Tag: creativity

Health–the greatest gift

annebower

Here we are in the holiday season, giving ourselves and others the pleasure of special ceremonies, gifts, feasts, time together. As I was wrapping presents to send off to family I wished I could include a bundle of health! But of course, that’s impossible. No one can give anyone else health.

And yet. . . . I’m leaving some blank space there so you can think about this. What is it we each can do to make life healthier for others? As I type this, various thoughts float into my mind–

When I take care of my own health, I’m more able to be helpful to others.

When I prepare healthy meals for those at my table, their health may benefit.

When I teach tai chi, people in my classes gain multiple health benefits. Mostly I teach as a volunteer at the Senior Centers and I know many of you provide considerable volunteerism too.

When I contribute to organizations like Doctors without Borders, World Central Kitchen, the ACLU, I increase (in a very small way) the health and safety of people I don’t even know.

When I read good books, watch interesting (or even silly movies), observe art in galleries or museums, go to the theatre, concerts, and other performances, I see human imagination and skill at its best, inspired by others to encourage creativity in myself and others. Surely that is part of health too.

All those entries focus on what I think and do. What about you? Send along your comments and I’ll try to post them.

Thank you for reading these posts, using the videos on this website, taking tai chi classes, and inspiring me by what YOU do to take care of your health and the health of others.

Subzero and then

annebower

Up here in the Pomfret hills the landscape is still all white, blue, brown–hardly a leaf to be found. And it’s so cold. But it’s March, and you know what that means. Mud season will be upon us soon. Perhaps you don’t have to contend with dirt roads, but for those of us who do, this can be as challenging as ice and snow. When I first encountered the deep furrows and ridges of mud it felt like driving on a thick bed of writhing snakes! The car I drove back then had low clearance, but now I’ve a better vehicle which does help some.

Mud season means navigate carefully, don’t overcompensate, just keep going. Kinda like tai chi when you’re doing a challenging move. Or like creative endeavors where you have to overcome self-doubt and the writhing snakes of self-criticism. Just keep going.

Mud, mud, mud, words, words, words

annebower

Some years mud season is worse than others. This is a doozy and early too. The warm February weather has been melting snow up here in the Pomfret Hills, frost is oozing out of the ground, and our dirt roads are quite the challenge. The shifting ruts and puddles, the lumpy ridges and divots conspire to throw your vehicle this way and that. I guess this is what it feels like to ride a wild horse?

The unsettled and unsettling road echoes my writing mood these days. I’m riding the ridge of confidence one day and down in the rut of no-can-do the next. Lines of poetry slip and slide and can’t seem to find a rhythm. Paragraphs of fiction slither along and don’t really get anywhere. Now, this is not unusual. I’m sure all of you creative folks out there–whether your passion is paint or clay, dance or a musical instrument, acting or some form of writing, pen, pencil, puppetry–all of you go through this too.

I’m hoping that just as mud season will turn into spring, my writing mojo will return. Cheers to you and your energies as well.