Smelling the flowers

What is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?

I've felt busy lately. Too busy.

I don't like feeling busy. Busyness gives me FOMO. Not fear of missing out on a party or whatever. Fear of missing out on something beautiful. A mama bird feeding its baby. The smell of lemon tree blossoms. Something someone said that I needed to hear.

I've heard writers talk about accessing the creative collective consciousness. Like, there are ideas that live in the air around us. And if we're quiet, if we're paying attention, we can pluck them right out of the clear blue sky. Just like that.

We all have access just the same, they say. Everyone of us. And what separates people who write songs or make art or invent from people who don't is the ability to pay attention. To tap into this stream in the sky. We gotta get in the way of the source. We gotta run into the spray of the hose on a hot summers day.

Yesterday on Instagram I shared this drawing above. In the caption, I lamented that it'd been too long since I'd drawn flowers. And I gushed about how much I love them. I really do. A definite muse of mine. My entire yard used to be a rose garden. Back AND front, y'all. IFYKYK

"The creative process unfolds as you find the essential tools in your toolkit. It means finding your subjects (not someone else’s) and finding your materials (not someone else’s) and most of all it means finding a way to live your life so that you can engage again and again the things you care about the most."

I read that somewhere. I  wish I could remember where.

Someone left a comment: "I always have to stop and soak in the flowers."  

I know it's not what she meant, but could you imagine actually soaking in flowers? Forget about stopping to smell them. Where is my flower bath? Yeah. I'm thinking maybe flowers are a part of my process. A spark of energy. A source. A tool in my toolkit. Could it be that simple?

Mary Oliver: 

Who made the world?
Who made the swan, and the black bear?
Who made the grasshopper?
This grasshopper, I mean—
the one who has flung herself out of the grass,
the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,
who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down—
who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.
Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.
Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.
I don't know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?

Oof. That one makes me tear up every time.

Jump + pray + smell the flowers 

Love,
Joce

PS - I've been making custom buttons lately and if you want some flowers on a button, just reply to this email with your address