Between the Moon - Ep 20: Making Space for Seeds in the Idea Garden

Episode Date: July 28, 2024

“When ideas are suspended in a place of possibility for too long, they either need to come down to earth or be set free.”Today’s episode will help you understand what kind of gardener you are when it comes to creative projects.We explore our relationship to the seeds we want to bring through a whole harvest cycle and practices that help keep the creative channels from getting clogged. Having a creative practice is like planting a garden; some seeds seem to sprout over night and other takes years, generations, or even lifetimes. Bringing awareness to how we tend to them informs each new season and solar cycle.Clearing physical clutter creates breathing room to allow space for each idea to take form. Applying an understanding of cycles to your relationship with creativity and can help you figure out how to process unfinished projects.Hopefully you find this episode super generative and fruitful! If you do, please leave a review while you’re feeling inspired and consider subscribing on your favorite platform!!If you’re listening somewhere other than Substack, here’s where I publish the podcast in case you want to view the images or leave a comment: https://betweenthemoon.substack.com p.s. I recorded this episode while sitting on a rock in the mountains, so you may hear some wind in the background. May this wind give your seeds wings!!Between the Moon is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts as they are released, it’s easy to become a free or paid subscriber. 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. Okay, welcome back to part two of this series on cycles of creativity and exploring our own relationship and dynamic to the seeds that we, choose to bring through a whole harvest cycle. I'll explore that a little more and give some ideas and tips for how you apply your understanding of cycles to your relationship with your own creativity. I want to start by saying after I released the previous episode, which was about causes of creative constipation. So really looking at that experience of feeling like backed up. or blocked or having this backlog of ideas or just of projects or things that you might be working on

that are perhaps on the back burner. I'm going through this myself and so what I'm sharing is part of this exploration of how to keep the channels open and how to really bring awareness to each stage and phase of the harvest cycle from seed to harvest. to compost to seed again. So after I released the previous episode, I found myself with this energy of wanting to clear things out. And what's interesting is sometimes when we address clutter in our life, it doesn't actually have to be directly related to the thing we're trying to address or do.

So I have many projects related to the moon is my calendar. But after the episode, I went straight to my closet. And my closet is the place where anything that needs to be mended or anything that my kids have grown out of. Or there's just some like the place where things that are no longer in circulation. Like if something's taken out of circulation, it ends up in that. this pile in my closet. So I went straight there and pulled out all of the mending projects that were buried in this crate. And I had the energy to, and the discernment to look at them and say, okay, these pajamas pants, is anybody going to wear these again? Can they become a rag? Do, you know,

I think one of the things with the backlog can be, what do I do with this? If I actually, don't need this anymore, whether it's an idea or an object or something in your life. What do I do with it? That is a place of stuckness and an energy of stuckness. And so that can be held in many areas of our life, in our home, in our relationships, even, things that just feel like they're in this holding pattern. So my, um, invitation then is if you're feeling stuck in some creative area of your life where you want to have more momentum or more energy, it's possible. I don't think it's procrastination at all to look at and address another area of your life where you might feel stuck. It's almost like wherever the block,

where a block is, releasing any amount, like opening the channel, any amount can help with the other areas. And I'm wondering if you've experienced this as well or kind of have played with this. So I went to the mending pile. I found one of my favorite dresses that I forgot. It had a little hole like on the backside in a very unfortunate place. And it wasn't on the seam, so I couldn't just sew it up. It was like snagged and sort of torn. And I found some fabric that I made a patch out of and put on that's like really basic and simple. But the energy to do that felt like it had just been sitting there. And so maybe batching, you know, if it is this mending thing, there's a sweater where the cuff had come unraveled. And it was my, it still is my mom's, but I have taken it. And I have

had this sweater. She's had it since she was a teenager, but I've probably had it the last almost 20 years. Love the sweater. And it's been taken out of circulation because it's just kind of ridiculous. as the cuff, you know, came unraveled. So there were probably five or six projects that within maybe an hour or an hour and a half, I mended all of them. And that energy felt like it was freed up in this way that I didn't even realize was really another place of stuckness. So the clearing out of clutter, I know there's, I mean, of course, Marie Kondo comes to mind many teachers who share their wisdom of ways to declutter. Looking at why there's clutter in the first place, as a practice of self-study, just can be bring a lot of insight into, am I not sure what I want?

And so I say yes to things because in the meantime, I don't really know what it is. so there becomes accumulation because of that. Is it because of a real challenge with letting go of anything? And so that more of that holding onto that in the physical form creates that backup and that constipation. These are, you know, deeply embedded patterns that starting small, really like the mending pile, it's not a small thing at all. But energy was freed up to then address this area of stuckness. So looking at where there is accumulation, in like the creative space and maybe the materials that you work with in terms of like

pencils and pens and paper and pastels and paints and all those things, there may be some that you really love and work with on a regular basis. there may be some that feel like, oh, someday I want to learn how to work with this medium. And it might just be sitting there with that someday energy. So someday energy turns into this form of stuckness because of being held in this realm of possibility. When there's too many things that are in that realm of possibility, it creates a backlog and it creates energy. that's just in this holding pattern. And so that's another, just an invitation to look at

and possibly even make a list of, what are all the someday things that I have that might be ideas for projects or even the physical materials themselves. And see if there's, I mean, it takes energy then to not just throw something away, clearly to find a use for it. So it's not going to wait.

to donate, you know, to donate any art materials or lots of people will put things on or even only use Facebook as a place to go to the buy nothing group to donate and share things within their local neighborhood. But finding some forum to move things on and keep them in circulation. Anything that's not circulating is stagnating. okay i'm going to say that again anything that's not circulating is stagnating it's it's an energetic thing that can be subtle so maybe there's something like i had acrylics that i was using for a long time for a number of projects and i just started to move away from using acrylics and i thought well i'll come back to it because i'll just i'm going to work with these other materials and then i'll come back to the acrylics and i wasn't coming back to them and so as a part of just within this last

week of releasing the episode. I gathered up the acrylics that I knew my kids weren't using and I wasn't using and donated them. And that then allows like the psychic space, our own mental like whatever part of our self that is like tracking all the things or that feels tied to or connected to all the things in our life. And if you believe or not even believe, but just feel that physical objects have particular energy that we have a relationship with, that someday, the sundainess can create stuckness. Okay. So with all of that, moving things and bringing more circulation, and just think about it in the body, too, of like,

when there isn't an experience of circulation in the body, for whatever reason, what that sensation feels like. And so with these cycles of creativity and our relationship and keeping the channels open, what that feels like to have energy available for ideas that want to be given form. So with all that freeing up of energy, two things happened. Like within, you know, just a couple days. one of them was a submission, like an art submission for public art in the city where I live. There was a call for submissions put out.

And I was like, you know, I'm just going to submit something and see what happens. And I don't think I would have had the energy for that before, this like beginning stages, you know, decluttering or however the clearing the channels that is ongoing. It's just ongoing. and so any habits or practices around that, and I'll have some suggestions towards the end of this episode, about creating those kinds of habits and patterns. I don't think I would have had access to that.

And so that was another something that wasn't necessary, that's always sort of on the back burner of submitting artwork or wanting to share things that have already been created and giving them a space to become more visible. So who knows? I mean, fingers crossed, I would love to receive an email of acceptance. But I think just even just applying felt really good. The other thing is someone reached out to me to have me come and be like a guest presenter

in her community. And I love doing that. And it was so spontaneous. And I had the energy in like to say yes and to. and to do that and to share. And it came together really effortlessly. And that will often happen. And so this is part of the self-study is noticing what comes through after the backlog and areas of stuckness have been cleared.

Sometimes, like I mentioned, working on the physical level of that one drawer. Or, you know, maybe even there's some broken jewelry. I know I have like these little pockets of things in my house of, oh, yeah, that necklace that broke or that earring that got lost or those things that are just in this state of limbo. Addressing the physical, tangible, like the objects. The practice and invitation is noticing then how that translates to an energetic level and other possible opportunities that can come in. Once there's breathing room. And so that's, if there was sort of an overarching way to talk about this experience is when there is no breathing room, there is a kind of a suffocation and a staleness of there's no oxygen. And that's, again, connecting back to the circulation.

My closet space. Like there was a lot of suffocated energy in there because of just things. getting piled on top of each other and not dealt with. And so finding those little windows of time to free up some little area. I referenced Marie Kondo and, you know, other other teachers that have different approaches and sometimes that even that in itself can feel overwhelming of like taking all the clothes out. And that's wonderful. What a wonderful practice of renewal and of really assessing like where what feels alive and what feels like a yes and what like is uplifting and being surrounded by that kind of energy but if that's creating stuckness because it

feels like that feels like too much really looking at like where's one little thing that I feel dread around because it feels like it's going to be really hard to to deal with and it may be something like are there, I mean, it's like taking the inventory, right? Maybe you have a lot of books and there's no room for new books on the bookshelf. And all this can come to uncovering this feeling of attachment of things, if I let go of this, what's going to happen? And some things are really precious and are meant to be held on to, you know, there's times where I've cleared things out that I wish I still had. And that's a part of the possible avoidance of dealing with some of these things is, am I going to regret this? Or I'm not up for like grieving the loss of this

thing or letting go of it yet. So that grieving, that letting go, that letting go, that creating breathing room, pairing that with, well, what's on the other side? side of that? What if there is breathing room and what if there is, whether it's in a book or something that brings incredible insight, but it needs space to be cleared for it to find you, if that makes sense. So yeah, taking inventory and seeing like perhaps you have a lot of paper related things or perhaps it's a lot of fabric related things or perhaps it's like things, like things, in the kitchen or just wherever, whatever domain or area, just starting small in a way that can help to free up your energy and create more breathing room. Okay, so I'm going to move into the harvest cycle

and the what to do with seeds or ideas and how to like address different phases. So I used to this is something I'm sort of even questioning in my own practice. I worked with a couple of business coaches who talked about this. I talked about creating an idea garden. So for ideas that weren't quite ready yet, but you didn't want to let go of, to make this like idea garden. And this comes from sometimes in some educational settings or seminars or whatever. There'll be this idea of this like parking lot of, okay, we're not going to talk about that right now,

but we're going to go put it in the parking lot. How uninspired is a parking lot? Like that's just this cement place where cars go. Like, so putting a little spin on that and creating an idea garden is really like beautiful imagery. What happens when that idea garden is so overgrown and feels like that energetic pull and clogging the channels? Because like the plants and the ideas are suffocating because there's so many of them. So sometimes it means even the word clutter or like pulling weeds. There's this idea of like that it's something that's unwanted.

And so that would be like this easy thing to decide of like, oh, well, I don't want that. But if it's still around, there's a part that's like there's an attachment to that. And so that that's what seems to ask us to even if something is like, such a wonderful idea or like such a beautiful pair of shoes to make that decision of this needs to go back into circulation and so that means possibly offering it to somebody else or possibly offering it to whatever you connect with as that source of creativity of where life comes from and returns to. So that could be in the form and this is a practice that I have of when I find my desk full of papers of ideas that I've just like jotted down. Sometimes I'll consolidate them. And other times

I just have to decide that there's already enough and more ideas is not better. And so I'll offer them in a burn pile with some dried plants and create a ritual out of that. And so that's in cycles of creativity, part of the cycle could be that offering back of things that have spent a lot of time in the idea garden and want to be acknowledged in some way to say that this is such a beautiful idea. and like needing to or just add a point and wanting to release this or give this back. And if there's a time with more breathing room, like to allow that space for it to come back, like a boomerang, like things that really want to find you, that they'll return and trusting that,

but creating any way that you intuitively might feel like creating that space or that breathing room. This can also go with unfinished projects. So I mentioned the mending pile, but there might be things that have like been started and it can be such a wonderful, beautiful idea. And yeah, there are, you know, that can be archived. I mean, I'm not even really going to go into the digital realm of things because sometimes I've heard people recommend like taking a picture and then recycling it or burning it or some form. The digital space, like when I really connect with that, they're, you. can be so many places of, it's not even stuckness necessarily, but the overextension or the detritus or accumulation that apparently has no physical form. And yet there are physical

forms that are responsible for storing that memory. that seems intangible. So I'm just saying this like for myself, it doesn't necessarily help to have a digital record of something because then that adds to another kind of clutter. So hopefully I'm with this episode, what I wanted to share really was the process of clearing, clearing and clearing out and helping us access the energy

for creativity to create and part of creating and in the last episode I talked about that relationship with the fifth house and the creative play and to access that space and have that kind of breathing room and openness to play and to create often that is connected back to the seeds that are there and whether it's in an idea garden or whether they're dream seeds, how abundant those are in our life and what our relationship with them is can really impact our ability to show up and just create and play. So this is connected with the writings in the Book of Houses, the astrological guide to the harvest cycle in human life that I referenced in several episodes.

in the podcast and just a lot in my work, it's something that I've probably been paying attention to and working with, I want to say probably for the last six or seven years, if not more. It was my entry point into how the cycles of creativity and the life cycle of plants relates to our own birth chart and the transits of the sun. and it gives just beautiful guidance. And I mentioned in the last episode, one of those seeds of mine that I've been holding onto is to create a workbook, a manual, a harvest cycle planner. I mean, this has been in my back burner for, that's been there for like five years.

So there is a lot of my energy tied up with that. And each year there's a little bit like some momentum that's created. And that's okay. I mean, that's another place of discernment to see, like, not everything's overnight. And just because the idea comes in, some seeds really need to germinate for a long time. And others are so quick to sprout and show form. And that's just the uniqueness of each of the seeds. So anyway, I say that because I'm like, what's going on?

Harvest cycle seed? I want to bring something into form. to share with people because this has really been a journey of so much insight that continues to unfold. And it's something that's practical and applicable and also connects in with cycles in a really, really beautiful way. So as I said, the last episode, I mentioned the fifth house. And there's 12 houses. So across from the fifth house, everything sort of has its not necessarily, yeah, it's like a image, but there's probably a better word to describe that. It's, it's pair, it's partner. So across from the fifth is the 11th house. And in the harvest cycle, this 11th house is the house

of choosing seeds. And so I happen to just be coming out of my own house of choosing seeds when the sun is transiting my 11th house. So if you want to find out when that is for you, look at which sign rules your 11th house. So say if your 11th house is ruled by Taurus, then your house of choosing seeds would be in Taurus season in the springtime. If your 11th house is ruled by Scorpio, your time of choosing seeds would be in the Scorpio season in the Northern Hemisphere, which is in the fall. So that's part of why this is on my mind is because I've gone through the cycle many times, and I noticed my own process of choosing seeds and like these lists of like so many seeds.

This can also reflect like if you are like plants and garden, which I'm assuming if you listen to this podcast, you love plants and flowers. And noticing how you are at the nursery of when you go and buy plants, like how open to possibility is your mind of how many plants are you going to be able to take care of or they are going to like physically fit in a given space that you might have for planting. And so that translates often directly to what kind of possibilities you entertain for the seeds you might be choosing for your own creative projects. and it's something that's really amazing to notice over time how that can shift when you start to see,

oh, if there's five plants that are being tended to in this small area, each one of those isn't going to be, have the space perhaps that they need to fully grow. there might not be like what are the nutrients in the soil to go around what if there was just one plant in that place of the five and this is a maturing process and a process of discernment so just notice how what that dynamic is like for you and what like choosing seeds for a whole year cycle, sometimes it can be really challenging to feel into the future of what is it that I actually do want to be harvesting. And so that could be like feeling into a theme of maybe that the harvest,

which is literally the seeds that are planted, are the things that then come into form if you want to be growing cucorough. cucumbers. It's cucumber seeds that need to be planted. And if you want to be like growing relationships, then it really is those seeds of relationships that are chosen at the time. So that's just this connection with the time of choosing seeds and feeling into the future and feeling into what it is that would be most fulfilling to come into form over a whole solar year, the sun visiting all parts of of the chart and of the phases and stages of the harvest cycle. So something that I wanted to bring that down to a smaller scale, because I feel like a year cycle and a solar cycle, there's so much that

transpires and so many external factors and shifts and changes that can happen that may like reroute or change course of things. So I wanted to offer how to bring that down into a smaller scale. And really the lunar cycle is a micro version of that macro solar year. And so one way to work with the harvest cycle is to work with that within a lunar cycle, 29 and a half days that could feel more like human scale. A solar year feels it's a human scale, but it's almost like, it's like a tree, a whole ring that grows over a year. And the lunar cycle is more connected like it's more like our own breath rather than that larger cycle. Here's what has come to me in terms of when there is breathing room and creating breathing room

happens through our relationship with cycles. It can happen. So if each lunar cycle is a mini micro solar year, then there's that same 11th house time. whenever the moon is traveling through that sign. So if the 11th house, again, is in Taurus, looking to see when the moon is traveling through that sign. And just dedicating those two and a half days to choosing a seed. You can also do, I mean, there's many ways to play with this. You could also just have the new moon, you know, not even work with the houses or the harvest cycle in this way, just having that new moon be that time of choosing seeds. And choosing one. And just seeing that. And just

seeing that one through. And so over a whole solar year then, there's 12 and plus a little bit and a half, sometimes 13 seeds that you've worked with. And sometimes those seeds carry over from one cycle to the next, that they have their own stages of development. Like for me, that seed of submitting artwork that's like within one lunar cycle that may be one, one, phase of that seed that carries over. I'll zoom out just a little bit. And one of the notes that I took for this episode was the nature of nature is to overproduce. And when they're, you know, in conditions of where there is nourishment and there is water, nature will overproduce. Like how many berries can grow on one bush? Way more than, I mean, this.

is philosophical, but like, what is the bush producing the berries for in the first place? Maybe it is that reproduction of the seed within the fruit that then creates another bush so that that's ensuring that the life of that particular species will continue through the fruit. But the chances of every single fruit and the seeds of those germinating and becoming a bush or a tree or a plant, there's a lot of conditions and factors that possibly the majority of the seeds won't reproduce that life and so the overabundance then allows for there to be food for other species and all of the birds and insects and humans that may also eat those berries and give the seeds legs or wings to reproduce somewhere else but that overproduction that way more fruits and

seeds are created then actually come into form. That may be something that's helpful and it's been helpful for me to apply to creativity and ideas is like, here's this overabundance. Like of every hundred, maybe there is one to really choose to tend to, which is hard. For me, at least, the challenge that feels like a constriction or like the limits. And that, again, is this honoring of the maturity and the saturnian process of honoring limits, that the over the overabundance is, is the nature of things. The more than enoughness is the nature of things.

And there's some glitch, I think, in the human mind that, I guess there are, I mean, it's real that there's times of scarcity, but the impulse of life is to create and to produce and to have more than enough and to have that go-to-share and support the life of others. And so there may be a way of weaving that into your own cycles of creativity, of trusting the process, of being generous and sharing. ideas, the ones that you may not be following through with. It's almost like the seeds are find, I don't want to use the word host, only because that

feels like there's like this parasitic nature of like finding the host. But it's like finding their gardener or finding their, it's not even really a mother, either something, some word. But yeah, finding their gardener. and then many writers talk about, if it doesn't come into form, then that seed or idea will often find another. Here I go with that host again. I mean, yeah, hostess, hosts, they host and hold space for something for that idea to grow and bloom.

Okay, so coming back to this last piece as we wrap up the episode, the lunar cycle and that more human scale cycle that could go along with then your harvest cycle, this mini, the lunar transits to each of those houses, to see if that timing works for you. And to see if that practice of choosing one seed, I'll just read through the stages, the house of choosing seeds. Then that goes into germination and the other side of that is seeing the sun and this resurrection of the almost like the hope returning of, oh, maybe this is like actually going to happen. Maybe this is actually going to grow. Setting down roots and having those resources and nourishment of it's hard even, you know, for a seed to grow if there isn't the breathing room,

but also if some of the basics of not having enough sleep or not taking care of ourselves, that's that kind of in putting down the roots, gathering in the resources for that seat or idea to grow. And then exploratory growth, which sometimes is like reading books about it or listening to other podcasts or getting ideas that may shape the form that the seed takes and then pruning and weeding to see what is maybe draining energy or taking away some of the space that that particular idea really could benefit from shaping that and then it goes into the house of creative growth which i talk about in the previous episode um that then that kind of magic spark that leads to the buds and the flowering of

opening up and taking form in a way that's more visible and that allows for the pollination, which is the next stage or phase. Pollination leading to reproductive growth which leads to

fruition. And from that fruition is the harvest and the harvest that can be shared with others, the harvest that has seeds embedded within it, and that harvest that then in you know in completing the cycle then leads to what are the next seeds within that the what i've wondered about then is bringing in like where is my gosh the word's grim

i'll just hear words sometimes my inner ear and i'm like the grim reaper like when does the grim reaper come in oh my goodness what that's almost like the plutonian energy of the underworld of what gets, um, of what needs to die to be transformed. Um, and those that's the, you know, whatever the practices are around, um, release and composting and, and consciously choosing, consciously choosing to not follow through with something. Um, it's one way to say it. There might be other, maybe as you're listening, you have other ideas around that. the things that then become clutter, the things that then lead to that constipation, what are the practices that maybe every lunar cycle there is a going through,

like, whether it's in a journal and highlighting things or just crossing out things, really consciously choosing. what gets carried forward. And again, I offer this as something to play with. I offer this as the practice of self-study and putting that into practice in relationship with cycles because all of this, the way that energy flows and the way that things come into form and go out of form is cyclical.

And then the more that we know our own patterns around that and what practices or rituals might be helpful Oh, a dragonfly just landed right on a rock next to me. The more magic can show up. And the more the seeds that want to find us, there's a route and a path and a channel that's open for them to find us. So the noticing is perhaps what stage are the seeds stuck at or within the harvest cycle, which stage do you find yourself at?

Is that related to perhaps your astrological chart and the harvest cycle? There's always multiple cycles at play at all times, simplifying things down, starting small with just a lunar cycle and just one seed. And also starting small with finding a place to free up some of that energy that can be that has dust on it or cobwebs or that just is like suspended in this place of possibility that isn't serving that either needs to like come down to earth or be set free the last thing that I'll leave you with is the attention that's there for anyone who's really consciously practicing and living a creative life, this tension of being unrealistic

and seeing all kinds of possibilities that I've heard some people talk about, about almost being like delusional, of seeing and imagining things that are so unrealistic, that that is actually a necessary part of living a creative and, artistic life is being unrealistic and yet what happens when that being unrealistic can lead to too much possibility that suffocates the seeds that are wanting to come into form through your tending and through your care. So I don't know if there's necessarily a way to resolve that tension, but somehow naming it has helped me be a little more playful with what it means to be unrealistic in a really beneficial way. These times that we live in,

are asking us to work with our imagination and what is imagination except for seeing and feeling and sensing and dreaming into? possibilities that seem so impossible and yet so necessary for life to continue to thrive in ways where what is created is shared and supports all life that wants to thrive. So thank you for being here. Thank you for listening. Any insights that have come through, please feel free. to share this podcast I published through my substack, which is between the moon. And I'll put the link to the substack page that you can come and you can share your insights, your ahas, your questions, and also just the realizations that can help us to all, I want to say

see more clearly, but understand, understand and relate to the patterns of what blocks the channels for creativity to flow and what helps to open up those channels. All right. I'll see you next time. 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. Thank you.