Notes all over my floor
and thisss close to singing into a hairbrush
I’m in a DEEP declutter + harvesting season of… everything. My floor is covered in old notes, unearthed from the back corner of my closet, and I’m playing Meredith Brooks deep cuts from 2004.
On top of these notes, one happy cat is rolling around and one is meditating in loaf-mode, with her little paws curled under.
Here’s a note I wrote in… maybe 2021?
Here’s a “blind contour drawing” of flowers I did during an in-person workshop I taught about shifting from being a consumer to a creator (all about our relationship to screens and scrolling)
And here are some of the sketches for the Gentle Musings logo!
If you’re new here, harvesting is one of my go-to practices that I’ve been building on and refining for years. It’s a simple idea and a reliable system.
Harvesting is a focused practice of gathering insights and wisdom from your personal archives (journals, documents, notes, etc.). It’s a deliberate process of revisiting and cultivating meaning from your experiences and recorded reflections.
When I say a deliberate process, it doesn’t mean being stuffy or precious about the process! It gets to be contemplative and playful, if you want. It’s a creative process.
Step 1 is revisiting, step 2 is cultivating meaning and gathering insights. Harvesting is a form of creative reflection and creation (it’s active assemblage and synthesis, not just perusing the past).
Usually harvesting means going back to old journals, but not always. Today’s harvesting is all loose notes, drawings, and tear-outs from notebooks. From the notes I’m finding today, ideas are sparking for curriculum. I remembered an old piece of writing that I’d love to revisit and (if it feels right) rework... I also surfaced notes from a difficult chapter, and I’m feeling proud of how much I showed up for that time and compassion for how hard it was. Most of all, I’m appreciating how my creative practice is a layered exploration of the same questions and themes that I never get tired of.
If you’re feeling stagnant in your creative practice or don’t know what direction to take next, or even if you find yourself in a sudden bout of ‘I actually know nothing at all!’... Take my word for it: harvest and see what happens. And reach out if you want support in the process (really).
Keep an eye on Gentle Musings because I’ll be sending out the Harvesting Guide soon as a thank you for being part of this community <3 <3 (feel free to reply if you’re interested, and I’ll make sure you get it first)
You can read more about harvesting here:
STUDIO HAPPENINGS
As part of my intense declutter/harvesting mode, I’ve totally reorganized parts of my personal note-taking system (called Obsidian) and streamlined my project management. Here’s one part of the updated system
Doing this has helped me to see where things are in the pipeline so that I have a better sense of what’s happening in my creative ecosystem. In the midst of big change in my personal life, reorganizing my work systems has been seriously grounding.
Do you use obsidian?? Or Capacities? Notion? Good ole journals? Everything above?? I’d love to know how you organize your ideas and projects and what works for you. Reply and let me know!
After a slooow stretch of creative interviews for my project on women’s experience in arts-based higher education & creativity across time, I’ve finally moved on to the thematic analysis, where I’m finding patterns across interviews! I’ll share more here as soon as I can.
At the start of May, I spontaneously put ambient internet on pause. This has become something I do regularly and imperfectly. While I learn something new every time, I’m mostly learning the same things over again in a new way. This time around, I challenged myself to make a video about the process and after a headache with upgrading to Final Cut Pro, I’m glad to report there’s traction on this, too.
I’ve been in intense study mode with one of my all-time favorite teachers, Joanna Lindenbaum, and in community with so many inspiring women. We’ve done deep dives on trusting the mystery, exploring relationship to time, and this week was all about self-love. Pretty much bliss to me.
While I’m in this harvesting season and tinkering away with projects that have me in my creative cave, I’m going to share some Gentle Musings from the archives in the upcoming days (and maybe the deeeep archives if I’m brave enough). I hope this inspires you to revisit your old work, or old ideas that stayed as ideas, with new eyes.
In experimentation, iteration, and trying to practice creative patience (GAH)… thank you for being here. More soon xoxo
Maggy
Fuc* darling, here I sit trying to write a new song based on some what of an old one to record in studio for the first time ever, nervous? Fuc* yes, let's go anyway, when are you going to teach your online classes? I want the harvesting you wrote, by the way I might call this song The harvest, the harvesting