The Winged Energy of Delight

As once the winged energy of delight

carried you over childhood’s dark abysses,

now beyond your own life build the great

arch of unimagined bridges.

Rainer Maria Rilke

(from “Ahead of All Parting: The Selected Poetry and Prose of Rainer Maria Rilke”, translated by Stephen Mitchell)

Lately, I have been feeling the strong urge to CREATE… poetry, art, music, textiles… something!

But, again, the perfectionist tendencies that I have always struggled with loom large over the path I’d like to walk. I have to keep reminding myself that how good something is doesn’t really matter. (What does “good” mean anyway?) It is the daily process of creating that I am craving… not fame, fortune or approval. (OK… if I’m being totally honest, I probably am still craving approval a little… but, I’m trying to get past that one.)

So, I’ve been attempting to move forward by going backward. I’ve been looking at all the things I created as a child. Hoping to rediscover that freedom of expression that seems to elude me these days. I know there was a certain self-confidence I possessed then… an assuredness that whatever streamed forth from my mind and from my hand was as it was meant to be.

I hope to not only start creating again in earnest, but to share much of it here. For now, I’ve posted this painting which was done many, many years ago. (I’m not sure how old I was, but I suspect that I was younger than 13.) I love the flowing lines and open space. The primary colors. The organic sky and oddly geometric bird. Mostly I love the place it came from… a place I’m hoping to reconnect with.