Flowers & Creative Journals
October 7, 2007
Two daily essentials to living the simple and creative life are filling rooms with fresh-cut flowers in winter while the potager garden sleeps and infusing the spirit with the inspirational words and art of authentic people. Some people are very inspirational by the very nature of being themselves and daring to chose a life that is rich in expression and meaning.
Here are some of the people who inspire me:
Danny Gregory blogs the exquisite awe-inspiring Everyday Matters and is the author of Everyday Matters: A New York Diary; Hello World: A Life in Ham Radio; Peanut and Change Your Underwear Twice A Week. He began journaling as a way to deal with a tragic accident and has gone on to create a community of 2,000-plus members who are equally inspiring in expression. Each week at Everyday Matters, you will discover a new essay about creativity and art and a drawing challenge for all who wish to participate.
In the last 15 years, hobo artist Dan Price has journaled an illustrated pen-and-ink account of his search for truth and beauty as he attempts to “draw the whole world and write little stories that move your soul.” He has published over 50 handmade 100-page booklets of his journey to discover the richness of living simple; authored three books including Radical Simplicity, How to Make a Journal of Your Life and The Moonlight Chronicles - A Wandering Artist’s Journal. Price’s Flickr photos are breathtakingly spectacular. All of this and more can be found at the Moonlight Chronicles website.
Author and artist Sark, who draws and writes about the magic life at her cottage, is a delightfully free soul who has nurtured Planet Sark into a phenomenal community of women inspired to live deliciously creative lives.
You might say to yourself that these are talented people who can convey in word and drawing aspects of the world around them and their life in unique ways that non-artistic people are not able to do. You are right, these are talented people, but the perfection of living an authentic life that is authentically you is not about being perfect or enormously talented in word or illustration — it’s about being authentic.
We often surprise ourselves in our abilities once we begin a thing, and profoundly surprised at the direction and opportunities that arise from the endeavor of exploring the realness of simply being. What matters is to begin.
Buy a blank journal and a set of pens. You may find wonders within the pages you create and a life barely imagined before you allowed yourself the time for observation and expression. There is fun to be had and adventures aplenty in the every day. Who better to share what you see and tell your part of life’s story than you? Who can tell it if you do not?
