~ A Little Backstory ~

I wrote this article as a part of a collaboration with a dear friend. Her name is Caitlin Gemmell, and she is one of the most magical people I know. She is a fairy godmother in human form, I swear!

Caitlin shares her own creative gifts with the world through her writing, poetry and fibre art. She has published many of her poems in magazines, and in beautiful books such as True North and The Wistful Wild. She is also the author of an enchanting newsletter called Musings of a Selkie Witch. That is where this piece of writing first appeared.

This story was born out of a really long break. To anyone who has visited my online world before, welcome back. This is the first thing I have written and shared in over 3 years. It is the story of how I rekindled my creativity…

Welcome. My name is Zoe Eccles. I am about to share an important chapter from my life story. In this tale, I use two symbols: 

1. A map 

2. A recipe 

These items are special, because they are both personal and universal. Your life journey may take you down different roads than the ones I have walked. Your recipe might call for different spices than the ones I like. But the map and the recipe book are still there, in your story, if you choose to see them. They are fairytale objects - ordinary tools that can be endowed with magical meanings, helping us to envision where we are and what we want. They can become our guides, if we let them. Wherever you are, and whatever you wish for, I hope you can find something of your own in my story. 

. . .

When I was a young girl, the thing I loved most in the world was making art. I would paint and draw and write and craft. I chose to sit in the classroom on sunny days, carefully crafting things, and attended after-school art classes in draughty studios that smelled of turpentine. I made every Christmas gift I gave, and attempted to sew my own clothes. Creativity came so naturally to me. Art encompassed my entire world; it was the way I saw, the way I understood, and the way I expressed my innermost thoughts and feelings. 

As fate would have it, though, before I entered the bloom of my teenage years - a time when most people get to make mistakes, learn, and grow into their skins - my creative journey was warped and changed by my family. You see, the strictures of my family’s value system were set in stone long before I arrived. Large engraved words: “Bene aut Nihil” - “Success or Nothing”. These values were explained to me by a family member, who sat me down one day, and told me all the reasons I would never succeed as an artist. He invoked the horrors of poverty, struggle, and, above all, a fear of failure. Thus, my youthful, unselfconscious creativity was stolen from me before I had a chance to develop it into a more robust practice. Something unknowably special was taken away, and in its place new things were added. There was still my love for art; I continued to paint, learned to take photographs, and made my own website filled with my images and writing. But simmering alongside my passion were new ingredients: a motivation to succeed in the harsh, uncaring “real world”, and underneath that, a deep fear of failure. Eventually, my fears bubbled and boiled over, till, bit by bit, my creativity sputtered and sparked and seemed to die. 

Then came the dark years. In my early twenties, newly graduated, I could finally see that something was wrong. I felt as if the values that had been taught to me as a child were now choking me. Afraid to fail at anything, even once, I was more anxious than ever. I left home to escape, determined to rid myself of all that was hurting me. But I did not know how to extract the poison from the mix, and so I began to throw everything out the window in an effort to be free. To avoid the pain, I slowly stopped creating altogether. Without the flame of my creative passions, I felt cold and adrift. Lost. I had willingly entered the other side of the family motto. “Nihil.” Nothing. And for a long while, that is where I made my home. 

Till, one day, something shifted… “Surely,” I thought, “there must be another way.” Tired of waiting for my old inspiration to return, and sick of the poisonous fears that arose whenever I tried to make something, I decided to find a new approach. A new creative recipe. Moved by my own will, I took my first steps out of the Nothing and onto this experimental path. Now, a year or so later, I am still only a hop and a skip down the lane, but I have already gathered a handful of wondrous ingredients to add to my new recipe. 

Ingredient 1. Rest, love and acceptance

This ingredient is my absolute bread and butter. It is the pizza base on which I add the toppings. 

Rest, love and acceptance. These three things might seem simple, but their value cannot be overstated. Add them to your creative practice, and you will see that some kind of magic happens. Processes become imbued with a new softness. Difficulties alchemise into gold. Projects transform in ways you couldn’t have imagined. 

They are like three fairy godmothers, offering us their enchanted wisdom. Rest, being the first of the three, brings us back into alignment with our own natural rhythms. Love, the second, teaches us to be kind to ourselves as we work. Acceptance, Love’s partner, helps us bridge the gap between our expectations and reality, as our dreams unfold into being. 

I’m sure we all know that we need time for rest. We have all heard of the importance of self-love. But, truly, the simplicity of these concepts belies their potent power when applied, and their true value lies only in their application. They are practices, and as such, your results will improve the more you practise. Personally, it has taken me many years to learn these three things. 

I unearthed these gems on my own. My family always believed in Type A values: achievement, busy-ness, sacrifice, innate talent and intelligence. For the longest time, I thought these were my values too. It was not until I left home that I heard my heart’s own wishes. It turns out I like to rest a lot, I prioritise time with loved ones over productivity, and I thrive on unconditional love, not material success. 

After discovering what makes me tick, I still had to learn how to apply it to my creativity. I think, deep down, I hoped to return to the patterns of creativity that I experienced in my younger years. I know I am not alone here; I think many of us struggle to reconcile the productivity we experienced as students with our grown-up selves, (especially those of us who were labelled “gifted kids”). We get stuck in self-comparisons, or feel that we have lost our motivation. The simple truth is, I cannot return to the way I was. My fundamental values are different now, thus, my creativity will not look the same. It will not work the same. The moment I realised this simple truth was the moment I let go of my old ways to embrace a new way. Rest, love and acceptance are at the very heart of my new way.

Ingredient 2. Exploration + a compass

This ingredient was a gift from a friend. He taught me about the idea of a project compass. 

A project compass helps to guide you in the right direction, as you undertake a new project. Your compass keeps you on track. To create one, you must find your true north. Your true north is like a star you are following - it is the deepest and truest desire of your heart. It is what you were wishing for, when you first conceived of your project. For me, my project compass will always point towards exploration. 

It took me a long time to realise that I was chasing all the wrong stars - stars with names like “Quantitative Proof,” “Excellence” or “Perfection.” When I took a moment to really think about it, after talking with my friend, I found that my deepest desire was to simply explore. That is why I wish to create. Through creating, I hope to explore the world around me - learning, seeing, thinking, feeling and expressing myself as I go along. 

Whenever I get caught up in worries or doubts about how well I am doing, or how a project is looking, I can return to my project compass and assess whether I am doing what I set out to do. If I am exploring, then I am on track.

What would be at the heart of your project compass?
What is the name of your north star?

Ingredient 3. Room for failure

This was the vital missing ingredient I needed to bring my creativity back to life.

Failure. Some may object to the word, wanting to reframe it, but I use it intentionally. I avoided failure for so gosh-darn long it became the death of my creativity. Now I choose to wholeheartedly embrace it. So, what is failure, and why is it so important?

You may have heard the adage about Thomas Edison and the invention of the lightbulb. It took Edison many attempts to find the right solution. “I have not failed,” he said, “I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work.” This is an encouraging thought. It is a reframing of failure as a stepping stone on the road to success. But look to the heart of this story, and you will find that failure, more so than success, is an integral part of creativity, curiosity and inventiveness. In fact, it could be said that these things cannot exist without failure. Failure is a necessary ingredient, and a desirable one. It is fundamental to the process of learning. 

Growing up, there was very little room for failure in my life. I expected a lot from myself, and I was terrified I would not meet those expectations. Afraid to get a bad grade. Afraid to look silly, or sound stupid, I tried to maintain an air of intelligence and natural talent. Years later, I learned about the archetype of the fool. The fool is an important character in the world of tarot reading, representing beginnings. He is the every-person, starting out on a journey of self discovery. He has much to learn, and is depicted as a young man, about to walk over the edge of a cliff. Embarrassing stuff. And yet, paradoxically, the fool has his own wisdom. He reminds us that we are all beginners at some point in our lives. In order to master anything, one must start as a beginner. 

This was the secret ingredient I had been missing for so long: room for failure. Because room for failure means room for growth. It means allowing oneself to be a beginner. It leaves space for the mistakes and silliness that inevitably result from walking a new path.

Make room for failure and you make room for creativity to occur.

. . .

So, here we are. Partway down a new path, with three special ingredients in my basket. I can see I have some great stuff already, and there is still so much more to discover. I feel a sense of excitement as I write this! Hope fills my chest. I did not get to develop healthy creative methods as a child, but now, as an adult, I get to choose my own way. Thank you for listening to my tale, fellow traveller. I must be off now, I am heading for the woods and those distant mountains. 

“We are the dreamers of dreams.”

~ Willy Wonka