I have had many conversations about grief with my trusted friend, Cath Duncan. She is a student of grief, in the best possible way. She understands it on a deep cellular level and has walked the path of it as a true and honest pilgrim. She has studied it like a grief archeologist and scholar, determined to find meaning in what she unearths.
The same can be said about Kara Jones, whose creative work around grief is both breath-taking and challenging.
Together, Kara and Cath have developed a beautiful new program called Creative Grief Coaching Certification, where people in helping professions can learn more about how to support people in grief. I believe in this program wholeheartedly and am thrilled to be one of the guest lecturers who will help participants learn more about how to equip people with creative processes to engage with along the grief journey.
Cath and Kara understand the complexity and nuances of grief. They also understand the importance of seeing grief as a creative process that will transform us if we invite it in. I believe they are just the right people to be offering this beautiful gift to the world.
If you want to learn more about grief, and you believe you have a gift for serving as a creative grief coach, please check it out.
by Heather Plett | Nov 17, 2011 | art, Beauty, Creativity, writing
I finished the first draft of my memoir in the Spring. The writing flowed freely and quickly, mostly because it was a story that had been simmering and growing for more than ten years since my son Matthew died and then was born.
Once I had about 60,000 words and it felt like I’d reached the end, I set it aside for a couple of months so that I could return with fresh perspective.
But then… every time I tried to return to it, I felt stuck. “Re-writer’s block” you might call it. I knew it needed work, but I didn’t know where to start. I knew I was losing the thread in parts, but I didn’t have a clear enough sense of what the thread was to fix the places where it was broken. Every time I’d come to the page, I’d do a little tweaking here and there, knowing full well that it needed more of an overhaul than a tweak.
Finally, in mid-October, I felt ready to put some serious work into it.
My return to it started in a roundabout way. First I cleaned my studio. Call it a metaphor… “clearing space, clearing mind”. Once there was space for my creativity to blossom again, suddenly I found myself eager to return to the page.
I got back into it and started doing some deeper editing than I’d done before, re-arranging ideas and playing with threads. But something told me I still wasn’t going deeply enough. The primary thread still looked blurry.
That’s when I knew it was time to step away from words and let colour and play do their magic.
I picked up my coloured markers, made space on the floor for a large piece of posterboard, and got busy. Before long, I had the beginnings of a question mandala on the page. Over the next few days, whenever I could find a few minutes of spare time, I’d disappear into my studio, grab my markers, and add a few new elements to the design. I think it’s complete now.
And guess what? I’m unstuck! I found the thread for my book and I know how to weave it more strongly through the weak places! I’ve already begun to rewrite it, and my new goal is to have the next draft completed by the end of 2011.
In case you’re stuck in some project, here’s a bit more information about my process:
What’s a question mandala? A mandala is a circular art form that is common in Eastern religions such as Buddhism and Hinduism. It is considered sacred art and is used as a form of meditation and spiritual discipline and awakening. In Jungian psychology, mandalas are seen as representations of the unconscious self and as a way to work toward wholeness in personality.
To create a mandala, you start at the centre and move out to the edges. Different traditions have different meanings and rituals involved in mandala design. In Tibetan mandalas, for example, there is generally a square in the centre (the palace or temple) with four doors (symbolizing the bringing together of the four boundless thoughts namely – loving kindness, compassion, sympathy, and equanimity), surrounded by three concentric circles (representing the spiritual birth, the awakening and the knowledge).
Some mandalas are very symmetrical and follow “sacred geometry”, while others simply look like free-flowing art in the form of a circle.
For me, mandalas are free-flowing (yet generally fairly symmetrical) and I don’t attach meaning to any particular shape. I simply allow things to evolve as the mandala grows. In recent mandalas, I’ve begun to incorporate questions and words as they come to me, as in my Occupy Love mandala and this most recent mandala (at the top of the page).
How does a mandala “work”? First of all, it’s important to remember that a mandala is not a means to an end. Yes, I used it to help me get unstuck, but I didn’t sit down with a specific problem in mind and expect the mandala to resolve it for me. A mandala, like any form of meditation, is meant to help us step away from our thoughts, logic and problems into a deeper level of the unconscious. Like prayer, it’s a way to clear space for an encounter with the Divine.
How did it help me get unstuck? Words emerge from the left side of the brain, so the writing and re-writing I was doing, though creative, was largely left-brained work. When I get stuck in my left brain processes (logic, analysis, naming, critiquing, defining, judging, fixing), the best solution is to step away from the problem and engage my right brain. That can be done with colour, movement, play, images, and free-flowing creativity – all of which are incorporated into my process. Before long, my left brain is jolted out of the old patterns that got it stuck and begins finding new pathways to unexpected solutions.
How can you make your own question mandala? Your mandala will be as unique as you are. It emerges out of your own brain, so it shouldn’t look like mine. If you’re new to this process, though, and want some guidelines, here are the steps I took for this particular mandala.
1. Start with a large white piece of paper. Something heavier like poster board or watercolour paper works well, especially if you’re using Sharpie markers, as I do. (You could also use paints or pencil crayons. Or if you’re doing this at work – at a board meeting perhaps – use a pen or pencil or whatever you have handy.) I find it best to get down on the floor with the paper and markers and let my body movement around the circle become part of the process.
2. Think about a simple image that is connected with whatever you’re wrestling with, or one that helps you define yourself. In my case, a butterfly is closely connected to the story that emerges in my memoir. For you it might be a candle, a walking stick, a pencil, a book – anything.
3. Draw that image in the centre of the paper. Don’t worry about what it looks like – this process is for you alone and you’ll have to let go of perfection for now. (Note: many mandalas don’t start with an image in the centre, but for this particular process, when I’m wrestling with something specific, it’s where I like to start.)
4. Draw a circle around the image. If you want it to be symmetrical, use a protractor, stencil, or bowl. If you’re not worried about symmetry, simple draw it freestyle.
5. Outside of the circle, begin with whatever shape comes to mind. Don’t over-think this. This is meant to get you out of logic and self-critique, so don’t let yourself get stuck in what will look best. Just draw! If triangles feel right, draw them. If circles feel better, then just go with it. Spirals, boxes, ovals, hexagons, squiggles – whatever. Just choose a shape and repeat it all the way around the edge of the circle.
6. Keep adding new shapes around the edge, always repeating whichever shape you choose around the entire circle.
7. Once you have a fairly substantial circle, begin a spiral of questions. Again, it’s important not to over-think this. Ask whatever pops into your head without sensoring it. (As you can see, I chose to blur out the questions in the image above, because some of them are fairly personal.) Keep writing until no more questions show up.
8. Add a few more rings of shapes outside of the questions.
9. When you feel like it’s almost complete, incorporate a circle of words that represent the themes that began emerging in your mind once you wrote your questions. Again, don’t over-think it. Even if a word seems puzzling or challenging when it shows up, write it down. It might surprise you with some new insight.
10. At the edge, decide intuitively whether you feel it needs closed energy or open energy. If you feel the need to enclose it, draw a complete circle around it and decorate the circle if you wish. If you’d rather have more open energy, finish it with shapes or squiggles or spirals reaching out beyond the page.
In the Tibetan tradition, where monks make elaborate mandalas with coloured sand, they destroy them soon after they’re complete as a meditation on impermanence (a central teaching of Buddhism). The sand is brushed together and placed in a body of running water to spread the blessings of the mandala. Though I haven’t managed to destroy the mandalas I create on paper (I suppose I’m not as evolved as Tibetan monks), I occasionally do body mandalas on my skin (like the one below) that disappear after a few baths.
I love my paper mandalas and find places to hang them on the walls around my studio or in the hallway leading to my studio. They remind me to bring colour and meditation back into my life, and sometimes they surprise me with new insight when I look back over them.
Try it next time you’re stuck. Even if you don’t have a huge epiphany, you might be surprised just how much fun it is to play with markers again.
by Heather Plett | Nov 14, 2011 | Beauty, change, Community, Creativity, fearless, journey, Joy, Leadership, Passion, personality, Spirituality, things I've learned
* I would rather teach people to think beautiful thoughts than to create grammatically correct sentences.
* I believe that beauty and justice are inextricably intertwined and I want to bring more of both into the world.
* I believe that the greatest inventions, discoveries, and solutions emerge when people start asking the right questions.
* I believe that you have to ask a lot of questions in order to get to the right ones.
* I am happy when I can help bold creativity blossom in those around me.
* A little part of me shrivels up inside when I find myself stifling creativity with too many rules and judgements.
* I am easily distracted by colourful markers and clean white paper.
* I believe that personal leadership is more important than positional leadership.
* I choose community over team, circle over hierarchy, and family over corporation.
* I believe that shared stories open doorways to transformation.
* I am less productive when I haven’t had time for deep contemplation and equally deep play. The two go hand in hand.
* I believe that our differences are important but that they should not divide us.
* I delight in making new connections with people whose ways of looking at the world intrigue me. I am open to letting them change me, if it’s for the best.
* I am committed to hosting and being part of more conversations and inquiries that follow spiral patterns (moving inward to deeper wisdom) rather than linear pathways.
* Deep and soulful listening is often the best gift I can give anyone, and so I strive to keep my mouth shut and my ears open more often.
* I believe in walking lightly on this earth, and hope to some day use fewer resources for my own personal gain.
* I want to be open-minded and open-hearted and to live with delight as my constant companion.
* I believe that vulnerability and truth-telling can serve as catalysts for deep relationships and profound change.
* I believe that in order to create one great work of art you have to be prepared to create at least 100 mediocre ones first.
* I believe that time spent in meditation, prayer, and body movement is never time wasted, and I hope to some day live like I believe it.
* I believe that God created each of us to do good work and that we cheat our Creator and our world when we let our self-doubt and fear keep us from doing it.
* I want to bring more colour and light into otherwise dreary spaces.
* I strive to be more courageous tomorrow than I was today.
* I believe in daily transformation, continuous learning, and growth that doesn’t end until the day I exhale my last breath.
* I am committed to doing my best work, which is at the intersection of creativity, leadership, community, and story-telling.
by Heather Plett | Nov 7, 2011 | Creativity
Sometimes I let myself get stuck in the wrong stories.
Stories like:
– I would accomplish more if I had a nice office with big windows letting in the natural light. And a nice art easel. And more space for bookshelves.
– It’s okay to want what I want… in fact, I’m probably ENTITLED to a bigger space with natural light. I can’t create without it. Why do I bother trying?
– If I had a beautiful healing room like my friend Diane, I could host story circles in my own space and wouldn’t have to be satisfied with a rather ugly room in the back of a church. In fact, I shouldn’t bother hosting any more circles until I have the right space.
– If this house weren’t falling apart, with peeling linoleum in the kitchen, broken chairs in the dining room, and ugly carpet in the living room, I’d feel more comfortable hosting people here and I could do more of my work in-person.
– If only… (and the list could stretch to 101 more items)
It’s not that it’s wrong to want those things. It’s just that it’s wrong to let myself get stuck in the limitations of wanting them too much. When I get stuck in them, I forget to be grateful for what I have. I forget that I too can be resourceful and make new things out of old, like the people I’ve seen in the poorest parts of the world, making shoes out of rubber tires, or spoons out of seashells. I forget to treat the gifts I’ve already received with reverence and respect.
I let my house get messier “because it’s not good enough to host people in, so why should I bother keeping it clean?”
I let my tiny storage-space-turned-studio become a dumping ground for clutter “because it’s too small, cramped, and windowless for me to create in, so why bother?”
Last week, I knew that it was time to loosen the grip those limiting stories were having on me. I spent Friday morning clearing the clutter out of my tiny windowless space that used to be a storage room in a dark corner of our basement. It’s a space I poured my creative resourcefulness into last year before I quit my job, putting cheap fabric and old paneling on the wall and free hand-me-down carpet on the floor.
And now I am grateful for it again.
I finally did some creative work in this space again (see the mandala in my last post), and now my head is buzzing with new ideas.
Here’s my tiny space, with my creativity board in front of me and my art supplies and favourite books within easy reach.
On the ceiling by the light hang the butterflies that told me to write a book.
Here’s a corner of my creativity board, with elephants from Tanzania (oh how I loved seeing them in the wild!), a dried leaf from the centre of the labyrinth at Tranquil Spirit (my friend Diane’s healing space), and some of my creative meanderings.
One of my favourite trinkets, a gift from my sister that reminds me to continue to stare with wonder at the many possibilities that this big, wide world has to offer.
Another corner of my creativity board, with a photo of my sister and I backpacking around Europe many years ago.
My favourite view – lying on the floor looking up at the iridescent fabric hanging from the ceiling. This space – though it may not seem like much – is sacred space.
Here’s Maddy, who is delighted when I let her into my creative space so that we can do some co-creating (which we did lots of this weekend). She made a special magic wand for me. On its handle it says “be magical”. I’m going to wave it around the room whenever I need to make old stories disappear, or I need to make new things out of old things that no longer serve me.
One more view… the entrance to my tiny space, where I painted a tree of dreams (follow the link to see a video of me painting it) and Maddy painted a magical character out of her favourite book, Harry Potter.
Yesterday while making a doodle mandala (above) I had a flashback to all of those lengthy board meetings where I used to sit doodling through endless discussions about program parameters, policy adjustments, partnership agreements, and balance sheets.
