Yesterday I was sipping tea and answering emails on my front porch. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw movement. It was a rather large Golden Orb Weaver spider weaving her web right above my front door!
She was both beautiful and terrifying. And I couldn’t ignore her. So, naturally, I spent some time doodling her, contemplating why it was that she gripped my attention - why it was she was hanging out right above my door and not out in the garden.
As I doodled, she settled into the center of her web, stillness taking over after her busy morning work. And, throughout the day, this is mostly how I found her, patiently waiting for all that her web would now provide for her.
When we live a creative life, we go through times of creative intensity. The ideas are flowing, the work is emerging, and it feels so good. But there is a time for everything, and that time can pass. And it can feel bad. It can feel like a block or like a lack of motivation or like the muse left our side and we miss her presence.
What I learned from the spider that morning is that this time is all about trust.
It takes a lot of trust and courage to even make our creations. Trust that we have something valuable to create and courage to make it when we can’t predict what the outcome will be. But trust in what we have created is so important too. It is just as important to rest in what we have made - to let it integrate and to see what ways it wants to take care of us.
This could look like celebrating its completion, reveling in the result, showing it to others, and sitting with it to integrate all that the creative process has taught you. It takes trust to stop doing for a moment. It takes courage to rest. But there is magic in this space, too, and it may just become the main ingredients for your next creative burst.
What beautiful things might your completed creations have to show you, give you, teach you if you take some time just to be with them?