Between the Moon - Ep 19: Unblocking Creative Constipation

Episode Date: July 16, 2024

“A river of material flows through us.When we share our works and our ideas, they are replenished.If we block the flow by holding them all inside,the river cannot run and new ideas are slow to appear.”― Rick Rubin, The Creative Act: A Way of BeingToday’s episode explores reasons why we get “backed up” and seasons of having “the runs” - creatively speaking.The poop metaphor came out of a writing course I took recently that offered a way of understanding creativity akin to a daily physical need. It a visceral reminder not to belabor the act of writing, speaking, drawing, designing, painting, creating… just s**t and get off the pot.Easier said than done.Lately I’ve had too many ideas without a way of relieving myself and so this episode is honestly a way for me to loosen things up and take some of the pressure off. There’s no straining here - I even chose to not edit the ummms our of this one.So here we go - let’s consider the energy of our own creative cycles in relationship to:* where ideas come from and where they go* outlets and containers for creativity* noticing times of gestation* tracking times of output* looking to the harvest cycle as it relates to the energy of the Leo archetype* remedies for creative constipationSpirals at the center of the seedPomegranate seed reference image mentioned in this episode: Punica granatum in Köhler's Medicinal Plants 1897 by Walther Otto MüllerThe process from draft to completionThis is the Harvest Cycle Artwork series that I created last year for the 2024 Lunar Wall Calendar. In the episode I share about why I left this particular one until the very end.Thanks for reading and listening!Between the Moon is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts it’s easy to become a free or paid subscriber. This helps egg me on to create new content.Before you go, leave a comment about your own experiences with cycles of creativity and what you do to keep from getting backed up because I’m sure you have some ideas that would be helpful to hear!! This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit themoonismycalendar.substack.com/subscribe

Welcome, dear listener, to Between the Moon, a podcast about self-study in relationship with cycles. I'm your host, April McMurtry, founder of The Moon is My Calendar. Hello, dear listener. This episode is about creative cycles and how those cycles can get plugged up. So I'm going to explore two forms of creative constipation and look into a little bit of the, what's called the harvest cycle or what comes from the book of houses and the artwork that I created for this year's wall calendar, the 2024 lunar wall calendar, and how that was just an illustration of this process of creative constipation. This is meant to be lighthearted and humorous and playful in the way that anyone that, you know, for those of you listening, who engage in life with your own creative ideas and bringing those into the world, that, you know, it can, those cycles that can just be tricky to keep things flowing. and this parallel with constipation then the constipation that comes from getting stopped up.

The idea, I want to say, came from a writing course that I just took recently called Writing with the Sword with Simone Sol. And in it, you know, a lot of the exercises were really to help things flow. And the connection then was made to, how having like regular digestion is a part of regularly digesting the creative ideas and having them go somewhere, giving them an outlet. So this could, you know, tie in with what might feel like procrastination or putting something off until things are, you know, just right timing or whatever the sometimes what can feel like an excuse, I think it's also important to honor and acknowledge

that we each have our own creative cycles. And in the episode before this in my conversation with astrologer Bronwyn-Simon-Simon-Monds, we talk about the flow of creativity and the way that Dr. Clarissa Pinkola Estes, the author of Women Who Run with the Women, wolves and creative fire. She describes this cycle. So if you're interested in that and also how the cycle of creativity relates to some of the zodiac signs, you can go back and listen to the previous episode, which I believe this episode, let me see. Here I am in Substack right now as I'm recording to go back and see when that last episode was. So, there's so much to explore. So that was episode 18 from May of 2024.

Okay, so I feel like that this setting the stage then to talk about writing is one form of creative acts, but there are so many. And the so manyness can be what actually creates the condition for constipation so that it's not actually a lack of ideas, but a lack of output, meaning there's something that arises and then gets held inside, and then the next thing arises and gets held inside. And then that continues until they're so, like, being full to the brim that that backlog just creates a pressure and there's a stoppage or a blockage. So in our own body that can happen to become like plugged up.

So I'm saying so a lot, but that's my, that's my word for pause. I'm going to be a little more aware of that. the impulse to say so the blockage then and what that feels like it can be so painful and so how to it's impossible for me to not say so at this point how to allow for the creativity

in whatever form it wants to take to find expression and because this is a podcast and this work of Between the Moon and the Moon is my calendar asks us to look at our cycles, asks us to notice and pay attention and tune into the subtleties of when there is energy that flows. Like honestly, for me in the springtime, there is this, it's like, it's like, having the runs, literally creativity, it's going to just be poop metaphors, is flowing and flowing and flowing and flowing. And those channels feel very open for expression, especially if I have

a project that I'm working on, which the artwork for the lunar wall calendar has given this structure and a framework for the ideas and a place for them to go. Last year then, so that, hopefully that sort of an understanding of how can I just like we wake up in the morning and go the bathroom there's the need for the body to release and with creativity there's a need for the need for the soul the spirit the you know the mind the emotional self whatever part even just the hands, the heart needs to release something into the world. And that can find many forms. So it's not just drawing and painting,

although often that's how I think for myself. When I'm in a creative zone, I have a painting or multimedia project that I'm working on. That at this point is like self-imposed. meaning I've put myself up to the challenge of creating a series of something. Rather than, and I haven't fully lived and embraced that daily, there's been times, but it has ebbed and flowed around a daily drawing practice, for example. I feel like, especially with things like the 100-day process, project that I think Ella Luna started.

And I participated several times, like the starting out is super fun. And again, this goes back to the creative cycles and energetic cycles that we talk about in episode 18. But that starting out energy of, oh, I'm going to start something, the sustaining part that can be a challenge for many of us to keep going. And then when it comes time to transition and say, well, this chapter or this project or whatever it is has come to a close, like when there's no more steam or juice or energy behind it, sometimes what I see in projects like the 100-day project, which is fantastic when there's this container that's created, that it helps it be easier to just like get up and go to the bathroom. I'm going to get up and I'm going to draw the spirals or I'm going to create a mandala with leaves. For me, I did 100 days of radiant openings one spring.

And so it was just a quick sketch of flowers or a flower that was at particular phases on that day in a tiny notebook. And it was just a very easy way. and energy started to build then. Rather, build not in a way of getting stopped up like a dam, but build in a way that felt more electric because there was an outlet for the energy to go to rather than staying inside. So how can I tell?

How do I tell if I'm creatively constipated? My mind jumps from one idea to the next. I think of a project and my mind can move very quickly and I see it through all the way to the end. And I'm like, I question, do I even want to go through with this? Because I can already sense or feel what the end result will be. Sometimes I have a feeling that something's only worth creating. If it's not all the pieces are clear that there's some gap that is where leaving room and space for magic and co-creation and unknown to come in.

Like that's what I personally get drawn into because of not having the answers and the whole picture known ahead of time. That there is this, for me it guarantees that there will be this stretching and growth and a little bit of that edge that also can, it's like the energy of being dared to do something. And so last year, I dared myself to create 12 paintings, 12 mixed media pieces with one for each of the houses in the astrological chart. And so each of those pieces being a stage stage.

in the life of the pomegranate cycle. So layering in the plants and the energy of the houses and how could those two things be in conversation with each other? So it felt very exciting and there's a lot of energy around it for me. So I got to a certain, I got like halfway and then took a pause probably because a number of reasons. One being it felt like a good head start

and other things were also happening at the same time, so it took a back burner. Then that constipation started of the feeling of deadline coming for the project. It was summertime. And so this is something, you know, for each of us to look at it seeing seasonally,

to what is the how is the creative energy flowing at different times of year and I know for me that in the summer it's harder to focus and kind of get down to to work and really follow through on ideas or things like actually completing things there isn't the same kind of structure that feeling of yeah I could probably self-impose something but it doesn't feel like it flows with the energy of that time for me and for some of you that may be a very different experience but for me the darker colder months and the the awakening of the beginning of spring is like everything comes more alive for me and then there's a lull and then that lull and then that lull being in the summertime and then coming back to life starting in the fall.

So creative cycles and how, you know, this question around how each of us understands or talks to ourselves about how that energy of creativity flows. Okay. So we have one reason for creative constipation being too many ideas. that don't have an outlet, that things that get stopped up. And then all of a sudden, there's no way to act on any one of them. And it could feel a little like a dog chasing its tail, you know, going, going in circles or a kind of a whirlpool. So that's one possible experience that can be remedied by a challenge of some kind.

you know, whether it's a 100-day project or, you know, a week-long thing, or, you know, having some structure that's maybe time-bound, or having an idea for a series, or I wonder if how are these things in conversation like the harvest cycle and a particular plant. and that's what's always fascinating to me. So the other form of creative constipation can come from possibly saving the hardest thing for last. So this is what happened for the artwork in 2024 is that I got halfway through, and then summer came, and summer was coming to an end. And I was on a road trip,

with my husband to go to a wedding and I realized I was like I have to finish the artwork this weekend if I'm going to make the deadline to be able to produce the calendar. And I will admit there's something that's still chemically biologically something that I get hooked into that what can be felt as a pressure or the adrenaline of stress that gets the gears moving and without that coming down to the wire kind of a feeling, I have noticed that it's harder to like jump into action. And yet that whole experience sparks this like fear and panic in me. Also knowing that I, whatever it means to perform well under pressure, who knows? I mean, this for any of you who were like athletes or I was a competitive swimmer, it's like you get on the blocks and it's like

this build up and then the rush of like it's go time, you know, of a, a, a, a per semitable. You know, of a performance are being on. So I'm still finding ways to create those conditions that don't mean that I'm bringing my materials to like a wedding where I'm leaving things early to go back because I'm working on something. I mean, it was fun and what came through was like surprisingly wonderful, but I'd save the hardest for last. I'd saved the images where I wasn't quite sure. sure how the pomegranate cycle was going to match up with a particular house, what it was going to look like. I didn't have sketches and I had just my own internal feeling about things that I know now that more of the exploration and drafts were very helpful to just try something without it having to be

the final the final result on the first attempt and I did write a short article about this on Substack which is one of the moonflower entries that I found myself noticing the experience of

often the first draft carries like a very a live energy and then so I have avoided doing drafts because I want that energy to be in the final piece.

This creates constipation because then there is pressure to get it right the first time which the muse and the spirit and all of that you know, if they could be given voice, would probably be pleading to have that pressure taken away so that it can just be play. So the very last image that I saved for last, ironically or unironically, it just happens to be the image that goes with the fifth house.

And for those of you who are familiar with astrology and the house system, the fifth house is often associated with play, with children, with creativity, and themes that could be seen as parallel with the energy of the Leo archetype. This is the one that I saved for last, and I think is because it was the least literal. Like, how do you portray the energy? of the stage of a pomegranate's growth and development in its own stage of creative play, in its expression of the joyous magic of, like, all the stage has been set, the plant, the tree, the structure and roots are there, and now it's time for the gardener, the artist, to step back and to dance and do cartwheels and not go into work mode. And so it's not as literal as something like the next house, the sixth house, which is associated with buds and the budding and flowering.

It's like before the bud happens, what is happening or before the bud like emerges, what's happening internally within the plant that's like that energy that builds and builds that's getting ready for a bud to form. And so I wanted to depict that, but it was like this out-of-reach mystery unknown that I had been playing with inside myself, but didn't yet have a way to know like what the expression, what form it would take. So this is another, in terms of creative constipation, that lack of play or the, or the, saving the hardest for last that then creates possibly a freeze experience. However, I was committed to printing the calendar and I had worked with a catalog for wholesale distribution and I was pretty much at the deadline.

And so it was putting myself in a position to almost not have a choice whether I liked it or not. I was going to have to do something. And in a little strange, twisted way, it was very freeing because I didn't have a year to plan and sketch and come up with what this particular painting was going to look like. I had like less than 24 hours. And I don't want to minimize all of the things that don't necessarily look like work, the daydreaming, the imagining, the feeling, the considering lots of possibilities. I've been working on this series for 10 years in the back burner. If not more, it's just that it came up to the surface last year, but not fully formed.

and that's that creative stretch. Anytime we're in a creative mode, there is an energy of, that can have a little bit of an agitation around what's next. How is this like, I don't know, I think possibly like it's different than coloring in a coloring book where the lines, where things are already outlined. That can be relaxing.

and soothing in its own way. And it's not to say it's not a form of creativity that allows for that constipation to be released in increments because it is connecting the hand and the heart. And it's very meditative for the mind in the creativity of that involves the unknown

that feels like there's it's a practice in taking risks and being bold in making a choice so an artist is a person who makes choices that come from some creative knowing it could even be you know where to plant

seeds and plants in what arrangement and formation. That is making a creative choice. How much of a particular spice to put in, how much ginger to put in when it's not just following steps? It'd be like dancing and adding in your own special something, something of your own flair and flavor and uniqueness. So all of this to say, here I was under the wire, working with the themes of the fifth house and working with a pomegranate seed and wanting to express like, what is that energy,

what does that feel like? And in the end, this particular painting, I mean, I really love them all for different reasons, but this one has a particular energy that came through in a very visceral way. I'm looking at the painting right now as it's on the month for July and the August cycle. And this year, 2024, the July August cycle started with the new moon, July 5th in cancer. And then we'll have like half of the, you know, when the sun, the houses that correspond to, when the sun moves into each sign of the zodiac. We'll move into Leo, move into zero degrees Leo,

which does have some variation year to year. Right now, I'm just looking in the book of houses, the astrological guide to the harvest cycle in human life. One of my, like, very most favorite books that connects the plant cycle and natural cycle, with astrological cycles that can be applied to our own creative energy. So this is my love and passion and way into living and embodying some of the principles within astrology and always playing with and questioning how these energies do show up.

So it feels like a very lifelong, a lifelong inquiry. So July 23rd, which is right after the full moon. So the sun moving into the sign of Leo. So anyway, I'm looking, this is the artwork. And the inspiration came from a botanical illustration. That botanical illustration, hold on, I just had it up. I'm going to look in my history.

So from in 1897, and this was by someone named Walter Otto Mueller, who lived in the 1800s, and created botanical illustrations. So in this one, and I'll put it in with the notes for this episode on Substack. oh my gosh i love this i had so many source images that i was drawing from for inspiration and this one has a cross section of an individual kernel of the pomegranate seed and inside is this is spiral and so i i felt like that spiral is the galaxy that spiral is our thumbprint and and basically how life unfolds in a spiral. And so for the creative play and this particular piece that I left for the very last,

because it was the least literal, how to depict creative growth. And the sort of the subheading of this particular chapter in the Book of Houses says, you feel playful, your dreams for this year are taking shape, and it's exciting. and the fifth house is across from the 11th house. I do want to, I've, one of the, one of the, what's been impacting me with the creative constipation is like, I have wanted to do a series on the houses that go along with the artwork, the harvest cycle artwork and the concepts that are there,

because they're so, like, the practical application and the language that it gives for understanding cycles is so valuable and it's so useful and simple and relatable because it's a mirror of the natural world. It's the terrestrial expression of that celestial movement of the sun through the houses. So where was I? That's one of the things that is just like the plug is there because that feels big and exciting and it's also mixed in with a bunch of other ideas that don't yet have their container to go into. So I felt like I wanted to make this episode just as like a breaking of that seal for the to relieve myself of some of that pressure and build up intention. So that is one like what do I want to call?

it, do I want to have the, you know, exploration of the houses and the energy of creative cycles be a series on substack? Is it something I want to run as a course? Is it something that's a month long or a year long? All of the details of the container or the form that it would take, you know, I could just go around in circles forever without. releasing something into the world. So this is a first, not a first, but it's an ongoing attempt. And a reminder that it's okay to not have the answers or have everything in place. I am reminding myself that I can still show up and share without having everything worked out.

So Fifth House and Eleventh House, which is, at least in this book and system, the starting place because it's the place of choosing the seeds, the seeds that will then be a part of the creative dance and play six cycles or six months later at the fifth house. And all of this, what I'm talking about is the seasonal solar year in the Northern Hemisphere, which, then is unique and different for each of us depending on our own birth chart. So there's more of like a template for understanding the timing and then an application and a personalization. Anyway, getting back to the seed and the spiral, this kernel had the spiral at the center. So I just started and I created a draft because it was like it's go time. There isn't, I don't believe in time running out. However, I didn't want the consequences that would come with not turning this in.

And I don't have a boss telling me what to do. So I didn't even, I didn't have to. It's like me holding myself to my own, what's the word? holding myself to the commitment of something I have chosen to follow through with. And I actually, at this point, at this point in the whole creative cycle for me, I reached out to a friend and a colleague that I know who is a coach and who helped me move through some of this resistance. So it can be called many things. It can look like procrastination. It can look like resistance. It can look like just the feeling of squirming, squirming, squirming,

squirming, squirming, trying to get out of something, even though, you know, the important part is identify, is this actually a choice that you want to follow through with, like a hundred-day project or something or is it something that's self-imposed because it seems like it's a good idea but it's actually more creating more resistance rather than more flow all of these the subtle awareness of our own how our energy is moving is can come from that practice of self-study in relationship with cycles and the lunar tracking and noticing yourself and noticing the moon and noticing the moon and noticing you know, as I'm speaking, it's just after the first quarter and seeing this mirror of how can I not get stuck, you know, it's almost like if that a broken record, right, of like if the

moon didn't move past a certain phase, if it just got stuck at the first quarter, it'd be like this broken record that goes over the same place over and over and doesn't move through. and that could happen in creative cycles that create that backup and the constipation. This particular piece for me has the most, like, aliveness and energy and is the most abstract that wouldn't necessarily reference back to a pomegranate, but knowing that internal spiral at the center, the core of the kernel, the almost like firework jellyfish galaxy nature of the energy of this piece is a way and my way of expressing what the fifth house that feeling of being lit up that feeling of creating art for

the sake of the play of it um and the love light that streams through that's like generated through the process of engaging in that. In the piece there's two, four, six, eight, ten, eleven. So there's 11 seeds that then have become this like their own spiral, playful galaxy 11. And that, you know, there's layers, there's symbolic layers that are in there of, and this for 11 as it relates to the sun and the moon, 11 is the amount of days that are different

between 12 lunar cycles and a solar year. So it's 12 cycles plus 11 days with the moon to meet up with the sun. So throughout the artwork, that's why there's 11 of each of the seeds or the buds or the different stages. And then the moon itself is, The moon themselves is another seed which then creates 12. That's the 12 lunar cycles. So let's see.

I pulled up a quote because I, yeah, just wanting to tie this back into, now I clicked away from my draft. Let me see if it's there. There it is. A quote from the book, The Creative Act, A Way of Being by a brick, Rubin and he writes, A river of material flows through us. When we share our works and our ideas, they are replenished.

If we block the flow by holding them all inside, the river cannot run and new ideas are slow to appear, which is another way of saying becoming constipated. If those ideas, whether or not there's a fear that no more ideas will come, like a scarcity kind of issue, or having too many ideas that they're like fast and furious and don't have an outlet, whether or not they're seen through all the way, whether or not it's just writing it down and then burning it and saying like, thank you, muse, or thank you for, you know, wherever you feel like the ideas are flowing to you from, thank you, but this one's not for me or not now. And getting it out rather than holding inside of like, hmm, someday or

maybe when or hmm. And I am, as I speak, I am definitely in that mode and have been actually for, in terms of teaching projects and other things, yes, there is a period of incubation that's super important and gestation that's not about output, that's about the inner experience. And that's also very important to value rather than creativity only being output, output. it. But when there's a feeling of constipation and stuckness and when the ideas actually do maybe start to dry up or just feel like they may arise, but then they just feel like buried or inaccessible or heavy or a burden even. It's probably a sign that it's time to do some clearing. some releasing and even if an idea seems like brilliant but it's contributing to the stopping of the flow

to engage in some possibly form of release or giving that seed a place to go or saying you know giving it back to the earth to the wind to the elements and saying thank you so much for this beautiful seed, I'm not in a place to tend to it and setting it free. Yeah. And the part that's like the constipation part is like the strain, the strain of like getting things out into the world, whether it's for other people to see or not. I think that's another, especially for those of us who have, know, shared our process on social media or in places where others, you know, like substack, for others to see, there's always a lot behind the scenes. And that takes some discernment around like what is just for me, like the sketches that I do on a plane or while I'm sitting

and waiting for something that just are for the hands to move the hand and to make marks. And then what is created that may be for other people? And even in the work I read the quote by Rick Rubin, there is this sense of always creating for yourself first, like finding that light, that juice or that, you know, tingle of energy that there's something beckoning you. and doing it for yourself first, that there is a pleasure and a joy

and engaging with the process and that it may find its way to others. And that may help or hinder. It's just seeing sometimes for me with the artwork for the lunar wall calendar, it does help to know in advance that there will be, this is going this is something that I want to and I'm setting myself up to share with an audience it raises the stakes and there's something in me that need like stakes high to then rise to that occasion

and create something that often I did not prior think I was capable of and that's a little you know that's on that edge of can I pull this off and I don't don't want to live in that space. However, it's contributes to the generating of rising to the task or the dare, or the dream, I wonder. And I'm now even considering how that energy of Leo and possibly the fifth house, the energy of loving an audience, not necessarily because it's just a need for attention, which feels like a very human need.

Like what if nobody ever noticed us or gave us their full attention? Like how good that can feel to have full attention. And also how scary it can feel to like have eyes on you and you're like, I'm just figuring things out, I'm doing my best, but is it helpful for people to watch and at what point in the process, if that makes sense? But the play of having someone else to share something with, of I've created something that's full of my own life force and energy and creativity and having that desire to spark imagination

and to spark connection. Yeah, it is a gift. And I'm realizing now, because I was creating the artwork up to the wire of then production and promotion and all of that, that the cycle there hasn't necessarily been stepping back for the reflection to get to tell the story of or to give voice to some of these pieces and I feel like that's what is coming through and what I what I wanted to share with this particular episode is is to pull back the curtain a little bit on the creative process to play with some of the ideas about how creativity flows and what stops or blocks that flow

and also to highlight the fifth house and the energy of Leo and to pose that inquiry to you about how might you express or depict the essence of the expression of that creative growth and the mystery of the mystery of that creative growth and the mystery of what compels a pomegranate tree to put out, to spark something that then becomes the bud and the flower and the fruit with the seed. And that similar energy within each of us that sparks a creative growth of dedicating energy to whatever that bud is that then takes on a life of,

of its own. I hope this has been, what do I hope this has been? I hope at least some, I found it very humorous to think about creative constipation and that straining because it's a very visceral and I imagine universal has any, has everyone been constipated at least, you know, once in their life. It can be very painful. like labor kind of or not just kind of. When I was giving labor, I definitely felt like that was like, oh no, I'm pooping,

but no, it was actually a baby, just that feeling, that sensation. And the relief in the release that our creative life ideally does not build up to that amount of, you know, pressure where there's no nowhere else for something to go that just backs up. So and what are laxatives? I don't know. It's like the prunes, like what do you go to when like something needs to be softened to move through?

What might that look like as a creative practice? And again, I'm still sorting out what is that that's behind the scenes, the scenes that nobody else ever sees or knows and what is that for sharing as a contribution to a conversation about self-study and relationship with cycles. Okay, signing off here and I will say I would love your comments, just if anything in this episode sparked an idea or a question or a thought. or some way that this has played out in your own life. I would love to hear that.

That helps, I know for me, engagement and exchange of ideas is something that helps for creativity to flow. If I'm just left to my own self and own devices, everything just like stays inside and builds and builds. So share in the, if you're on substack, there's a place to share in the comments. be amazing. And if you haven't subscribed already to the podcast or to the substack, there will be,

as I mentioned, I mean, I would love to have an announcement, but who knows I'm putting it out there when the stakes are higher to put something out there. Like, hmm, what about a fun course exploration of the houses and depicting that. energy of those that we have some kind of a visual reference or record to relate to as the sun moves through the houses in our in our own charts so that yeah I don't have an announcement about that but that has been brewing inside of me and it's fun to keep secrets and then build up and then ooh make a big announcement but that leads to constipation when there isn't it hasn't yet been figured out yet so that is to be to be to be to be to be determined and if it sounds

exciting to you then of course let me know often if I get one person writing me about a particular course I've taught in the past that they want to have offered I I I like things that to respond too. Okay. Thank you so much for being here and I will see you next time on Between the Moon. If you like this podcast, please subscribe, leave a review, share it with a friend, all the things to help it reach more people who will benefit in some meaningful way. I'm April and I'll be with you next time on Between the Moon.