The other day I repotted a plant. This might not seem like a big thing to do, but it has great implications.

Being creative can mean that from time to time you can get stuck. Your ideas feel like they are wrapping themselves around you, strangling new creative thought. You crave more space to breathe. Just like a root bound plant that has outgrown its container, you feel trapped and disempowered.

Creative activation take courage. You need to be able to recognise when it is time to move out (of your contained way of thinking) and give yourself room to expand your horizons. Sometimes it’s all too scary and hard. That’s why it is important to take small steps to move yourself forward, gently.

When I’m feeling stuck, a bit root bound, I move the furniture and repot a plant. It’s an energetic thing. Tidying up and throwing things out that no longer serve me, makes space in my life for new energy to enter.

I have an artist friend who felt unable to create during those first week of the pandemic lockdown. The only way she felt that she had done something creative was to go into her studio and tidy up. Organise her tools, put things in boxes, rearrange the bookshelves.

It’s no coincidence that Bunnings has been flat out with customers suddenly doing home renovations and garden maintenance during this time. It’s part of that urge to create and change our situation at home when we can’t alter the chaos that is going on all around us in the wider world.

Changing the way I feel about a situation is often as simple as mending clothes or repotting a plant or baking a cake. These domestic acts are meditative, they can prepare us for creative change and can propel us back into action.

My newly potted plant is sitting on my clean studio bench. I am making way for new energy and new projects to emerge from the fermenting compost of my ideas. I might tackle the vegetable garden next….