Welcome to the final blog of the The Ecology of Curiosity series, where we’ve been exploring how to become more curious and playful in the darkness, and even enjoy it. The unknown that we tend to run from becomes a path to grow capacity— which is both the seed and the canopy of creative process.
Sometimes, in the darkest season and a distressing cyclone of world events, it can be hard to see past our immediate discomfort— let alone remember how expanding our capacity to sense the unknown is a crucial part of the creative process.
In hindsight, of course, we can recognize that the unknown can be the most potent time to create, when the vulnerable inner world is stirred and gives us the chance to express something less filtered and more real. After all, the comfort zone is not the growth zone. We know that, even when we don’t act on it.
In order to meet the unknown, we have to step out into the muddy, moonless shadows where it lives. But to meet the unknown without being overwhelmed by it, we need to have a terrain to step into.
A Widening Terrain
Without a place to land, throwing ourselves into the unfamiliar or darkness can become exhausting, depleting. Without a practice, without rituals to come back to, wading into the unknown of our experiences and stories similarly shrinks our capacity for exploration or growth.
So how do we honor and support the way our nervous systems work long-term to develop the ability to sense more in the unknown, instead of shrinking from it or shrinking in the face of its intensity?
When we develop our skills of perception, even in the unfamiliar, we expand our capacity. We learn to find the balance of safety and surprise— that’s how our nervous system learns best, and that’s where creativity grows.
That idea is also the foundation of the Sense Writing 12-week course. With the next session of the course coming up, I’m excited to share a peek with you.
This is the framework— or field guide— that has supported hundreds of students in showing up for their stories and for the world around them and fostering a resilient creative practice.
These are the 4 parts (along with some images from the course’s animation):
Here, we start to form a relationship with the terrain of our body and external environment. We see that the terrain is there to explore, the spaces we may have been avoiding out of habit or fear, and establish a safe, fertile place from which to work.
Till the soil and soften the terrain, so that the ground becomes not just a refuge but a place from which a story can grow.
As we build awareness of our internal body, our capacity to absorb and process sensation grows— and we begin to connect to language, allowing the stories that are in us to root and surface and gradually see a path to the outside. We get the reassurance that there is something to step into, something waiting for us to discover.
Like the inside of a seed reaching out from its shell toward sunlight, the story sprouts, somehow instinctively knowing it is there.
Just like light, soil, water, and time work together to create a tree, many neuroplastic processes are organically working together in this phase. Without pushing, we encounter our voice and the intrinsic structures of the stories we’re telling.
Just like a tree grows with both steadiness and ease, you’ll get to feel how powerful processes can support your writing without having to push or pull to reach anything.
As you experience the processes we practice and learn how they work, you trust them, and by extension, yourself. Here, in a deep state of learning and creativity, we integrate specific methods to find the connections between stories, strengthening your craft from the inside out.
Held in this environment, you understand that you don’t need to hold on or grab too tightly to develop a resilient writing practice all your own.
I hope you enjoyed this Ecology of Curiosity Winter Series.
And that you began to get a glimpse (or reminder) of how it feels when you can step into your creative landscape, and develop an interconnected, self-generating artistic awareness that you can access with trust and curiosity.
