"One must also accept that one has "uncreative" moments. The more honestly one can accept that, the quicker these moments will pass. One must have the courage to call a halt, to feel empty and discouraged." Etty Hillesum

I was mindlessly leafing through some books this morning when I read these words of Etty Hillesum, poet and writer of her experiences in the concentration camps of WWII. My first reaction was to reject them. But then as I let myself sink more deeply into them, I allowed their truth to take root in me. I connected their truth to the way it often feels in the week following Easter or Christmas. In our homes, and for me, in my work life, so much energy and creativity gets poured into these celebrations that I can arrive in the days after in a sort of stunned state. It seems as if the creative juices have headed south for a little nap on the beach. 

This experience is not specific to those who create whether that is art, music, worship, food,homes, or poetry. No matter what our work there are times when the big ideas, the beautiful life-altering ideas just don't come. My inclination, and I don't think this is only mine, is to resist, to try to force into being what is no where to be found. It is then that discouragement can set in. Is there a gift that resides in being discouraged? Is there wisdom waiting to be discovered in this sense of emptiness? Somehow, I think so.

Perhaps these times in our lives come from a deep place that helps us call a halt long enough to allow our creative selves to take a breath, to relax into what the universe offers us next. If we simply push through the feeling of being discouraged, trying to 'make' something happen, we would miss this grand opportunity. In this way discouragement offers us a 'time out', a resting place so we can actually listen to our lives.

This is clearly what is happening outside our windows these days. The creativity of the earth is available everywhere we look. Green sprouts. Daffodils. Crocus. Budding trees. Nest building birds. Only a few days ago these same creative beings were hunkering down in a halted place, discouraged by temperatures from growing or greening any further. Their 'uncreative' moments were necessary to what is now emerging. Don't you think the same is true of we two-legged ones?

Whatever is discouraging you today, I invite you to take a walk, look around you. Allow the creativity that abounds to wash over you knowing that you did nothing to cause it to be and yet there it is. Out of the emptiness that is winter comes all this beauty. May it be so for us as well.