Let's Get Grounded!
Our creative lives depend on our stability + upcoming virtual workshop Feb 11 & 18
Keeping Creative Time—regenerative writing from the other side of burnout.
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It is easy to get swept up in the high-frequency energies that are swirling around the planet. The quickest and most effective way of clearing all of this from your field is to ground yourself by connecting with Mother Earth.
—WORK YOUR LIGHT Oracle Cards by Rebecca Campbell
Hello, Creative Friends!
Yesterday I was all ready to edit and publish this letter to you. I planned to do my edits while coworking with another creative friend. The sun was out. The temperature for February 5th in Asheville was in the mid-60s, and I felt euphoric walking from my cowork office to my friend’s cowork office, with sunglasses on my face, and a spring in my step. The day was ripe with potential. Upon entering the lobby of Switchyards, the place delighted me with a basket of free stickers. (Who doesn’t love free stickers?)
This cowork office, all light and airy, was filled with other knowledge workers hunched over laptops. We started our session with a card pull from my friend’s orcale deck, chatted about our projects, set a timer, and got to work. But when I went to read my own words, I got stuck.
My edits started to take the piece into a very different direction, diving deeper into what I really need to say. On one hand this is good news, I’m not writing to be surface level, on the other hand I started to get frustrated with myself, “But I’ve got to publish something. Why is writing so easy for everyone else? But laborious for me. And why can’t I just say what I want to say?”
Later in the afternoon when my car battery died and I could not get to my acupuncture appointment (I’d left the key in the ignition to open the windows while spending an hour on a video call with my therapist), I started to feel frantic. I’d run out of time before the appointment to each lunch. I was overheating and getting more and more dehydrated as the minutes ticked by, then while listening to the very patient car insurance representative inform me that while my policy covered roadside assistance, I’d have to pay for the battery jump out-of-pocket and submit a reimbursement claim unless I joined the Motor Club, a separate membership with another fee, and that using the app to request the service usually comes with higher out-of-pocket cost, I started to feel my head begin to explode!
In a less than five hours I moved from euphoric to frustrated to furious. So I took a breath. Asked my partner to stop by on his way home from work to jump the car battery, texted another creative friend who let me vent a little, responding with the message that the world is upside down right now, and that it is not my fault, insert heart emoji before reminding me, “Energy management is key.” I walked back to Cowork, drank a glass of water, rescheduled my acupuncture appointment for the next morning, and ate a bowl of kitchari while swaying on the wooden swing we have in the office common area.
I have all the tools that I need. It was going to be okay.
Today, after acupuncture, the world feels a little more stable under my feet. And I’m writing to you. I’m going to publish this. I’m not going to do more than a basic copyedit. I’m not going to labor over it for hours but rather ride this wave of grounded energy that propels me to the next thing. And maybe that next thing is revising that original letter, but probably not. I think I’m going to turn it into something new. You see, the writing was a springboard, and I was resisting the forward motion. I do that a lot.
Staying stuck is a learned habit.
Getting grounded, breathing air, drinking water, eating nourishing food, feeling the floor, the sidewalk, each step that I take under my feet as the earth holds me—this is the base foundation for my body. Going to acupuncture, it’s like the heating and cooling system, it redistributes my creative fire, so it doesn’t get too hot and erupt all over someone. Allows my nervous system, which has been frayed to threads from living with with a forty-year-buildup of chronic stress + continuing to exist in the the world as it is right now, keeps my mind and body in stable working order. And bodies and minds in stable working order, rather than broken down and clinging to life in a past era, is how we adapt, survive, and in time, thrive.
So let’s all get grounded! It might just save your life right now.
(I’m loving these “Work Your Light” oracle cards! They came highly recommended by my creative friend and you can find them in my Bookshop.) ✨
🛠️ Upcoming (Virtual) Workshop for Creative Repair
If you’re interested in joining me virtually for some grounding into your relationship with stress and creativity, there are still spots left in my upcoming two-part workshop with In the Studio Online.
We’ll meet on Zoom for a two hours for two weeks to move ourselves beyond the feeling of powerlessness that burnout creates by learning the knowledge and tools of real self-care, the stress response cycle, and how repairing our relationships with ourselves can heal our relationship with our creativity, in this two-part workshop for curious creatives seeking personal growth and support in a community of care.
It’s happening Tuesday, February 11 & 18 from 1 to 3 p.m. You can learn more and register below.
I’m so delighted to be showing up for myself, and for all of you today. Writing this message was not laborious—it was fun!—and it released some stress I’d stored in my body. It picked those weights from the world up off the floor, and wound my creative clock back together for another day.
So I ask you now, what winds your creative clock today?
Until Next Time
Take care y’all, and thanks for being here with me. Let’s cheer—to time! And before you go, enjoy a song from the playlist I call . . . Odes to Time.
Gregory Alan Isakov —“The Stable Song”—That Sea, The Gambler, 2007.
<3Faye
Keeping Creative Time is a newsletter and guide for navigating the artist’s journey from burnout to creative well-being. Each week, Faye, a holistic librarian in Asheville, shares stories and tools to help you regenerate—and keep your creative power.
J. Faye D'Avanza, MSLIS
A librarian helping you thrive in your whole creative life.
Disclosure: I am an affiliate of Bookshop.org and I will earn a commission if you click through and make a book purchase from one of the book links I’ve shared. ☺️❤️📚