What Inspires You?

I saw that question: "What inspires you?"  in a book recently and have been thinking about it and how important it is to pay attention to the things that arise in our lives that inspire us....fill us with the urge to do a particular thing. There are many actions to which we can be inspired so the question just flung out there like that is a broad one.


So- what inspires me?


I am inspired by the passion people show for their work or their life. Another thing that inspires me is a good quote. Very often a person's quote lets me see a glimpse of the passion that inspires them. I know that Emerson didn't like quotes much so sorry Ralph Waldo, but in today's fast paced world, a quote is a portable tidbit of insight....inspiration on the go. 


Some of my fave quotes:

When one door of happiness closes, another opens; but often we look so long at the closed door that we do not see the one which has been opened for us.  --Helen Keller

It was a dangerous thing to do, for those who enter the heart of a sacred question and feel the searing heat it gives off are usually compelled to live on into the answer.

--Sue Monk Kidd

I've learned that you can tell a lot about a person by the way she handles these three things: a rainy day, lost luggage, & tangled Christmas tree lights.    

--Maya Angelou

You will find, as you look back upon your life, that the moments when you have truly lived are the moments when you have done things in the spirit of love.    

--Henry Drummond

The important thing is this: To be able at any moment to sacrifice what we are for what we could become.    

--Charles Dubois

The truth is that our finest moments are most likely to occur when we are feeling deeply uncomfortable, unhappy, or unfulfilled. For it is only in such moments, propelled by our discomfort, that we are likely to step out of our ruts and start searching for different ways or truer answers.   

--M. Scott Peck

I am also very often inspired visually by a collection of items that I find in an unusual place. Seeing how a shop keeper displays an assortment of wares on the corner of a shelf or seeing images in a book or a magazine that are arranged in a creative way inspires me to create myself. Years ago I cut this picture out of a magazine. I can't remember which one...I think it was a travel magazine. It shows a shop in Mexico that sells religious icons. The rosaries and images of Mary and the saints are piled together in an organized chaos of color and texture. It is now framed an hangs in my office at home. It remains for me one of my most visually inspiring images.







There are a few books of images and ways of seeing that inspire my creativity. One of these is:







"A Home for the Soul" 
by Iowa architect,
Anthony Lawlor.














The last thing I would mention when it comes to what inspires me is probably the most important thing on the list but the least easy to explain. What inspires me the most is my relationship with what I choose to call The Divine. It is the sum total of all that encourages me, touches me, speaks to me. This relationship is nurtured through the people I meet, the things I read, the songs that touch me, the art that gets my attention, the way that the trees and the flowers speak to me, the wind and the water...yes the water is important. Everything that is in my life informing me, enriching me, educating me.


 I don't really have a picture of this so I have chosen to include one of my drawings here. My drawings were originally begun as a way to pray when words were not adequate and they still remain a powerful form of communication for me. 




What Inspires You?