Hi there,
Gong hei fat choy!
Apparently this means “wishing you great happiness and prosperity” in Cantonese, and is a traditional thing to say at the beginning of the Lunar New Year.
This year, the Year of the Wood Dragon starts on the 10 February 2024.
Dragons are held to be charistmatic, dynamic, and confident. Bruce Lee was born in the Year of the Dragon, and my favourite Bruce-quotation is:
Absorb what is useful, discard what is not, add what is uniquely your own.
This is excellent advice for building any creative practice.
Creative prompt.
When coming to write this post I became interested in the etymology of the word ‘dragon’, so I looked it up on the excellent etymonline website and found that after first appearing in English in the 13th century as ‘dragoun’ meaning ‘fabulous animal’ it can be traced back through Old French, Latin, Greek (all variations on some form of ‘giant serpent’) to the Proto-Indo-European ‘derk’ which means ‘to see’. The etymonline website comments that “Perhaps the literal sense (of derk) is ‘the one with the (deadly) glance, the one with (paralyzing) sight’.”
And this is what has inspired this fortnight’s creative prompt:
In this year of dragonish shenanigans – the year of the Dragon always promises high energy and adventure – think about how you’re going to creatively deal with whatever the year ahead will throw at you.
In life or maybe just (just?) in your creative practice, ask yourself:
What paralyses you?
What helps you to move freely?
What to do about this? How do you fend off paralysis and cultivate a sense of space and movement? In my creative mentoring practice I notice that, when talking about being creative, people always end up revealing things about their sense of agency: What choices do they have about writing, making art, cooking, Tik-Toking? And how do they feel about these choices? Do they have the time, energy, and information to assess and then implement these choices? Are they free from the influence of others? What resources – inner and outer – can they draw on to implement their choices and do the creative work they want to do?
So, I guess this creative prompt is asking: What gives you a sense of agency?
By the way…
Did you know that I have a facilitation technique that I call The Etymology Game? Like all of my techniques it is designed to get you imagining and thinking in fresh and insightful ways. The Etymology Game – like all of my facilitation techniques – is well suited for generating creative ideas, helping people to explore their sense of agency, identifying shared values, and sense-making. Let me know if you want me to facilitate The Etymology Game for your team or even just (just?) for yourself in a mentoring session.
Upcoming events.
Creative conversation: Transversal artistry. How do the arts and creativity affect interdisciplinary collaborations? Join me for a 1-hour discussion.
8am AEDT / 4pm EST 28 Feb.
OR 6pm AEDT / 8am CET, 28 Feb.
Free. Online. Book here.
Creative Conversation: What does being authentic mean to you? A reflective and generative conversation to set you up for the year.
8am AEDT / 4pm EST 12 Mar.
OR 6pm AEDT / 8am CET, 12 Mar.
Free. Online. Book here.
I’ll sign off by “wishing you great happiness and prosperity” in Mandarin this time:
Gong xi fa cai!
I have too many people in my life telling me what to do…so I write, and plan, and I don’t tell them what I’m planning. It’s all mine, and I’m in control.
LOVING THIS (dragon emoji)- this may not come as a surprise to you Meredith, but when people say shit like 'you can't run a small business without facebook' motivates me entirely to prove them wrong. I love the fact I can say I'm not, and never will, FB.. (lets push aside that I cross promote our dancers on Instagram apparently owned by the FB coporate pigs).. so, living in this current colonial, patriarchal world renders me as a creative woman LOADS OF THINGS I then am motivated to do (lols emoji)