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Inspiration Flashes: To Collect or Not to Collect That is the Question
by Julie Jordan Scott

It was a spontaneously gleeful and also an intentional walk. I stepped out the door, tucking index cards and a pen into my pocket in case any inspiration struck on the journey.

I knew it most likely would strike - loudly and often.

Off I went, joyfully accepting the cold air biting at my skin and embracing the calming rhythm of my feet moving along the asphalt.

It took almost no time for the first lightning bolt to strike. I scribed messily as I walked, laughing at my own need to capture the thoughts as well as my slightly judgmental witness of my wavery scribbles.

What is inspiration if not scraggly, I thought?

I arrived home forty minutes later with a pile of index cards, some with two or more possible topics carefully collected for future reference. I patted myself on the back for allowing the flow to partner with the business of concretizing it for others as I filled my creativity treasure chest.

This morning I prepared for my writing practice and remembered the cards.

"The perfect springboards!" I thought. "Ah, what a bonus for being so intentional", I boasted to the center of my being.

The cards were nowhere to be seen. They were not on the desk where I left them.

Where had they gone? "Oh no, oh no, oh no" I thought.."Gone, wasted, the walk's treasures vaporized!"

I had been so deliberate and now, somehow, all that delectable intentionality: nothing more than vapors.

I didn't have the energy to think much less speak an expletive. I simply sat down with my notebook and started writing the requisite three pages.

My walk came alive again, even without the index cards prompting me. In a moment, I was back pacing, pounding, pattering the asphalt of Alta Vista Drive. I was greeting the large white dogs with their ferocious barks and their tails wagging in a curious counterpoint as I greeted them "Sweet ladies hello!" which invited them to a smiling, happy tail wagging stillness.

I was once again crossing the wide thoroughfare and into the formerly wild park now tamed and oddly framed by an array of green belts and brown belts and newly planted trees.

I felt the crisp air enter my lungs, chilling my teeth as it passed through me and into me as my arms danced, swinging across my chest as if to beat in some cosmic warmth.

I was right there, once again, raising my face to the sun rays, invoking peace into my center and a smile upon my face.

I only thought I needed the scribbly, wavy words on index cards to remember.

As I wrote my last words for the days practice: "The last line is escaping me - I will hear it later" a strong sense of satisfaction coursed through my veins.

I returned to my desk to begin the days work and immediately spotted the cards.

Apparently a child-visitor to my computer table had knocked them off sometime last night. I smiled again as I picked them up, giving thanks for the amplification of the message.

My mind and spirit work perfectly well enough without the assistance and I also value what extras I receive from the message of the "captured flashes" the index cards held.

Allow yourself the space to experience and express both techniques.

Both have a place and a space in the creative process. Collect inspiration and know that when for some reason those collections are inaccessible, all you need is within you right now.

Invoke that awareness into your center. Witness your own artistic explosion.

Celebrate as you activate your passion.

Copyright © 2003 Julie Jordan Scott

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