A Garden Metaphor on Creativity and Growth Spurts

We have a garden, in fact, we also have a gardening website! In writing an article about tomato plant problems, one of the tomato issues reminded me of a garden metaphor as it relates to growth challenges amongst creators and entrepreneurs.

TABLE OF CONTENTS:

• Uneven Growth
• Growth Spurts
• Growth, Creativity and Stability
• Natural Cycles
• Kindred Creators
• Growing Daily
• The Creative Habit

Uneven Growth

Something that many creatives and entrepreneurs are good at is uneven growth. We can even appear manic depressive in how we can vacillate between flurries of productivity followed by downtime and even depression.

Perhaps you’ve experienced that, or know someone who has. Often, creative growth fluctuates between the wild Pan spirit of spring growth, and silent solace of the slumbering winter garden.

“Planting seeds in your garden is like planting thoughts in your mind.  Nourish the good ones and pull out the weeds.”
-LeAura Alderson, GardensAll.com

Inconsistent Watering

In the garden, a common malady for gardeners can be cracks on the tomatoes. If you’ve ever grown tomatoes, or purchased them from the Farmer’s Markets, perhaps you’ve seen or experienced this issue. It turns out that these cracks are caused by the uneven growth of growth spurts, which is often caused by sporadic watering

Consistent watering prevents growth cracks. Like creating daily. Creating daily prevents cracks in your momentum and evens out the growth spurts.

Cracks in tomatoes are caused by growth spurts caused by uneven watering.
~GardensAll.com

Growth Spurts

So growth spurts in nature… in humans… in creatives and entrepreneurs, is normal.

Think of nature in spring. It’s like growth on steroids because conditions are perfect for massive growth. It’s the season for growth. However, as the season wears on, too little growth, such as in drought, followed by too much growth, such as with lots of rain, can cause problems in plants.

Consistency is key for making the best progress.

Like Goldilocks… gardens — like creating — need not too much… not too little, but just right.

Too much work can lead to burnout. Too little effort, can lead to failure. Consistent daily creating is the sweet spot.
~LeAura Alderson, cofounder iCreateDaily®

Growth, Creativity and Stability

So, in this garden metaphor, growth spurts—whether in the garden, or in business and in your creative endeavors—are all normal.

There are times where it’s naturally easier to be more productive. For example, many writers enjoy winter as a favorite time to hibernate and write. Same thing for artists and crafters, while entrepreneurs may hunker down in their business growth, or attend conferences to accelerate their learning and connect with other business owners.

We all have our rhythms in each day and in each year where it’s quieter and better for the inner work, and others when it’s more outwardly active, like a garden in summer.

As in nature, our nature is to also have rhythms and cycles of greater activity, creativity and then rest.
~LeAura Alderson, cofounder iCreateDaily®

Natural Cycles

If you’re a gardener then you’re naturally spending more time in your garden in summer and perhaps creating less art. Winter is a wonderful time to create because there’s less time in nature, (unless you’re into winter sports, or live in a warm weather climate).

The point is that growth spurts and uneven growth, are a natural part of life… in the garden and in us. Our goal though, is to lessen the chasm between the highs and lows toward greater balance, so that we don’t crack, like the tomatoes.

Creating daily, helps to even out the violent swings between creativity and stagnancy.

Creating daily sets the rhythm of the creative life.
~LeAura Alderson, cofounder iCreateDaily®

Kindred Creators

Within the iCreateDaily Facebook community, we have members who do arts, crafts and businesses, and who are also into gardening. Similarly, many gardeners are creators and crafters. To garden is to nurture something to life. To create, is the same. So it just makes sense that many creatives also love plants and gardening, and likewise, many gardeners also love arts, crafts and creativity.

To garden is to nurture something to life. To create, is the same.
~LeAura Alderson, cofounder iCreateDaily.com®

Soil of the Soul

We are not the product of our past unless we give it that power. We are not a seed tossed on the winds of change, or the waves of emotions rippling through the body of humanity. Unless we choose to be. Unless we let it be.

We are to grow forward… upward and onward. If we cast to the past of our who and why, we will not rise into the sun of our future self.

As we take root in the soil of our soul, we’re no longer subject to being blown about by the winds of change, or drowned by the floods of fear. Instead we are grounded in the presence of possibility and the freedom of infinity.

Till the garden of your soul with the amendments for healthy growth, then plant the seeds of your future orchard in that soil. Feed it a diet of daily actions and watch your garden grow.

What nurtures your soul, will also nurture the soil of your garden of life… your inner Eden.

May you always find peace and solace there… within.

Growing Daily

When it comes to growth, whether it’s personal, business, creative or in the garden, it’s the practice of daily creating that helps you grow daily. The habit of creating daily will even out your growth spurts. Sure, there will still be the natural ebbs and flows, as there should be. To ebb at creating can be to flow at something else.

It’s the practice of daily creating that most helps you grow.

To ebb at creating can be to flow at something else.
~LeAura Alderson, cofounder iCreateDaily.com®

The Creative Habit

Growth spurts and cycles are essential for keeping you fresh in your endeavors, protecting from burn out and stabilizing your growth.

No matter what you’re doing, the habit of creating daily—whether it’s in your office, in the garden, in your relationships and everything in between—is the one habit above all, that will even out your growth and keep you from cracking.

From December to March,
there are for many of us three gardens:
the garden outdoors,
the garden of pots and bowls in the house,
and the garden of the mind’s eye.

~Katherine S. White, writer, editor

Spring Poem

ETERNAL SPRING IN THE GARDEN OF LIFE

To focus on creativity and growth is to align with nature and the eternal spring of your soul.

Spring is the creative impulse of nature that will not be silenced… will not be stopped… and will gleefully grow, no matter what.

Step into the spring of your own life… into the fertile garden of your heart and bring to life that which is waiting to blossom.

Pour forth, Eternal Spring. Fill our heart as you fill the blossoms with fragrance, the earth with healing green and the rivers with rain.

What fills your heart such that it brims your eyes in sweet tears?
Let love flow and worries go for in the Garden of Life hope springs eternal.

~LeAura Alderson, cofounder iCreateDaily®

If you enjoy garden poetry, here’s a garden poem and also garden memes, quotes and sayings.

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