Creativity and connection via Instagram

Instagram is an excellent source of creativity, inspiration and connection with kindred community. One of the key ways people link up is via daily prompts. The beauty and benefits of such prompt journeys are myriad but the main ones are creativity and connection.

Stretching your creativity

Firstly, creativity: you are given a word or phrase to make with what you will. It can be just noticing details in your everyday routine or remembering something from a past time. It can encourage you to dig out material that you wish to refocus on. You can recognise new patterns as the word triggers associations that relate to current experiences. And you can also bounce off others for your own creative boost enjoying their related journeys.

As Instagram is primarily a visual medium, you have the challenge of representing the word associations visually. Or you can start with an image and connect the word, visual and thoughts together. Each day is different.

Practically, I keep an eye on next day’s prompt or at least check on it early in the day. I sometimes respond quickly if there’s something immediate that comes to mind. Other times, it’s a slow touchpoint I come back to, thinking of it as I go about my day.

On some occasions, there’s a bit more brain racking and research. The prompt ‘unicorn’ from Susannah Conway’s August Break this year had me going through cupboards and pulling books off the shelves looking for unicorns. The prompts that resulted were fantastic and sometimes hilarious as people found or rediscovered unicorns in their environment.(I eventually uncovered them in ‘The Book of Symbols’ – I knew they were around somewhere!) People also improvised, including the memorable ‘be your own unicorn’ from the fabulous Kylie McDonnell.

And some prompts lead to a deep reflection and engagement. Experience October 2016 led by Rae Ritchie inspired my last post, connecting the word for the day, ‘sapphire’, with a poem I wrote many years ago and finally put out there into the light. Navigating through November led by India Ross aka @ofearthandstars has inspired new thoughts via the prompt, ‘stretch’ and I share the writing from this below: ‘Stretch marks on the soul.’

Fostering connection and community

Many in my Instagram sphere have connected over time via Susannah Conway’s brilliant community prompt initiatives The August Break and April Love. Clearly there is a need for continuing connection in this way. It takes people to step up, lead and put in the work to create online communities whether it be for the long or the short term. And it takes a creative community to keep the momentum going.

The current round of prompts mentioned above builds on links from these initiatives. Another key one has been #taleswithfriends, led by the wonderful Tori, ‘curatrix of the everyday’ aka @unfoldtheday.  I have been a keen and appreciative participant of these various initiatives and help to spread the word and build connection.

The kindred creative connection established via Instagram, and these prompt quests especially, runs very deep. As an INTJ, with an emphasis on the introvert and writing and reading as my ways to engage with the world, the camaraderie and connection of my IG friends has become core to my day and world. Last year, I was away from home working for eight months and on my own most of the time. My IG buddies kept me connected, inspired and supported each day, alongside my family, friends and local networks. And this continues. There’s support there when you are feeling low or on your own and also when there’s good news to share. There’s cheering, encouragement and practical suggestions like what to read and how to ignite joy and celebrate life in the every day.

And you can enjoy the balance of day and night and the seasons as they inversely change across the hemispheres. It’s been lovely watching the first snow elsewhere in the world as our days warm up and we have our first swims of the season here.

The thread of creativity helps me to get up and walk and take photographs, to really notice the flowers in the gardens around me and to share what I am reading and thinking about. Likewise the celebration of quiet and the beautiful place where I live has been a mainstay of my IG experiences. Seeing it through others’ eyes has made me remember just how special it is. You can forget this at times, being so close.

A word, a rock, a thought

So in the end ~ a word, a rock, a thought ~ are what it took to create the piece below. That and walking and sitting down to connect it together whilst at the beach feeling it all. I share that creative connection with you here. And I thank those who support this journey via IG and other valued creative communities. We are all in this together: noticing, witnessing, sharing and quietly writing. You can connect with me on Instagram as @writingquietly

Stretch marks on the soul

Look back on your life and you find times when the universe expanded you. Maybe there was violence, maybe love, maybe conflict, disagreement, passion, disappointment, blood, elation, surprise.

Sometimes these are large public events, traumas witnessed, flowers sent, cards received, phone calls made, heads bowed. 

Other times, these are silent events, perhaps recorded in journals as cries for help, little cuts of disappointment, pieces of our hopes and souls shredded. Sometimes no one else even knows.

If you stopped and thought, you could perhaps count the stretch marks on your soul, the events that changed you forever – the birth, the rejection, the letter, the phone call, the knock on the door, the ring, the travel to be with someone, the news on the television, the sudden something that lurched you out of the everyday or changed your dreams. Or made ordinary life extraordinary or a twilight zone for a while.

You can feel as you remember: the stares at a wall seeking answers; the hair falling from your head into your fingers; the look on a loved one’s face as they arrive to tell you the terrible news you don’t as yet know; the peace of sleep after the journey of giving birth through the night.

The beautiful or agonising stretch marks on your soul. 

You can just witness them, know they are there but mostly ignore them. Or you can tend them, rub oil in, to promote healing so those stretch marks blend a little more into your being, your body and mind absorbing them.

These marks are signs of birth, and sadly also sometimes scars from the death of things longed for: love, connection, family, people to stay alive longer or forever, something to not stop or wanting that so desired and cherished thing to just finally happen.

These stigmata, these talismans, these shields, these signs: I bear them with grace, bending to their lessons, looking skyward through the leaves of spring for answers. I wrap their wisdom round me as I head for home.

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