Fallow Time — Turtles, prayers, and whispers

Last week I felt like my muse had deserted me after several weeks of feeling no desire to pick up my camera or work on images. This week I realized that my muse had not deserted me. I was just experiencing fallow time (thank you Nora giving me this word to describe this seemingly empty space in my creative life).

Fallow Time

The life of a creator is not the only life nor perhaps the most interesting which a man leads. There is a time for play and a time for work, a time for creation and a time for lying fallow. And there is a time, glorious too in its own way, when one scarcely exists, when one is a complete void. I mean / when boredom seems the very stuff of life.

     — Henry Miller

Shortly after I wrote last week’s post I was sitting outside on the deck enjoying the lovely warm sunshine when I began to notice the beauty all around me. Before long I felt a familiar itch — to grab my camera and begin making images of the beauty I saw. It was a wonderful affirmation that leaning into your joy (sitting in the sun on the deck with the beauty of nature all around) helps kindle the creative fire.

I noticed my prayer flags flapping in the breeze, painted turtles on the log at the edge of the pond, leaves and branches above my head back-lit by the sun whispering in the breeze.

Ahhhh—turtles, prayers, and whispers—just when I need them.

As my husband so aptly said after he read my blog post last week, “The word deserted seems too strong. Perhaps your muse has gone on vacation or taken a break.” He was right. My muse was taking a break.

The fallow time feels empty and colorless. Nothing touches me, nothing inspires me. I feel like an empty bowl. I walk around in a monochrome low contrast world where joy is absent and nothing touches my soul. The creative spark is no where to be seen.

But fallow time does not last forever. It is a necessary time for invisible healing and growth, softening so that new creative life can break forth. Think of seeds resting in the ground, a caterpillar in it’s chrysalis, dragonfly nymphs in a pond.

Growth takes time and energy. So does creative expression. Sometimes the perfect remedy is rest—fallow time.

Paying attention to beauty, noticing tiny miracles like a breeze blowing prayer flags or turtles in a row on a log, reminded me that the creative spark never dies completely. Sometimes it gets hidden underneath the need to care for other things. It can also be smothered by responses to the failure of an effort or by the ego’s need for attention. Living with chronic pain dims the creative spark. At times, all one can do is breathe through the difficult times knowing that though the spark has dimmed it still lives and will burst forth with light when the time is right.

What do you do when you find yourself experiencing fallow time?

May you walk in beauty.