"Next month brings the blue moon
And a meaningful message:
There is a lot to protect here
the wild feminine, the fertile creativity
and these full moons of ritual
great magnetic forces of change"
~From The First Poem I Wrote,
Published in We'Moon, Meegan Simpson-Cooke
Creativity can bring joy, meaning and purpose to our lives. Having something that sustains us, much like our basic needs, supports our mental health. How creativity sustains a person is unique to each person. For me, my creativity is closely connected with my own mental health recovery. I feel joy when I create, as I work to craft words. I find meaning in what I learn from my therapeutic art about myself and the world. I feel a strong sense of purpose when I write about mental health recovery, hoping that something I say might resonate with someone else.
“Art has the power to transform, to illuminate, to educate, inspire and motivate.” – Harvey Fierstein
I learned a few things about myself this week. I realize that I don’t love making videos where the camera is focused on me. My face is very contained when I am concentrating and expressing a meaningful messages. The videos only show one dimension of me. I find that I can’t just talk easily on the camera – it feels contrived to me. Maybe practice would ease this but I am trying a different approach that resonates more with who I am. I thought about what this might be and experimented a bit.
I might share pictures on Instagram with my words overlayed. People can hear what I am saying but will be looking at a photo instead of me. I also like sharing photographs with words on them. Anybody interested in seeing these posts can follow me on IG @artofmentalhealthwriter.
Something I know about myself is that I like being behind the scenes when I am working. In high school I preferred helping with lighting and sound than to act on stage. I enjoy writing more than speaking. I am working to align what I love doing with the way I love doing it and this takes letting go of ways of being that don’t suit me.
I was captured by this leaf where I could see both the light shining through creating a beautiful colour, as well as the shadow reflection of leaves in the light. Nature is the ultimate creator in my mind. Nature inspires me to find joy, meaning and purpose in life.
These questions have been percolating a lot in the last five years: What gives my life joy? What gives my life meaning? What gives my life purpose? How is my creativity woven into these three qualities?
We are all journeying on our unique paths. So much is unknown in the future, although we try to plan and control the outcome of some things. But all I know in this moment is that I chose to do what I love to do: write, walk, and reflect. These things ground me in this world. I will leave you with a famous quote and perhaps you can see it through the eyes of your relationship between nature, creativity, mental health, and purpose:
“Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?” Mary Oliver
I hope these next couple weeks you engage in experiences that being you joy, meaning and purpose. ❤️Meegan
Discover more from The Art of Mental Health
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
I liked your words Meegan . Mary Oliver’s question brought to mind another question /quote by Carl Jung “What did you do as a child that made the hours pass like minutes? Herein lies the key to your earthly pursuits.”
I have been thinking about this in regards to me and my life endeavours.
I wonder how you respond to this and does it have relevance for you.
Ru
Hi Ru,
Thanks for your thoughtful comment and sharing Jung’s quote. I like how he framed this. I think sometimes as adults we move away from what gave us joy as children for necessity or because of different influences.
It is wonderful when we rediscover our childhood joys. Reading is like that for me for sure. Other things I don’t do enough but love…swimming, watching the night sky, walking in the forest. Then as I entered teenage years I loved writing and creating visual books and also making things with my hands.
I love how Jung’s quote brings us back to that essential joy and the earlier knowing and experiences of what we loved. And because we can be so preoccupied with time, being out of time and absorbed in something is very precious and can be healing ❤️