In this letter…
𓇗 an introduction to a new family member
𓇗 an exploration of iterations as a spiritual practice (!)
𓇗 an invitation to join the Growing A Writing Practice wait list, because wait list people will be getting a special notice this very soon!
Want to read this letter outside your inbox? Here you go.
This is Ondine.
Paracelsus, an alchemist and physician during the Renaissance, wrote of the four elements (as alchemists do) and how they are embodied by ‘elemental spirits’. For him, water was embodied by undines/ondines, or water nymphs (unda meaning wave in Latin). So here she is, little Oni… a very wavy, watery lady.
A reminder that I needed this week and maybe you might need it, too:
An iteration is a repeated utterance. It’s evoking the same thing in a thousand ways: painting the same painting in a thousand ways, dancing the same dance in a thousand ways, writing the same concept or narrative in a thousand ways. In other words, an iteration is the latest incarnation in your creative process.
Through embracing iterations, you let yourself be witnessed in the messy, wonder-full process of your own creative process.
As we stay in the process—whether tumultuous or flowing—something happens…
This is important! Let me break it down a little:
When I say ‘creative process’, I’m speaking to the process of you listening to your desires—specifically what you want to create in your life—through research, introspection, critical thinking (often of the non-linear sort), deep insight, and a ship’s worth of experimentation and best guesses also known as iterations.
Often categorized in four stages, I actually think of the creative process as swirled, cyclical, unexpected, and complex—it is a little ecosystem.
The way I see it, a creative process goes far beyond conventional notion of creativity. It extends to pursing a dream career, decluttering your home, choosing how you start your morning, the way you meet challenging emotions, how you cut down on social media, and so much more. Anything you make in your life, including making a choice, is a creative act.
The creative process—however you see it—is ultimately a process of connection. It’s weird, lonely, exhilarating, synchronistic, painstaking, confronting, and steeped with meaning.
Think of it as a living system where each new act stirs emergent expressions (something happens).
Noticing that something happens with each new choice is critical when it feels like nothing is working.
Through facilitating workshops and working with private clients, I’m convinced that we would all be a lot kinder to ourselves if we could only see our creative processes with more clarity.
I’ve seen it over and over: clarity often sparks the emergence of compassion, capacity, and a greater recognition of agency. It helps us to realize that there is a difference between feeling stuck and the creative process actually being stuck.
[Incoming caveat about the process itself being stuck… I’m thinking here of gatekeepers (being chosen) and very real limitations, both collective and individual. Just want to acknowledge this here because this can be a core influence on the experience of stuckness, hopelessness, and burnout in the creative process, and it can be too easy to take it personally. When this is the case, iterative thinking can still stir what it tends to stir: compassion, capacity, and agency—like seeking outside support, seeing new pathways of possibility, finding necessary shortcuts, learning a skill, etc.]
So long as the process is being attended to, if even for five minutes a day, something is happening.
Thinking in terms of iterations normalizes the nature of change. In a culture that lauds speed, embracing an iterative way of creating/thinking/being normalizes that whatever is worth doing takes time.
Iterations are how I built my life, and sometimes I forget that.
Even right now: whenever you see anything in the creative studio of Regarding Dew, it’s hundreds of iterations playing off one another in the latest incarnation.
As I shared in the beginning, I really needed this reminder after a summer of iterations feeling more taunting than life-giving.
If you needed it too, please do give this letter a heart, comment, or share it with someone who could also use the reminder.
As always, I’d love to hear what life and creative processes you’re in and how you feel in the current iteration.
Growing a Writing Practice is entering its next iteration… (!!!)
In Growing a Writing Practice, you will…
Explore ways to begin or enrich your writing practice with a solid, self-designed foundation that both honors the season of life that you are in and is adaptable enough to grow with you…
Meet all of the challenges that come along with writing with more ease. These include navigating resistance, the inner critic, breaking self-promises, and working with self-doubt so that it stops stopping you…
Develop practices to nurture self-reliability and self-forgiveness—two key aspects to life and creativity…
Learn techniques for generating and organizing ideas and different types of writing…
WRITE with the help of gentle reflective prompts. What you write is only yours to see!
Sound like what you need? Those on the wait list will hear from me in the next few days!
Growing a Writing Practice is based on Regarding Dew’s original first course: Growing a Practice in Creative Nonfiction. With an altered focus and honed curriculum, Growing a Writing Practice offers five weeks of luminous, pragmatic transformation.
In preparation for its return, I’ve been collecting a series of notes from famous people to show just how expansive a writing practice can be. Here’s Picasso’s notes from his daily practice of poetry, which he started at the age of 53.
Together, we’ll dive deep into the creative process, consistency, resistance, and techniques to support you in growing a writing practice that is truly your own.
If you want to hear about it first, you’ll want your name on the wait list!
Thank you for being here.
To circle back to iterations, I hope that my ‘repeated utterance’ lands:
Your creative longings and your continued willingness to act on those longings is a sacred, worthwhile process.
Maggy
Supporting you in reconnecting with yourself, experiencing life as a creative practice, and finally living out loud. Learn more here.
Regarding Dew is a small, independent business and your support and patronage mean the world. Through being a paid-supporter of this letter at $5/month and participating in the studio’s offerings, you are ensuring that Regarding Dew can keep going and growing. Thank you!