Making Space

The Art and Spirit of LeadershipIn the excerpt below from her book, The Art and Spirit of Leadership, Judy Brown shares how she learns from and takes in people’s insights about her poems. In doing so, she invites us in to co-create meaning with her –  a wonderful circle of creativity. It also speaks to Judy’s generosity in sharing her poem and reflections with us this week. Many thanks to Judy and to Maggie Anderson, Becky van der Bogert, Tara Reynolds and Richard Brady for their contributions to the “Week of Fire.”

Judy writes: “It has always seemed to me an odd thing about our culture that we operate as if creativity and artistry are the domain of a special few. The artists. We behave as if innovation and ingenuity are a peculiar, genetically-granted capacity awarded to others. But not us.

Poets are not us. Poets are other people who, as a British woman who wrote me with appreciation for the poem “Fire,” noted are generally “people who spend their time swanning around.” I was tickled by the British turn of phrase “swanning around.” Floating serenely on the surface. Not engaged in the real work of life. She said she liked my poetry because it was about how to really get things done.

Her comment about “swanning around” reminded me of a participant in one of my retreats who, having read the poem “Fire,” then watched me build a fire in the fireplace to prepare for a period of silent journal work. Later he said, with some astonishment, “You built the fire exactly as your poem suggests.” “Of course,” I said. “That is how you build a fire that takes right off from the start. It’s a poem. But it’s also a recipe for building fires.”

Later the same man said thoughtfully, “You have the log-holder full of logs. Maybe you need a holder on the other side of the fireplace that you fill with spaces. Then you could put a log on the fire, and then a space. Next a log and then a space.” His creative musing in that moment changed my life; now when I pick up a log or a demanding piece of work, I am thinking about which “space” I am going to pick up next.”

Excerpt from The Art and Spirit of Leadership by Judy Sorum Brown.

Questions to consider:

What balance between spaciousness and activity brings you the most vitality at this point in your own life?  Is that balance changing for you?
When have you tapped into your own creativity most fully?  How has spaciousness played a role in that?
When you think of your students, what practices that introduce spaciousness might you offer them as part of your teaching?