Removing ourselves from the bustle of everyday life can give us the solitude we need to gather ourselves and create. It’s important to make the distinction, though, between creative solitude and hiding.

Huddled beneath our black umbrellas, we can be tricked into thinking that being cloistered from the storms of everyday life will be all we need to make our art.

But the desire to cut ourselves completely from the world can bring its own problems.

We need the outside world. Or, at least need to be in relationship with the outside world. What we create is waiting to be birthed into this world, and to make its way through its storms and withering winds.

It’s easy to make the mistake of believing that a creative genius has an inbuilt small golden thimble which, once located, allows them to pour their creativity out into the world.

While its true that we are inherently creative and creativity flows though us, it’s not merely self generated (not by the small ‘thimble-clutching’ self anyway). Your creativity comes form somewhere both inside and outside of you.

There is no thimble. The truth of your creativity is much greater than that. Your creativity is a communion with the whole world, a world that is waiting to pass through you.

Instead of huddling beneath an umbrella, shielded form the world. sometimes we need to let our umbrella be turned inside out, and upside down. To be transformed from a shield into a vessel ready to catch the offerings of the world. Wild muses wait above in the clouds ready to pour their inspiration down on you.

What do you do to turn your umbrella into a vessel for collecting inspiration?