Gathering Seeds

Before you can start a garden, you have to gather seeds.  Those tiny little things that when planted in moist dirt will germinate and grow into a rainbow of flowers.  Before you can start your creativity project, you have to gather seeds.

In creativity, a seed is an idea of what you want to do.  No matter what it is -paint a picture, sing a song, write a poem, decorate a table - you have to start with an idea.  Sometimes, if you are lucky, you are overwhelmed with ideas.  I will have to take fabric with me to eternity to complete all the quilt ideas I have.  That is the only way I will have enough time.  But there will be those of you who won't have a clue as to what you want to grow.  You need the seed.

Now with plant seeds, you can gather them from plants that after blooming produced seeds for the next season.  Or you can buy seeds nicely packaged in colorful envelopes in a store.  To gather seeds for creativity, you have to search.  You have to go out and gather the seeds.

It's not hard but it does take a little time. I recommend at least an hour a week.  Try to find an hour -preferably by yourself - and go on a gathering. You don't have to go anywhere special, these seeds can be gathered anywhere:  a museum, a concert, a park, a dollar store.  

What you are looking for are things that make your heart sing. Let's say you see a plastic flower arrangement that looks cute far away but up close looks tacky.  Take the idea - the seed - and arrange your own.  Use live flowers, use flowers from arrangements you have at home that you are tired of, use the idea and put it on canvas or as an appliqué for a quilt.   The image of that cute but tacky arrangement is the seed.

Go some place that makes you feel good. Go some place you have never been.  Try somewhere with a slightly different cultural fragrance, maybe a restaurant or an import store.  If you can't get out of the house, read magazines you don't normally subscribe.  I read lots of environmental, psychological, and quilt magazines.  So for me, a Better Homes and Gardens or Martha Stewart Living is a whole new world.  For you, it may be the National Geographic, Psychology Today, or Newsweek type.  Do anything you can to gather those seeds. 

Now this doesn't mean you have to act on them right now. That you have to come home immediately and start a new project. You may want to but it is not necessary. You are just gathering seeds.  They may need to stay buried in the moist dirt of your mind a while before they can germinate. You may find that you need to gather several seeds and are able then to put them all together to create a whole new flower.

You can't have a garden without seeds.  You can't have creativity without ideas.  So to allow your creativity to germinate and grow, go out and gather seeds.   And you might along the way want to pick up a couple of packet of seeds for a real garden.  Your own flower garden could help to inspire your creativity as well.

© 2017 – Cheryl Fillion