CreativeMornings/Findings

October’s Theme is Endurance.

Our Timisoara chapter chose this month’s exploration of Endurance and Ana Kun illustrated the theme.    

Endurance is the unwavering flame that burns within us, illuminating a path through darkness and uncertainty. It is the quiet strength that emerges when challenges test our limits, urging us to push beyond what we thought possible. Endurance is not a mere moment but a relentless spirit that whispers, "keep going" when the world feels heavy.

Life's journey is marked by peaks and valleys, and it is endurance that sustains us during the uphill climbs. It teaches us that setbacks are not defeats but stepping stones towards growth and resilience. With each obstacle we conquer, our spirits grow stronger, and our determination becomes unshakable.

June’s Theme is Reverie.

When your gaze softens around the edges, where does your mind travel? What thoughts arise unbidden? Reverie beckons us to dream while awake, spinning loose associations that seem to emerge from somewhere not entirely inside or outside of you. Our woolgathering summons past memories and nascent fantasies. We turn them over and over, like smooth stones in our hand, making meaning.

Neuroscientists have found that daydreaming ignites your brain’s default mode network. Counterintuitively, this unfocused part of the mind is where many creative breakthroughs take place — think Archimedes‘ fluid mechanics in a bathtub and Newton’s gravity under the apple tree. When you’re not preoccupied with solving a problem and chaining yourself to your desk in a fit of productivity, your mind is free to drift, roaming for the pieces that might complete the puzzle unexpectedly.

Pay attention to what lulls you into reverie. What conditions disarm your focus? Let your thoughts float and not settle on anything, but drift like a cloud, or a child skipping across a sidewalk on a hot summer day.

August’s Theme is Critical.

To be critical means to be like a sieve, dividing and separating. Our critical abilities allows us to discern the insubstantial from the made-to-last, the credible from the untrustworthy, the sincere from the ego-driven. We do so by gathering more information, seeking nuance, and locating something in its specific context.

Critical feedback is essential for our growth. Poet Adrienne Rich advises, “Responsibility to yourself means seeking out criticism, recognizing that the most affirming thing anyone can do for your is demand that you push yourself further.”

But being needlessly critical — especially of ourselves — can stifle the creative impulse. Few are as harsh as our own internal critic. How can we hone our perception, spotting what needs to evolve, without becoming ruthless? How can we remain astute while not losing sight of all that is inherently good and whole? It’s critical.