I read this before breakfast this morning;

“creation comes from an overflow, so you have to learn to intake, to imbibe, to nourish yourself and not be afraid of fullness. The fullness is like a tidal wave which then carries you, sweeps you into experience and into writing. Permit yourself to flow and overflow, allow for the rise in temperature, all the expansions and intensifications. Something is always born of excess: great art was born of great terrors, great loneliness, great inhibitions, instabilities, and it always balances them. ” The Diary of Anais Nin, Vol. 4: 1944-1947

Reading this made me curious about Anais Nin so I read a bit about her and was once again struck by the similarities in thought I sometimes share with the very bohemian of the world but the complete dissimilarities in life style.  I am not always sure how these thoughts and my lifestyle work side by side, but truth expressed, from any source, fills me with sincere appreciation, especially since I am so bad at expressing these things myself.  I am so grateful when I hear something or read something that describes my life experience so purely.

The first time I went to the Zoo in Singapore,  I was transported watching the polar bear’s graceful movement under water.  Later I went back without any children and sat right next to the glass barrier for over an hour.  I experienced the tidal wave that Anais Nin spoke about, “ The fullness is like a tidal wave which then carries you, sweeps you into experience and into writing.”  For me it is not writing I get swept into, it is drawing or painting.  Experiencing these tidal waves or excesses that she spoke of results in easy creativity for me.  I wrestle less with an image when I have an “excess” to work from.  Having come to this realization, is what sometimes pushes my hermitical self out the door so I can go harvest some excess and balance it out with creating something beautiful!