Tigerlily knows it’s time to hibernate.

With a full nine weeks between Abra’s last post and my sitting down to write the next I began, with a certain foreseeable logic, to think about inspiration, or rather, the lack of it in this case. Of course, when I say inspiration, I also mean to encompass all else that that entails: motivation, muse, creativity, courage. All of which have put in a rather poor showing of late; In fact, rather poetically, have become as elusive as inspiration’s many connotations. There seems no accounting for the many highs and then deep troughs of nothingness that creativity goes through. I have therefore come to the conclusion that I won’t. Account for it. As an artist it can feel hard enough when the momentum of inspiration is in full swing; a herculean battle still, to translate creativity into physical form. So to then berate myself for a lull in productivity, that feeling in the heart of my artistic self that I am simply empty…of anything, seems counterintuitive when you really stop to think about it although, lets be honest, when do we ever give ourselves the time even to do that? But winter seems the right time to be contemplating these things. As twilight encroaches and the air begins to cool and then to blow with increasing urgency it feels the right time to withdraw and allow creativity to be nurtured and replenished. In the 21^st century the pressure to Achieve and Reach forward is immense and I have to say that I often feel it acutely, particularly in the pause. However, as we know that spring will appear after the winter, so too is it true that inspiration will come after the quiet.

Artwork by Papaya Art