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January 2025

Healing Powers of Creative Energy

While we all experience events and grief differently, for many, the creative process can be soothing and help us find our way through dark times.

Virgi Merriam, one of our Villagers who lost her home, and everything in it, in the Eaton fire suggests that we consider writing haiku, a Japanese style of poetry to “capture” the things we have lost… moments, items, feelings, sounds, etc. “Haiku is something I’ve been sharing with my granddaughter,” Virgi shared with me. "It seemed to be a good vehicle for me to release some of the pain, loss and grief I’m feeling.” 

Virgi is also one of the Village Artists and is contemplating a series of “fire paintings.”  She recently received some new watercolor paints and is considering using them for this idea.

For me, haiku is a way to remember.  I never want to forget the coyote sounds at night; bickering squirrels; parrot fly-overs; the cacophony of early morning bird songs; my last look at the house I lived in for 51 years, dark and lighted blue in the moonlight of Tuesday, January 7, as I got into my grandson’s car to leave; baseball games at the nearby Farnsworth Park and so much more.

Music has healing power whether you are listening or making it.  There is healing in the way it evokes emotion. It allows your imagination to take you away from the stress of life for a little while. 

Creative energy is a soothing way to help you plod through all that needs to be dealt with in a disaster.  I found myself drawing ideas of how to rebuild. I drew a door closing as another opened. I drew my house as I remembered it in the moonlight the last time I saw it. 

On an evening recently, while feeling blue again, I simply wrote down what I was feeling. While I cannot see well enough to read what I write, it was as though the feelings came down through my arm, out to the pen my fingers were holding and escaped on the paper. I don’t need to read them. I felt good just writing them out of me.

For me and for many, allowing our creative energy to flow is what keeps us alive. It could be dancing, playing an instrument, gardening, drawing, painting, writing or any number of other things. Whatever it is, let yourself be free in it. It may be what you need through a hard time, as well.

*To See More Experiences With The Fire, Click on #LAFires