April 2019 - Writing From The Kitchen

Writers Create – Air Plants Breathe

April 30, 2019April 30, 2019by Erika K Rothwell6 Comments

I was where you are once, staring at a blank piece of paper or an empty screen. If I were to be completely transparent, I would admit to still being there at times. So I want you to know what I have discovered while examining the life of a tiny air plant.

Fascination with the botanical world incites my inspiration and motivates my writing this morning. My air plant needed water today. Following instructions given to me, I completely immersed it in water for its bi-monthly drink of water.

This amazing little plant uses air to thrive, not soil, as so many other plants do. I feel this plant. Often, I attempt to put down roots in projects that focus my efforts. Yet whims and fancies pull my attention in other directions, forcing me to recognize my obvious need for air and authenticity more than soil. This airy approach to life satisfies my soul and allows me to thrive. However, a deep ingestion of life-giving water and refreshment is needed to ground my flittering thought process.

Taking the form of deep reflection, my time is spent turning inward, absorbing the results of a meditative process as it nourishes my dreams. The very dreams that propel projects forward in a style that I have come to accept in myself.

While I am not advocating this fragmented approach to production, I am supportive of you finding your own creative style and learning to work within your set of needs. Your story is most likely quite different than me, so it goes to say the structure of your day will look slightly different as well.

The desire for connection eventually culminates in creative action. To spend our days in the sweet spot of inspiration while only drafting artistic expression remains a stagnant dream that will eventually dry up. It is not enough to get a creative job done. We must share our gifts with others.

So if you are like me, find your sweet spot and hydrate. But at the point of saturation, take a step forward and breathe the air, put your pen to paper and simply write.

Connect and Create.

©Erika K Rothwell

Creativity, Growth, hope

Hope Blinks – Refresh Your View

April 25, 2019April 26, 2019by Erika K RothwellLeave a Comment

Have you ever played the game of staring at another person until one of you blinks? I have. And I must admit my strong-willed nature often insists that I be the winner.

But imagine viewing our goals in the same way, resolutely fixated on what we see in front of us. We stare at them for so long that our vision becomes blurred as we find it increasingly more difficult to focus. Eventually, we are forced to blink.

Initially, as we set out to accomplish tasks, our laser-like focus appears to work well. Our goals, however, may consume us causing us to lose balance and clarity. Over time in overdrive, our paths become obscured and we really need to blink.

New Beginnings

Letting go of our control and our self-directed will allows for a reset and a more vibrant picture once we reopen our eyes. New beginnings are the foundation of hope and an opportunity for pivotal modification in our lives. Restoration recharges our souls and we are often compensated with regained momentum, possibly even recovering lost time.

In the space of stepping away, I am provided with a brief interval to use my other senses, intensifying my vision when I refocus. Try this exercise. Stop your fierce concentration for a moment. Close your eyes for one whole minute. Set a timer if you must. Reopen your eyes. What do you see?

Get Outside

Make the time to go outside. Let your mind wander, listen to the sounds you hear, or simply feel your heartbeat. Let go of your self-driven need for control. Your goals will be waiting for you upon return.

Apologetically, I share the cliche to “stop and smell the flowers”, for if I had not done so today on my run, I would not have been greeted by the Swallowtail Butterfly. Quietly and softly, he reminded me of the rigorous growth process their kind must go through in order to bare their beautiful wings and fly, flittering between nectar sources. Our creative journey, similarly, is an individual metamorphosis.

Recharge Your Creativity

Creativity is a slowly evolving growth process that cannot be forced through time. When we push past our emotional and physiological needs or try to succeed without first putting in the time or work and balancing it with necessary rest, we run the risk of losing sight of what’s important causing our goals to suffer too.

Staying in sync with and acquiescing to the laws of the universe will not only recharge you but align you harmoniously with vitality to complete your destiny.

In fact, at times, an answer you may have been seeking stares you right back in the face and you have to blink to understand it. This is precisely what happened to me this week. After a recuperative moment, upon reopening my eyes, lucidity arrived bringing not only an answer but complementary joy in the discovery. I share it with you now.

Being a writer doesn’t restrict my creative and artistic expression to words. Upon the exploration of a multi-faceted creative life, my spirit has been enlivened “giving wings” to my writing goals.

Many of you have already made this discovery as you share your amazing artistic abilities beyond writing. I would be very interested in comments, from any and all, about what other creative avenues you pursue and how it helps you.

Have a beautiful day!

©Erika K Rothwell

creative, inspiration, Nature

Jewels of Nature

April 17, 2019April 24, 2019by Erika K Rothwell2 Comments

I love jewels. Not jewels of luxurious and wealthy means, rather the magnificence presented in tiny morsels each morning in simplistic excellence and elegance. Nature’s jewels exist for me as they appear in a raindrop, a perfectly shaped bud of a flower, a molded stone discovered in a riverbed or an iridescent shell plucked from the seashore.

Adorning myself with the inspiration of nature on a daily basis brings me closer to answers I seek. My thoughts arrange themselves in a pattern of words, formed by simply gazing deeply into the heart of each stunning treasure, by connecting to each unique design of powerful creation.

And so, each day I wake and explore a kingdom of unimaginable and glorious riches as I behold diamonds glistening on the surface of the water and emerald blades of grass clothed with fringes of iridescent baubles on their surface.

Wrapped luxuriantly in the chiffon of wispy clouds, as the spotlight of dawn showcases the earth’s museum of artistic treasures, I am grateful to visit without an admission fee once again.

hope, inspiration, Nature

Painting with Words – Hope Blooms

April 15, 2019April 15, 2019by Erika K RothwellLeave a Comment

A faint vision, a random thought and a perplexing question all lead to the potential of a word painting. I immerse myself in the fleeting illumination as my pen-brush touches the page.

The ink begins to flow, colorful images formed in words move the story forward. Unclear at first yet steadily engaged, a message begins to form. Hope blooms once again from a masterpiece of nature, a love flower, captured as a photograph unsuspectingly in the early part of my day.

In a coffee house far away, where plants are grown from air, I found inspiration to share. So my words began to thrive without roots as I expanded my predetermined horizon into poetic expression.

As we know, life’s picture is never revealed all at once. Rather, meaning is often gathered in pieces over years of soul searching. Sometimes, however, a revelation is discovered in a crucial missing element while taking a rest off the beaten path.

With a much-needed break, a momentary breath of fresh air and a blank white canvas, endless possibilities burst forth in a fantastic display of color as I am left luxuriating in a new and vibrant inflorescence of hope.

“Sometimes nature guards her secrets with the unbreakable grip of physical law. Sometimes the true nature of reality beckons from just beyond the horizon.”
Brian Greene

Today’s post was inspired by the magnificent Lily of the Nile, known in Greek as the Agapanthus, derived from the Greek word – Agape – Love and Anthos – Flower…and my first purchase of a Tillandsia air plant found in the lovely Plant Shoppe, in Oklahoma City.

courage, Creativity, Discovery

Color Outside The Lines

April 11, 2019April 12, 2019by Erika K Rothwell4 Comments

“Do one thing everyday that scares you.” Eleanor Roosevelt

Challenge your boundaries, allow them to stretch your status quo, courageously step out of bounds at times even if not within your comfort zone and expand your creative horizons. Protecting what we have always been, doing what we have always done will bring us the results we have already received.

Perhaps our past experiences, fears and expectations of others and ourselves have darkened the outlines of our potential, holding us back. Sadly, we may hide behind walls containing our gifts neglecting the work that defines our unique contribution to this world.

Follow the lead of a child where lines don’t seem to exist, only possibilities. Flawless work is not the ultimate goal and individual expression comes naturally as they move freely and fluidly through their creative process.

Through years of setting up borders and boundaries for ourselves, we unknowingly create an outline of our envisioned lives hardened with continuous and tedious strokes keeping us functioning safely within the lines. Over time, after producing generic pictures colored within the lines of our own making with repetitive skill, it’s no wonder that creative inspiration often fades away.

Don’t let your self-imposed limitations close you in. Allow your creative imagination the expanse of an entire coloring page of life, rendering your authentic self in your artistic expression, as you relearn to color outside the lines.

P.S. I love you all.