Gifts From the Sea, Van Gogh & Me

I'm so happy to share a few gifts from my trip to the sea paired with 

blessings to inspire your creative journey this week! 

May you find inspiration in the beauty of nature!

The beach is one of my favorite Creative Oasis Places. Walking along the shoreline never fails to reenergize and inspire me. 

To create the Mid-Week Oasis Moment above I took a photo of the beach then gave it the "Van Gogh" treatment using a fun app called "AutoPainter" and added a quote from Vincent himself that I just love. 

May you continue to grow and find strength from your creativity!

The sun came out for our final morning beach walk and we encountered all sorts of treasures. I found this beautiful, blue-grey nautilus shell (a symbol of growth & strength) my lone souvenir of our trip ~ well, other than a few new laugh lines. 

photo by Ashley Thames Brown

May your creative spirit take flight like a feather on the wind! 

My friend, Ashley, found this white feather along with some lovely bits of sea glass. She left other pieces to continue tumbling in the surf and sand to smooth their sharp edges and become treasures for future beach combers.

And finally, may you find many opportunities to "flock together" with kindred "birds of a feather" on your creative journey! 

Non-stop laughter that makes your cheeks hurt and your sides ache in the best possible way...

Heartfelt conversations where you know you're truly heard and understood...

Unconditional love that reminds you you're not alone on this crazy ride called life...

All that and more filled a brief beach getaway with a few fabulous girlfriends and proved to be just what my spirit needed last weekend! 

Until next time, all the best from my Creative Oasis to yours,

Jill

P.S. ~ If you enjoyed this post please share on Facebook and twitter using the buttons below!  If you'd like to receive bite-size bonbons of creative inspiration like this Mid-Week Oasis Moments plus a free copy of my e-book "Permission to Be Creative 101" join me here: http://www.creativeoasiscoaching.com/newsletter.html.

Beach Lessons - #3 – The Creative & Therapeutic Benefits of the Drip Sand Castle

My preferred method for building sand castles is the “drip” technique. You don’t need special molds, buckets or even a shovel. A glorious drip castle can be created using nothing but ocean water, sand and your hands. (thick brownish sand of Texas beaches is ideal –beautiful sugary sands of Florida – not so much)

If you sit right at the water’s edge, you don’t even need a bucket to hold the water. Just dig a little hole in the sand with your hands and let the incoming tide fill ‘er up. Then scoop out handfuls of soft, mushy sand and let it drip slowly out of your hands onto the beach. As you do this again and again, forms begin to take shape that look a bit like termite mounds or reverse stalagmites.

I love the free form way the structures evolve. I love the tactile experience – the way the sand feels as it oozes out of my hand - soft, squishy and warm. (I often give myself a little spa-like foot mud-scrub while I’m at it.) I love the process as much as the end result – which is one reason I find it to be such a satisfying creative endeavor. And, as a bonus - it’s supremely relaxing – therapeutic even.

Sand castles are not meant to last forever. I think their impermanence only adds to their unique magic. Like a sacred mandala, carefully crafted by Buddhist monks in ritualized ceremony, sand castles are meant to be enjoyed during their creation and by onlookers, and then lovingly offered back to the sea by the wind and the waves. (Once the Buddhist mandalas, with their intricate designs of brightly colored sand, are complete – they’re blessed, desecrated and usually released into a body of water to further spread the blessings.)

During my most recent trip to the beach, there were some major, architectural sand sculptures up and down the shore. Enormous castles complete with moats, turrets, bridges and flags. The coolest one was a life-size speedboat complete with bench seats large enough for four adults to sit in.

Mine, however, was more along the lines of the free-form structure that Richard Dreyfuss created over and over again in the movie “Close Encounters of the Third Kind”. I think I remember him using dirt, paper and even mashed potatoes to build it. He had no idea what he was building – but he was inexplicably compelled to do so. Me too!

Drip sand castles are a nice reminder that there are times when process trumps end product, free-form trumps structure, and messy beats tidy and neat! (check out this “Wreck This Journal” post by Pink Heels for another great example of this)

What can you do today to play with a creative process, make a bit of a mess and just have fun with it? I’d love for you to share your creative/therapeutic ideas with me!