S3 E11: Finding Magic in Dark Times
In this episode I share where I’ve been finding magic lately, and how a daily walk could be very mundane, but is not...if you choose to make it more interesting. The simple practice of taking a “noticing walk” can fill you with wonder and could maybe even change the course of your day (or at least your morning).
This is my invitation to you to follow your curiosity and find the things that fill you with wonder, as tiny as those might be.
RESOURCES DISCUSSED IN THIS EPISODE:
Feel-Good Creativity Un-Challenge
My Instagram (tag me when you post findings from your noticing walk!)
My 5-day free composition prompt course for musicians
Amy Krouse Rosenthal’s work, her essay You May Want to Marry My Husband, and video ATM = Always Trust Magic
TRANSCRIPT
Today's topic is finding magic in dark times. Because we all know 2020 has been a difficult year for so many reasons, and those of us in the United States now in October are gearing up for an election, which is very, very stressful. So, I really feel that we need to find joy and magic wherever we can. This topic has been on my mind a lot lately, for that reason, and because I'm about to attend the Being Boss Gathering about magic and intuition, which is happening online while this airs.
If you don't know about Being Boss, it's a great podcast for creative entrepreneurs that has been amazing in terms of learning about stuff, but even more amazing in terms of community and inside their online community, the theme for this month is magic. So there's been lots of different things coming up around magic.
[00:01:44] If you hear “magic” and you're like, “Oh, that sounds really woo,” and you don't like that, you can just kind of substitute the word inspiration instead of magic, or whatever word resonates with you. I do kind of lean toward the woo side of things, but I also really like things to be practical and tangible in my coaching and teaching and life. So even if you are not that way, this will still be a helpful episode for you. If you are a spiritual, more “woo-leaning” type of person then you could think about magic in that way, whatever magic means to you. That's great.
Last week, Amy Krouse Rosenthal came across my consciousness again on Instagram. If you don't know who she is, she was this wonderful author/artist/intensely creative person. Her essay in The New York Times in their Modern Love column called You May Want to Marry My Husband got really famous, and that's how I found out about her. She published this essay 10 days before she died of cancer in 2017, and it's beautiful and very moving. And that led me to pick up some of her books, which are just filled with wonder, and it's kind of hard to explain exactly what they are until you pick one up, but I highly recommend it. I'll put some in the show notes. But she had a little saying: “A.T.M = always trust magic,” and I've been trying to take that to heart, especially in the last week or so.
If you've been listening for a while, or you're familiar with me and my work, you probably heard me talk about how I take a daily walk every morning, and that serves a lot of different purposes. It's exercise for my body. It is essential for me to maintain my mental health and manage anxiety and depression. It is crucial alone time, which I don't get a lot of these days, and it's also a way for me to just stay connected to myself, and listen to what's inside my head and kind of open up for those messages that you only hear when you get quiet.
I've been kind of using it to play with using my intuition lately to walk a certain way, and then I'll kind of just see if I get a feeling about should I go straight, should I go right? And on Monday, I had one of those little moments where I suddenly got a little nudge to turn and go to the Little Free Library that was at the end of the street on this dead end, even though I'm drowning in books, basically. I don't need any more books. I have too many things from the library that I need to return. But I was like, no, I'll just check it out. I'll see what's there.
Then as soon as I turned, this orange cat came running out from underneath the bush. And any time I meet a new cat in the neighborhood, or like, see one, even from far away, I get really excited. I'm very nerdy about cats, and you might know my cat Rusty is orange, and I love orange cats in general. So it's like, oh, yes, magic.
I saw the orange cat and it didn't really want to hang out with me. It was kind of scared and it ran away, but those little moments are like little almost like confirmations to me that, yes, you listen to your intuition, there is magic in the world. It's just like this little sparkle.
Whether that sounds silly to you or not, I just think it's really fun living in a city where you get to see these random things. You might see some random art that people did outside their house. You might see a sign. You might see a cool plant, an animal, all kinds of stuff. So my daily walk has taken on even more purpose than it previously had, and it's been an important part of my life for over 10 years now.
The last few days, also, I have felt better mentally during the first half of the day. I've let myself take a little bit longer walk and kind of make it more wandering, so it feels like this mini adventure and I can let my brain explore a little bit, which, staying home most of the time, it is really, really necessary for me to have that mental stimulation.
So I've started taking little pictures of fun things that I see on my walk and tagging them, #seenonmywalk in my Instagram stories. If you're into that, you can check that out. But I think this is proof that we can find magic in very unexpected places. We just have to be receptive to it.
I suddenly this weekend got a real urge to get crafty. I've had various craft related hobbies over the years. I even had a jewelry Etsy store for a while. Last year I took a weaving class for the first time and got super into weaving, and I've been collecting yarn, and all kinds of stuff. So, over the weekend, I pulled out my weaving stuff and just cranked out a little weaving on Sunday night, because it's the perfect analog hobby - you can do something with your hands, but not be holding your phone. I really like that about it. I like that it has parameters, but it has a lot of different choices. I also just like colorful things. I like the tactile aspect of it. Anyway, this podcast is not all about why I love weaving, but I really got passionate about starting to weave again.
So, on Monday I went to Michael's to pick up some yarn. I also got this embroidery kit recently that I wanted to pick up some embroidery floss for, and I found myself grabbing so many bright colors. I could tell that I was just really craving bright colors. Bright colors make me happy, I love jewel tones, I love colorful things over neutral things in general. So, I spent way more money than I planned to. I bought a whole bunch of fake colorful flowers to make a garland with, and this really brought me a lot of joy.
[00:08:13] It's tough right now because we are depleted in general, and it can be hard to find inspiration in all of this. Also just hard to have energy to collect inspiration or space in your head to even hear what's going on. So, it can be a hard balance to strike between seeking out inspiration, and just feeling like you need to rest, and you just want to park it on the couch and not have anything challenge your brain - that is very real and very justified right now.
Like I was saying before, inspiring adventures might be harder to come by right now because museums are closed. I'm in California, so a lot of stuff isn't open here, and maybe it is where you are. But there are a lot of public attraction-type things or interesting places to go that are just not open right now. So ,as much as I would like to take an adventure and explore, I might not be able to go to some of those places, so just roaming around outside is a great way to get a taste of that.
So I want to invite you, if you feel like you're starved for adventure, to take a mini adventure. I'm going to call it a noticing walk. Take 10 or 15 minutes or longer if you have the time, but it doesn't need to be a long period of time. Bring along a way to record information, like a notebook, or just your phone to take notes, in case you want to document what you notice.
[00:09:57] You can get more focused about it and you can pick a particular sense. I know for most of us, our vision is our most powerful sense that often overrides the others in terms of what we give the most weight to, but you can do any sense you want to really, except probably taste. Unless you're a dog listening to this, maybe taste would be a good one for you. But, musicians, you might want to record all the sounds that you hear on your walk. And that might be some inspiration. I actually have a little 5-day course of composition prompts for musicians, and that is one of the prompts: to take a little noticing walk.
Just having this chance to notice and to put your focus on these small things really might change your perspective ,and you might be amazed at what you come across that will delight you. I know it regularly happens to me because I'm looking for it, and if I wasn't looking for it, I probably wouldn't see it.
You could also get more specific with it, like, I'm only going to look for red things today or I'm going to pay attention to trees in particular. You can do this however you want to, whatever parameters feel good to you. You can also set no parameters and just be there to notice whatever comes your way. Whatever works for you is awesome. And you don't have to write anything down or record anything. It just might be cool to collect that stuff - these random noticings could lead to creative sparks. I know I could use those sparks wherever I find them lately, just being in a more low energy state in general. When I follow my curiosity, that's what makes me excited.
So, follow your curiosity. You can collect all these things and if you feel too depleted right now to connect the dots, that's totally fine. I've been thinking of all these little sparks of inspiration as like stars in the sky. And you'll just have, like, a little pile of stars, and you can connect them into constellations later on when it makes more sense to you.
I'm often really slow to integrate stuff like this. I spend a lot of time on the gathering phase, or the idea gathering phase of the creative process. And you know what? It comes together when it's supposed to. It might not be on the timeline that I want it to. I might have to be more patient than I thought, but just collecting is great. Maybe collecting is good enough for now.
I think bite size inspiration can be just as fun. If you're feeling like your creative spark has been lost over this very difficult year, and you're having trouble finding things that make you have fun and feel good, I have just the thing for you!
Back in April, I created the Feel Good Creativity Unchallenge. I no longer have a Facebook group, but we did it as a group in the Facebook group. It's 5 days of just bite sized, tiny little prompts that both inspire you to do something creatively and have you check in with something related to wellness so that you feel safe and supported in that creativity. They're ridiculously easy to do because I don't need more hard things in my life right now. You probably don't either.
So now that it's not in the Facebook group anymore, it's a 5-day email course, and it's totally free. I put a link to that in the show notes if you need a little pick me up an infusion of fun creativity in your life.
If you take a noticing walk after you listen to this, if you make any little posts on Instagram about what you saw. Be sure to tag me @rebecca_hass and I'll repost your stuff. I think that'd be really fun. I'm wishing you magic this week, and always.
Even when things are tough, we can always find those little sparkles of joy. And if you can't see any of those right now, they're still out there. You will find them. I know what it's like to feel like it's hard to find your joy. But even when you're depressed, it never lasts forever. I hope that within that, you can still find some of those little moments. Until next time, I'm wishing you well!
Pianist and composer