“Our senses are indeed our doors and windows on this world, in a very real sense [they are] the key to the unlocking of meaning and the wellspring of creativity.”
Jean Houston
First up, for those members who joined after last Sunday: WELCOME to your Weekly Wonders! These emails will land in your inbox every Sunday evening, so you can have the prompts fresh at the front of your mind as you go about your week. It really helps when it comes to the regularity and development of your creative thinking ⚡️
Our theme for April has been “Creativity and the Senses” - taste, smell, hearing, sight, and today it's TOUCH.
For those newer members, here's a brief intro to the theme.
By exploring and using all our senses, whether that’s alone or in combination, new parts of our brain ignite. Those little sparks discover dark corners and illuminate what’s there. Creativity is then borne from these adventures!
So this month, we’ve been looking at each of the senses in turn. Taking time to think about each one individually and attempt to isolate them in our experiences, noticing what helps to spark creative thinking within us, and seeing if we can utilise our senses more.
“Sometimes a touch is all it takes to make you feel seen and understood.”
To feel and to touch can both have very different meanings - physically and mentally.
Does creativity have feelings?Does it soak up our feelings and display them in different ways? With the sense of touch comes an ability to feel. But creativity can also ‘touch’ people’s thoughts without ever physically touching them.
As I write this, I’m discovering new ways to think about ‘touch’ and creativity. So I’ll divide the prompts into two today - the ‘physical touch’ and 'mental touch'.
Creative Thinking Prompts (w/c 29 April 2024)
Physical Touch
How much do you trust your sense of touch? Do you believe it when it tells you something? Could it in fact tell you something that your sight wouldn’t have spotted? If you’d like to explore this further, ask someone else to choose a random household object for you - something small enough to hold in one hand. Ask them to give it to you when your eyes are closed. Hold it. Touch it. Feel it. What do you notice about it that perhaps you wouldn’t have noticed by solely looking at it? Textures are possibly heightened; but also are there features you’d have missed?
When you’re sat at your desk, or just at home, make a point of really feeling an object that’s within reach - maybe your mug, your laptop, a pen, the remote control, a cushion, anything! Feel it’s features, it’s textures, without looking. It’s a completely different experience!
Think about things you feel but don’t necessarily ‘touch’ with your fingers - the fresh breeze on your skin, the rain on your face, the softness of a blanket, the warmth of a fire; the grass in your toes; the vibrations of your dog’s heartbeat; or even your own heartbeat when its pounding hard. Is there a feeling of safety when you feel things like this. Does it help you to feel present and alive?
And if you fancy a bit of creative ‘doing’, how about trying to create a ‘tactile landscape’ through using collage - can you experience it through touch instead of (or as well as) sight?
Mental ‘Touch'
How does your creativity impact (and touch) other people? And I don’t just mean typical creative things, I mean the creative things you do in your work as well. How does approaching your work in a creative way make more of an impression on your clients/customers than otherwise? What qualities does doing something creatively bring to the person who receives it - how does it touch them?
THINK about touching something which is textured (i.e. don’t actually do it) - a fluffy cushion, a rough broom, a basket, a sponge etc?! What words would you use to describe how it feels to someone else? Try and think of ten words or phrases - get as elaborate and as crazy as you like!
Thinking of a metaphor is a great way to describe something you’re touching…. Can you combine your words, phrases and metaphors into something more poetic? “The candyfloss felt like a whisper of a memory; threads of happiness momentarily settling on my tongue before whistling away into the wind.” I literally just made that up! This can be done in your mind too remember - it doesn’t have to be written down and ‘made perfect’ - just the act of thinking like this will spark your creativity in beautiful ways.
Consider your creative flow - when you are in the zone creatively and it all feels so easy - how are you feeling in this moment, or the moment just before? Is there anything you can do which helps to put you in this zone, to help you reach that incredible feeling?
And finally, for a bit of fun, play the animal insult game. Think of two animals (we did a rhino and a polar bear the other day) and try to think about what daft insults they’d throw at each other: “Leather Head!” “You’re as cold as ice!” “Big nose!” etc etc… So childish! But fun! Obviously I’m not condoning throwing names at anyone - this is just for fun - but you could balance it nicely with a ‘complements’ version of the game!
Our feelings obviously influence our creativity. The two are intertwined in so many creative pursuits and outlets. So it’s interesting to think about how creativity FEELS.
After doing some further research on this topic, there is so much I could go in to, but I think I’ve left you with enough for the week, and don’t want to overload you!
To end today’s email, a quote, sent to me the other day by our very own Zoe - she knows me so well already!
“The world is full of magic things, patiently waiting for our senses to grow sharper.”
W.B Yeats
So I’ll start a rallying cry to sharpen our senses through our creativity, so we can see more of that magic! Wouldn’t that be ‘wonder’ful!
P.S. I saw this the other day on my Instagram feed. I thought it'd be nice to include it here as a summary of our month looking at our senses (although I'd argue that ALL our senses can be used to create a better world 💫❤️)
You can find the artist, Lynn Giunta, on Instagram here.
“Wonder makes us more creative and more desirous of studying the world around us. It makes us humble, less materialistic, more generous, and better community members… Wonder makes us less stressed and feel like we have more time… Wonder quite simply makes us want to be better, more tolerant people.”(Parker, 2023)
