Here it is, almost summer again. Everyone seems to be atwitter (so to speak) with activity: preparing, planting, tending gardens inner and outer. Incubation has ended. Birds feed their chicks, flying in flocks, chirping and calling to one another. We’ve arrived at the next stage in the creative process, illumination.
Nothing interrupts inspiration more completely than tugging at the budding roots of the newly growing seed. But if you’re able to wait, with hope, during the sometimes long winter of not-knowing-what-to-do (incubation), then you’re rewarded with creative energy and new direction.
Sometimes creative illumination comes as an idea, or an image that emerges from memory, or a feeling of waking up, refreshed and ready to go. Often, inspiration arrives in a dream we can’t shake, whose images haunt us.
Wait, watchfully, for a dream that evokes awe, wonder, surprise, or joy. Deeply and quietly consider the images within the dream: they may gently lead you into your next painting, story, play, drawing, sculpture, collage, or…who knows?
Until next time… sweet dreams!
About Veronica Tonay
International dream expert, Dr. Veronica Tonay, earned her masters and doctoral degrees in psychology from the University of California at Berkeley in the early 1990s. She has been a licensed psychologist in private practice since 1997 (CA PSY 15379), and has taught psychology courses to undergraduates at the University of California at Santa Cruz since 1989. Her work has been featured for over 25 years in many media outlets, such as Psychology Today, NPR Public Radio, abcnews.com, and The Chicago Tribune. Dr. Tonay was featured dream expert on the Discovery Health TV Channel's 3-episode miniseries, Dream Decoders. She has organized several dream conferences for the International Association for the Study of Dreams, and has published journal articles and three books, including: "The Creative Dreamer, Revised: Using Your Dreams to Unlock Your Creativity" (Ten Speed Press/Celestial Arts) and "Every Dream Interpreted," published in London by Collins & Brown. She lives with her husband, Steven, in Santa Cruz, California, gardening, painting, writing, dancing, and dreaming.
