Honeycomb Club #4: Creating a Container for Your Creative Practice
On the importance of making space for what you value most.
Hello sweet friend,
This week I’ve been thinking a lot about my own creative input and output.
I took an 800-mile road trip to Michigan’s upper peninsula for the long weekend with a friend. For three days we camped, hiked, got a little stoned, dipped our toes into Lake Superior, tried to skip stones, and made campfires in 30° F and early morning rain.
On the second day, we hiked for 10 miles along the Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore. It took us 6 hours to hike those 10 miles, which might be the slowest I’ve ever hiked. Our meandering pace was for very good reason. We stopped at nearly every viewpoint, clambered down to the beach to eat a picnic, and touched all the trees and rocks and moss we desired.
I feel I have to tell you that leading up to the trip I had been feeling a little uneasy about Honeycomb Club. And that’s because while writing last week’s Creative Input, I struggled to come up with a full three. I combed my life for music, books, articles, podcasts—anything I’d absorbed and loved and would be willing to share.
All I came up with was a movie that bored me to the point of turning it off 30 minutes early and a book I muddled through only to get to the climax and abhor it.
In some ways, this is all fine and good. I don’t expect myself to be able to pour into my creative practice consistently each week, and to always encounter the sort of input that feels satisfying, expansive, inspiring. Sometimes the movie is boring and the book is bad.
And yet I have to admit that I was worried. Only a few weeks into this project to rediscover what it means to be creative, and I’m coming up short?
It was a wake up call that I hadn’t really taken care of my own input and output that week. I’m in the process of asking myself:
How can I tune into my own needs, again and again?
And what barometers do I already have access to that can help me assess what I need?
I’m humbled and grateful to say that this newsletter has quickly become one of those barometers. When I struggled to come up with three sources of input last week, it forced me to realize that I had had a creatively unfulfilling week. I got loads of client work done before I took off for the long weekend, and sometimes that’s all I can ask for.
But I’m now being challenged for next time to ask: is there space to look for pockets to feed myself what I need most, even when my plate is full with the sort of stuff I don’t want to eat but have to (client work, shit that pays the bills, etc)?
This has always been the driving force behind Honeycomb Club. I needed a space, a container to take my sense of creativity seriously. No matter what sort of week I’m having, I’ve committed to sharing several pieces of creative input and output with you.
I’m happy to report that on the second half of that 10-mile hike, I was struck by an avalanche of ideas for Honeycomb Club. Essays I read years ago and had forgotten (see Input #1 below), juicy little art projects I’d love to try and then share here, and even ideas for a few workshops later this season. I kept clambering to get my phone from my backpack to write down these wisps of inspiration and jolts of new ideas.
I thrummed with ecstatic relief that with a little fresh air and free time, I could uncover new ideas. It inspired me to wonder:
How can I keep the channels open?
How can I catapult myself out into the world, again and again, so that I can see, learn, and do things a little differently than I have before?
May we be kind to ourselves when inspiration runs dry.
May we be gentle with ourselves when, even with all the tender hope in the world, we don’t have the creative means to get to the creative ends. Maybe just not yet, anyway.
And above all else…
May we hold faith in ourselves and the ever-unfolding process of our lives that we will get to where we need to go, regardless of the path we might wind up taking to get there.
***The following are three pieces of creative input. Consider them inspiration to refill your creative cup. I encourage you to give your inner artist a sweet treat this week—even when you don’t think you deserve it, even when you’re hesitant to call yourself a creative person.
1. The Crane Wife by CJ Hauser
A Paris Review essay about the author’s decision to call off her wedding, and her grappling with everything in her relationship that led to that decision while on an expedition to help save endangered whooping cranes on the Gulf of Texas.
Why should you care? Hauser’s essay is a fascinating look at the ways women are endlessly hedged and made to feel like gaping, bottomless pits for simply needing things from their partners. The Crane Wife is a lyrically beautiful reminder that it’s actually “not that remarkable for a person to understand what another person [needs].”
A teeny tiny taste to entice you:
“It turns out, if you want to save a species, you don’t spend your time staring at the bird you want to save. You look at the things it relies on to live instead. You ask if there is enough to eat and drink. You ask if there is a safe place to sleep. Is there enough here to survive?... If there were a kind of rehab for people ashamed to have needs, maybe this was it. You will go to the gulf. You will count every wolfberry. You will measure the depth of each puddle.”
2. Near Death by Nikki Boyer
A podcast about life, death, spirituality, and existence beyond the veil. Host Nikki Boyer and hospital chaplain Reverend Peggy first met and bonded during the last four months of Nikki’s best friend’s battle with cancer. Now, in Near Death, the two celebrate life by deep diving into Peggy's 20 year career spiritually supporting the sick and dying.
Why should you care? This podcast is one of the most meaningful ways I’ve engaged with death, outside of coping with a loved ones’ actual death. You’ll laugh and cry alongside Nikki and Peggy each episode. Peggy’s perspective on death is inspiring, helping you to see death as an opportunity to be more deeply human, and engaging with the death of loved ones as a special and blessed human event, no matter how difficult it is.
A teeny tiny taste to entice you: give the podcast trailer a quick listen.
3. The Alpinist featuring Marc Andre Le-Clerc
The Alpinist follows world-class climber Marc Andrew Leclerc as he pushes the boundaries of solo climbing in some of the world's most treacherous mountains. With breathtaking cinematography and intimate storytelling, the film captures his unwavering and inspiring commitment to the pure essence of climbing, driven by his passion for the raw beauty and challenges of the natural world.
Why should you care? Marc Andre Leclerc is not like any other climber bro you’ve encountered. Despite his remarkable feats on challenging peaks around the world, he’s a recluse who shies away from the limelight and refuses to commercialize his pursuits. Rather than chasing sponsorships and fame, he deliberately chooses to live out of ice caves and stairwells so that he can focus on his climbing. His story is a brilliant call to embrace your own true calling and forsake comfort and conventional success to carve out a deeper, more individually meaningful existence.
A teeny tiny taste to entice you: watch the trailer for the film.
***The following are three ideas for creative output. Consider them as prompts for creative living in action. Because you have every right to get out there, practice your craft, engage your innate human creativity, and have a fuckin’ good time doing it. Enjoy, cutie!
1. FIND A NEW MUSE
This week, I challenge you to find and deep dive the work of an artist or creator you’ve either long been curious about or have only just discovered.
Why? It’s all too easy to watch the movies Netflix tells us we’ll love, listen to the playlists Spotify’s algorithms put together for us, and inadvertently stay on the same well-worn paths of creative input. But stepping off the predetermined track and into the creative wilderness is where you crack open a bit wider and become an active participant in shaping your well of inspiration and your creative practice.
How? Choose your new muse. I recommend an artist you’ve recently become aware of (the short film you just watched, the book your friend recommended) or an artist you’ve long wanted to get into but haven’t yet (I’ve always meant to listen to more Joni Mitchell, for example).
Go on a deep dive: eat up their hits, then go for the deep cuts. Embody the student researching the master. Find out who their inspirations were and dig into those people. Watch interviews with them, take in projects they did in other disciplines, see if you can find their earliest published works, figure out who their friends and collaborators were. Take on a critical eye: what can you glean from their creative journey? What about it resonates with you, and how can you weave in those jolts of inspiration to your own creative practice?
2. FIND A NATURAL SPRING
This week, I encourage you to locate a natural spring and go drink water from it.
Why? You are 60 percent water. The earth is 71 percent water. We’re made of the stuff, surrounded by the stuff, absolutely reliant on the stuff to live. And yet when was the last time you felt connected to and engaged with the natural environment your water comes from? Drinking from a natural spring is a simple way to root into your natural surroundings, celebrate the nourishing act of quenching your thirst, and enjoy a god damn delicious glass of fresh cold water.
How? Find a Spring, Reddit, and Google Maps are all wonderful resources. Bring a friend with you. Collect water, and filter it if you need to (follow the golden rule: rather safe than sorry). Make sure to drink some right at the source while taking in the environment around you: listen to the birds, watch the bugs, feel the leaves, and imagine all that earthly goodness pouring into your body as you sip your fresh-from-the-earth spring water.
3. VISUALIZE YOURSELF AS A PERSNICKETY CAT TAKING A PERSNICKETY NAP.
A wonderful way to enjoy a mischievous afternoon rest, even when you have loads to do.
Why: I’m so over feeling bad about naps. Sometimes I’ve got a lot on my to-do list, but my body is begging me to take a rest. Leaning into the persnickety energy of a cat boldly taking a nap where they shouldn’t makes it easier to claim rest and enjoy the shit out of it. Nap shame, be gone!
How: Find a patch of sun. Stretch out. Envision yourself as a cat resting gloriously in a tree, on top of a car, in a laundry basket of clean clothes. Give a self-satisfied little purr. Enjoy your rest unabashedly, blissfully owning your urge to relax and replenish.
That’s all for now, pal. Talk soon!
Katie
Being in nature is always such a great well of inspiration. Keep up the awesome work- super inspiring.