Introductions, sparks + Our heARTworks

Welcome to the threads in The Joy Rise Chat

Hello dear readers,

I’m so excited to be writing to you today about a new thread I’ve created in our Joy Rise Chat! It’s devoted entirely to the art that we create and want to share in this supportive space that we’re building and growing together.

More on that shortly, but first, for anyone new to The Joy Rise community (hello, welcome!), here’s a catch up on the conversations that are already humming away in our Chat:

As a part of my offering to paid subscribers, we have a few different threads.

For those who haven’t discovered Chat yet, ‘threads’ are just that: a way to organise conversations around a topic - threads of a larger conversation. My hope for The Joy Rise Chat is to create an interactive and engaging community nook on our phone / tablet / computer that is, unlike so much of what we might absorb through our screens, a collective refuge for our imaginations and creative thinking.

Please feel welcome to join me there, if you haven’t already. It’s fast becoming one of my favourite parts of the internet.

So what are the threads currently in The Joy Rise Chat?

Introductions

The Introductions thread is a place to introduce yourself and, if you’d like, to share what your creative passion is. Even if you haven’t done it for a long time. Even if you’ve never done it. Maybe sharing what you love to create can be a first step towards remembering, or pursuing what sings to you and your inner country.

One Single Spark

One Single Spark is a space to share what you’re noticing is igniting your imagination, whatever that may be. Something grand, enormous, life-changing, sure. But equally and perhaps more likely for us all, something small that you notice purely because it catches fire in your heart and, in the chaotic blur and churn of our days, asks us to stop and pay attention. With this invitation in mind, maybe we’ll start to notice things that we haven’t before. Maybe paying attention to what sparks a flame inside will surprise us. Enliven us. Connect us. Kickstart a creative project that's calling to us. And, maybe most of all, enable us to experientially believe we each carry our own spark, and how it might illuminate in our lives if we tend it.

…and introducing: Our heARTworks

Today I’ve created a new thread, Our heARTworks.

This new space is for art we create and want to share.

The purpose and function of our new thread is as simple as that.

Join our new thread via the Chat link below to read the story behind this photo, my first shared heARTwork.

A few reminders at this point, in case they’re as helpful for anyone else’s inner critic as they are for mine:

To create art, we don’t need to be an artist deriving income from our creativity. When I write here about an ‘artist’, I’m describing anyone engaged in creative thinking and the creative process. When I write here about ‘art’, I’m referring to the expression of creativity - imagination - through a physical form.

For the next little while, my contributions to Our heARTworks will likely be about my current creative project: writing my next novel.

I would love to hear from you about any art that you’ve created, are creating, are holding in your heart, and feel compelled to share in our space here.

Maybe it’s a multi-tiered birthday cake for a friend’s milestone birthday, or a patch in your garden that you’ve re-planted and refreshed. Maybe it’s the pebbles and shells you picked up on a walk and arranged on your coffee table when you got home, maybe it’s tie-dye you did with your kids, maybe its a song you recording yourself singing with the cockatoos as backing vocals…

Whatever form creativity takes like for you, I would love to offer you this space to share, if you so desire, because when we create and feel joy, we stir up creative inspiration in other people. Like courage, and fear, our creativity is contagious.

Click the link below to share your heARTwork, where you’ll also read mine.

I can’t wait to see what you’re making and share in the joy / challenges / pleasure / meaning of it with you.

With a light left on,