How to Capture Creative Ideas and Begin a Project

Here is my short list of FEEL GOOD ideas I hope will inspire you!

1. Wrestling butterflies is hard work.  Sometimes I have so many ideas- or whispers of them anyway—-it can be a challenge to decide which idea to creatively develop for my art or for my writing! The ideas feel a little like butterflies to me- beautiful, delicate and tough to capture without harming them.

But, maybe it can be easier.  Maybe we don’t have to plan an idea fully out (or pin it down)…maybe we can just begin?  I listened to this podcast recently by Nick Wilton and absolutely loved what he had to say?

Podcast How to start a painting.   (and I think this can apply to ANYTHING creative!)

Don’t judge don’t plan just start.

If you overthink your ideas or spend to much time contemplating creating and not creating- maybe this week you could just try making something without a plan?

“Wrestling Butterflies”
Digital collage by me. Find prints and more of that here. 

2.  Resistance is real but show up ANYWAY. This weekend I had the most GIANT resistance to teaching a class- like 72 hours of dread!  Here’s what I learned: Watch 90 second video here.

3. A Good Mantra for Beginning A New Creative Endeavor…

Since my mom got sick in 2018, I began making art in earnest. She died in 2020 and when she was gone, I felt huge grief and ALSO, the gift of a strong sense of freedom rising in me. To paint more. To allow myself to be more FREE (and even less successful/strategic). This year the call is even stronger. All I want to do is paint!! It’s terrifying and thrilling and feels like a new chapter!

If you’re in a similar place, I’ll share that a good mantra (from my mentor Martha Beck) for this sort of adventure is, “This is much harder than I thought t would be… and that’s ok!”

What calls to in this moment in your life?

(Me: ecstatic with the 48″ x 48″ commissioned painting I delivered to her owner this weekend.  Prints + more available here:  )

4. Quote that I’m savoring this week:  Tennessee Williams reflected as he approached his own death that

“…we live in a perpetually burning building, and what we must save from it, all the time, is love… love for each other and the love that we pour into the art we feel compelled to share: being a parent; being a writer; being a painter; being a friend.”

5. Music can lift us closer to the sacred.  

Earlier this year, I was driving down the hill towards an appointment when a song came on my playlist that I didn’t know. It was called “Morning Star”. The sun was just rising over lake superior and I could also see the moon and it was such a beautiful moment right then- I burst into tears…just for the gratittude to be alive and experience that.

There is something so pure and so innocent and inspiring about the morning star when i have the change to see it.  A promise of a new day.

I ended up playing the song over and over and singing along and decided to memorize it.  As we drove to a ceremony one night, weeks later,  I thought to myself “Maybe I’ll sing that song tonight as an offering?”.  I was scared to do it too….like maybe it wouldn’t translate- how I felt??

The part of the ceremony came where we were invited to each offer a song to the larger group and I sang.  That moment was so sacred. It felt like that song was being channeled through me and for me and for everyone.  I didn’t sing it like Celine Dion but it was more just my honest and pure self.  Several people talked to me later telling me of the beautiful visions/healing they had in their heart because of the song.

Is there a song or piece of poetry calling you that you could share with a group?  Or is there something else you can express with sound or visuals – or another sense?   I recorded a version of it here.
Here’s a playlist of sacred music I love to listen to when I need to feel close to spirit.

What song are you noticing?

“[Music] has the ability to lead us, if only temporarily, into a sacred realm. Music plays into the yearning many of us instinctively have — you know, the God-shaped hole. It is the art form that can most effectively fill that hole, because it makes us feel less alone, existentially. It makes us feel spiritually connected. Some music can even lead us to a place where a fundamental spiritual shift of consciousness can happen. At best, it can conjure a sacred space.”

-Nick Cave via the marginalian

You can book vibe-raising divinations, life- coaching, shamanic healing and/or mentoring HERE. 

with love,

Sarah
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