Creative Manifesto 2025

It's August, and I'm just starting to experience moments of creativity again.

This year has had its extremes. I don't want to focus on the personal hardships too much from this year, other than to say that I can start to see these deeper truths coming out. I am feeling a sheddding and a sense of empowerment to step into my truer self, which also extends to my creativity.

1. Honor the hardships by engaging in your own rituals. This year, I planted trees during the summer solstice, created talismanic jewelry pieces to wear daily and attended ceremonial dances at the Pueblos in New Mexico. These helped me to let go and release pressure, while also recognizing that something challenged my beliefs.

2. Meditate to release the frustration. I read various articles on Buddhist meditations that have helped me do my own meditation practices. I also learned that I have to let go of the frustration so that the person or the situation doesn't have control over me. It clears the mental space in order for me to think about other things and therefore engage with creativity again.

3. Connect with the land. I started gardening this year, and for the first time in years I'm seeing hummingbirds and bumblebees return to our area. The grasses are coming back, wildflowers are blooming after being dormant for many summers, and seeing these small transformations has given me a lot of hope. In healing the land, I feel like I'm healing myself. Creativity is healing as well, and gives us hope.

4. If you've always wanted to do something, what is holding you back? Two things that I've always wanted to do, a) let go of social media and b) become the strongest version of myself, and I just could not commit for some reason. I had a list of reasons holding me back: fear of how I would be percieved, fear that I could not commit, mistrust in the process of letting go of my dependency on social media, not being able to visualize myself getting stronger. This mental shift has opened the doors to other things that have been dormant for years and I keep finding myself questioning, why am I not doing this or that, when I've always wanted to do this or that? This is especially true of my creativity.

5. Less scheduling and more spontaneity. Recently, I've engaged in something I'm dubbing the Random Act of Phone Calling. Remember how we used to just pick up the phone and call our friends and family without all this scheduling? In the process, I've learned to stop overthinking and to let go. Such a simple act. It happens with creativity as well. Sometimes I get myself all excited to go into the studio to work on a project just to find myself shuffling gemstones around and organizing, and that's ok.

That's all for now. Thanks so much for reading.

Take care for now,

Caitlin