Funk is gone!

I just heard on NPR that this week's moon is called a red Bloody Harvest Moon.

I wish I could say I took this picture myself,

but no, I found it on the Internet. 

Three of us were talking on the porch this afternoon, telling each other where we'd been since we last saw each other, and the subject of the full moon came up.  Two of us have been in a bit of a funk.

Since lunar cycles are often associated with lunacy, I wonder if I get to blame the rounding moon for my bad mood last week.  If so, I suppose I should credit her with the perk up that followed.

I was up till five in the morning Sunday morning moving things around in my house, wide awake in creative waters, then forced myself to go to sleep and stay there until noon.  One little idea popped into my mind and I had to get up and do it.  One led to another, and soon I was on a frenzied wave.

I woke up wondering: where did all that energy come from?  Why is it that creativity takes a nap sometimes, then wakes up more playful than before? And why is it that I always start with the house, as metaphor and actual canvas?

Ironically, when I woke up Sting was talking about those very questions on The Ted Radio Hour.  (The program was all about creativity and included Liz Gilbert whose book Big Magic just came out this week.)

When he was a little boy in England, Sting had a lot of early morning time alone while riding with milkman father on his deliveries. Few words were spoken: A pint here, two pints there.  He credits those mornings with the start of his imaginative life: "being left alone" just as the "light was coming into the day."

Being left alone: I've learned that a dip (and the despair and lack of energy that comes with it)  is a way to temporarily shut down, like sleeping.  I used to try to follow the advice of that old song: Smile, though your heart is breaking....(a song that rankles). Now, I say, There you are again, just be there, it will pass.

When the light comes back into my days,  I see colors I hadn't noticed, colors that had been there all the time.  I hear again the sound of my own voice.  As I get rid of something in my house that no longer fits,  I banish voices prattling in my head, telling me things I don't care to hear.

Changing one thing changes everything.  Take down an unappealing mirror or picture, drag a not-right thing to the curb, and space for something new (or space, period) opens up.  Put a lamp in a dark corner, turn a piece of furniture around, paint a wall, take five loads to Goodwill--and suddenly all feels right with the world.