S2E2: Accepting Endings

4/20/22
Growing Creative Podcast
S2E2:  Accepting Endings


Join Jane in a conversation about the painful but essential dormant phase, as things must be pruned in order to bring new life. 

Jane Boutwell is an artist & creative coach based in Atlanta, Georgia. She loves to nurture and empower others to pursue their creative callings.

"I am an artist with an inquisitive mind, a heart connected to nature and a soul yearning towards God…a child of dirt and dance…a beauty bringing blessing writer… a poetic painter and potter.

Starting with mud pies as a child in the backyard, my creativity includes tactile, intuitive, and deeply-in-touch-with-nature ways of being in the world. I see myself as an apprentice in God’s art studio of the natural world that is full of metaphor, imprinted with the character of the Maker.

It is my passion to share the shimmering beauty and deep truths I find in the creative medium that seems most fitting. Those creative expressions include gardening, quilting, writing, painting, sketching, ceramics, dancing, creative coaching, podcasting, and family life with my husband and four children in Tucker/Atlanta, Georgia."

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Transcript

Our previous episode was on childlike beginnings, where I talk about the childlike aspect of the beginning of the creative process and touched a little bit on the awkwardness of that adolescent phase and what it's like to have creative maturity. But if you're really familiar with how creativity works, then you might've noticed, I didn't talk so much about this other important aspect, the dormant pruning phase.

Well that's because I like to avoid that face. I kind of like to pretend like it doesn't exist. Oh my goodness. It's a hard one to learn and it's a hard one to practice, but I've been having to face it and dig into this season myself. And in this episode, I'm sharing straight from my heart in real time. What I'm learning while I'm entering the season,

You're listening to the growing creative podcast and I'm your host Jane Boutwell, I'm an artist and a creative coach. This is a space that will nurture your heart and empower you to pursue your creative calling. Whatever that may be. The past several weeks have been a struggle. As I settle into a new phase of the creative process, one that I tend to avoid.

And I think many of us do as I share about that with you, some of the things that I'm learning, I thought I might begin with a story of this weekend because somehow it's connected. We were on the farm in Alabama and as the day closed and became kind of cold and windy a little cloudy, we finally made it onto the land after having a day of working at the bird house,

which I'll tell you more about on a later episode, I pull up with snacks and three kids, as my husband's finishing his creative work of shaping the land with a tractor, we start a drive around the property, looking at which fields are most beautiful. Meanwhile, the sky changes from that kind of lifeless gray of clouds, rolling in to all of a sudden color,

glowing on the horizon. The most beautiful sunset gradually takes over. And we began this quest for which field gives you the best view of the, it eventually became this almost frenzied chase. And I laughed as the kids are hanging on. As we're bouncing over roads that have been washed away in the latest flood. I said, you know, it's like we're storm chasers,

but instead of chasing a tornado, we're chasing the sunset and trying to catch a glimpse of it. We all laughed. And you know, we're judging which, which field was the best, which silhouettes of Oak trees with Spanish Moss draping, their limbs was most picturesque. And then we dash off to the next field chasing and chasing before the light faded and this opportunity for glory and wonder,

and the beauty of a sunset disappeared. Once it disappeared, we realized that we would be leaving the next morning without coming back onto the land. And my daughter and I had missed the chance, the rare chance of seeing this very special native flower called the shooting star. It doesn't grow just everywhere and it doesn't grow for a very long season. It's got a short,

a short season of the year that it's in bloom and we're not always in town since we live in the Atlanta area. We're not always in town when it's in bloom. So we had really meant to go out, searching for it. Well, some of the, the few places where it blooms were not accessible due to the roads having been washed out a month or so ago,

but my husband remembered one spot that seems like it might grow them because it was one of those kinds of secret tucked in small Brooks in a hillside that created a microclimate that these flowers love. These flowers don't just grow anywhere. They're not out in big stretches of field. They're in little clumps in these six secret hidden nooks that old trees with their roots twining,

the banks of the Brook love to grow. It's like this fairytale Wonderland. And when you're there, when they're blooming looking like they're white pedals are cast back behind them, almost like a head thrown back in laughter or a star shooting through the sky with streaks of white flaming behind it. But they're tiny and dainty. So we take off and this is after sunset.

So the light is swiftly fading. And so we're in this gray Twilight with three kids, definitely getting past dinner time, but we're forging ahead with this passion to see if we can find and discover this treasure of the secret flower. And we finally stumbled a, just a few because they were starting to fade. And so each little cluster only had a few plumes left and their white shined out just barely against the gray light of the fading day.

And it was just, it was a really beautiful moment, treasure hunting for beauty with my family. What was especially poignant was after this wild ride, chasing a sense that, that flowed straight into this frantic racing through these little Woodland paths next to a wandering little Creek, looking for these flowers before the light faded completely, We returned to the car to see a text alerting us that a member of our community who had been fighting for his life had lost and his life was over.

And the grief of that moment, contrasted with the beauty we had just been chasing. You know, it brought a few things to mind, really clearly things don't last forever. And in light of that, you have two choices To become a stone cold heart protected against feeling the pain of those losses or Being a wild chaser of beauty with your heart, open,

willing to feel, Feel the beauty of that sunset knowing it's going to fade feel the beauty of that tiny, delicate star dancing in its final days of its secret little life hidden in the woods. Feel it in the moment in the season, when you find it, don't try to pin it like something on Pinterest that you think you're going to get back to later,

and you don't fully learn about or experience. Now you just pin it and move on. Don't do that Slow down and take the moment to feel This wonder. And this beauty that surrounds you. And there are opportunities every day, the most powerful beauty fills us with wonder because it isn't always there. Why were we frantically chasing that sunset? If our skies all day long were painted in those glorious colors,

we wouldn't stop to notice. We wouldn't go riding across bumpy Rocky roads, nearly getting stuck in a ditch to find the next corner that would show us that grantor, it would be common place and we wouldn't notice it anymore. So that moment reminded me to have my heart open to the beauty of the season and the moment that I'm in The season that I'm in right now,

as one of letting go of seeing that light fade, I had the difficult experience of having to let go of something that I had built and dreamed up and envisioned. And then let go and watch. You could say die if you're going to be dramatic, which I am a creative type. So you better believe I've seen it in that light. And that's the growing creative fellowship.

This thing that I built, it was a monthly membership, a group of women that had journeyed with me, some of them from the very beginning a year and a half ago, it was a space that I envisioned to create community where people could connect during the dark isolation days of the pandemic when gathering in person wasn't possible. But I knew creativity was something that could keep us alive and bring us healing through a time of hard,

hard stuff, right? And it served that need very well. But the time had come with my family of four kids, having all their activities, picking back up in life, amongst my in-person community, picking back up, and I wanted to be available to be plugged into that and the kind of deadlines and timeframes of keeping them growing creative fellowship going just became impossible,

but it took me a long time to admit it because I hate watching things go and die and shrivel up and fade away the process of coming to grips with the reality that I had to, I had to allow this to do that at least for a season helped me realize that that dormant phase is a crucial, crucial part of the creative process. As much as the seed beginnings,

you know, like the childlike beginnings we just talked about in the previous episode, it's every bit as much a part of the process. Things began, things mature gradually over time. And then those flowers have to accept that they're going to fade because the season of shriveling and fading is how the seeds are spread. And Heather season of letting go has been accepting that my grandmother's house,

which is kind of the last remnant of my childhood safe space and the connection with the family and extended family. I grew up with this place was one of wonder, there was a Creek, there were woods, there was dress up a closet of dress up clothes and just the echoing presence of my grandmother and her welcoming, nurturing spirit. She passed away a year ago and the time has come to realize that letting go of her house and moving things out and releasing it to someone else that time has come.

And it's heartbreaking. There's no way around it. And as I sit with that reality and wonder how I can let go of this place, I have to be honest with myself that I'm not there physically present very much anymore, hardly ever. And I'm spending a lot of my time building a space For comfort connection and memories for my own children and my own family.

That's growing now and sheltering and welcoming and nurturing our community and to the spaces that I am creating. And you can't have everything. You can't have this fully and completely. And this past thing fully and completely endings are necessary for new beginnings. I heard a quote just the other day, joy Hedricks shared it in her book proposal class that she teaches. She shared a quote.

She had heard that was said by Jonathan bloom. The revision process is just as creative as the initial inspiration. All right, I'm gonna read those words by Jonathan bloom. One more time. The revision process is just as creative as the initial inspiration. Okay. What happens in the revision process? You decide what gets cut out, What things you put created,

brought to a life with words, with whatever your medium is, what parts have to disappear, be cut off cutaway. That's really hard to do that. And yet the things you choose to remove and let fade bring into contrast and give room and space for what's left and making those choices for what you're making space to grow more of as, just as creative as that glorious,

magical moment of the initial inspiration. You know, I'm always thinking of gardening terms and I'm thinking of that flower going to seed. And that's part of that dormant phase. The pedal's fading in order for these seeds to form and fall off. But I'm also a gardener who realizes that weeding and pruning has to happen. I have some plants in my garden that I really love,

but they're a little I'm overachieving, shall I say? And if I don't watch it, they'll take over. And while I really love them, I also really love the things that are planted next to them. And so there's times where I have to just pull out handfuls of the Hardy begonia, that's one in particular, also the butterfly Iris, if you live nearby and you'd like,

either one of those, you're welcome to get in touch. You can come pull some out of my garden because I've got an over abundance. When they get going, they just spread and spread and spread. And I have to reign them in. I have to pull out sections of them to make space for the other things like the hostas and the coral bells to have room,

to see light and, and become vibrant plants and there's things in our life and in our creative process and creative work that we have to realize can grow too big, too easily. And if we aren't aware and willing to revise and prune back, they'll take over. And all of a sudden, instead of having a balanced garden design that we originally intended,

we'll have just one thing on overdrive. These are all things that have been oh, hard lessons for me to learn very hard lessons for me to learn. If you listen to the small cup episode, then you know, the difficulty I have with facing that, I'm limited all these ideas that I have and dreams that I want to see come to be.

And life that I want to live richly with my children experiences I want to have, I can't have it at all. I can't do it all. And I just hate it and met that. I hate it feels like giving up, but it's not. It's wisely choosing revision, choosing arrest, choosing that dormant season that the plants need to come back with renewed figure in the spring.

I hope that I hope that this helps you maybe face something in your life that you've been hesitating to let go of. Just for that fear of losing something that you loved. One last image to share as just a thought of, well, I'm thinking of the little meandering Brook of water running through that secret part of the Woodlands, where we found this shooting star flowers and had a little waterfall spring that went under a tree roots and then spring,

back out, it was trickling clear water with flow and movement, fresh full of life, nourishing the plants around it. But an alternative would be a stagnant pool. That's not letting go of water, not letting it move through. On fact, when the rains came a month or so ago, and the Creek got out of its bank, there are still pools of water in that thick red mud that aren't flowing out.

They're stuck, they're holding onto everything they've got and they aren't letting it move through. And that pool of water is stagnant. It's mucky, it's Medi when we are willing to release and let go, we're willing to be that stream that allows the seasons to move through. Knowing that more's coming, it takes a vulnerability, takes courage, and it takes a willingness to be present and aware of what's here now.

All right. I hope that this meets you where you are. Let me know. I love to hear from y'all and know the other side of this conversation that's happening inside your heart. Thanks for joining me today. If you enjoyed this podcast episode, I do hope that you'll share it with a friend. And if you would like to see the kinds of things that I make with my hands,

you can follow along on Instagram or subscribe to my studio newsletter@janeboutwellstudio.com. And I'd like to thank shepherd Martin for sound editing. The music is by sad. Moses, hope that you will keep listening and keep growing creative.