How We Make Meaning: Notes on Creativity, Witness, and Well-Being

Everyday Creativity: Small Acts That Restore the Self

Not all creativity begins with a blank page or a paintbrush. Sometimes it begins with perception itself: what philosopher Edmund Husserl called 'phenomenology,' the act of seeing not just the world, but our experience of it, as worthy of attention. Sometimes it begins with noticing: a flicker of light across the floor, the sound of wind shifting through trees, or the way steam curls from a cup of tea. Sometimes it begins with permission.

Lately, I’ve been exploring how to make creativity part of my everyday life. Not as a performance, but as a practice. Not to produce, but to feel more whole, more rooted, more alive. These small rituals don’t require hours or elaborate setups, just a willingness to pay attention and begin. As Zen teacher Thich Nhat Hanh reminds us, mindfulness is not about escaping life, but about returning to it fully, through breath, action, and awareness.

Here are a few ways I invite creativity into my daily rhythm:

Photos and Videos as Prompts

I take images and short videos throughout the day, not for social media but for myself. These are visual fragments that hold energy: a crooked shadow on the stairs, leaves trembling in a gust, or the soft disarray of an unmade bed. Later, they become prompts. I might write a few lines from the memory, sketch a mood, or simply sit with what the image stirs.

This practice, at its core, is a kind of aesthetic mindfulness. It offers a powerful alternative to the passivity of doomscrolling or consuming others’ curated content. Instead of absorbing imagery designed to manipulate or distract, we create our own images that ground us, that invite presence and personal meaning. Philosopher John Dewey believed art arises not from a separate, rarified sphere, but from our active engagement with everyday life. By becoming attuned to what draws our eye and stirs our inner life, we are, in Dewey’s words, "recovering the continuity of aesthetic experience with normal processes of living."

In this way, taking a photo becomes more than capturing something beautiful, it becomes a way of cultivating attention, authorship, and emotional clarity. It turns the lens toward life as it is, and toward how we choose to witness and shape it.

These visual fragments also form the early sketches of my Poetic Pauses: short films or dynamic photo sequences layered with voiceover or text. Though they’re often shared publicly, they are only the beginning stages of my writing process. These pieces are like world-building in poetry: creating atmosphere, tone, and emotional setting before the fuller poem or essay arrives. Each pause is an invitation into that unfolding world, a moment suspended, waiting to be shaped into something more lasting.

Poetic Pauses as Ritual

These pauses began as short films to benefit others, but I’ve realized they’re also a ritual for me. A way to slow down and connect. To name a moment, however small, and give it the dignity of attention. This act, for me, is not just observation: it's bearing witness. In poetry, 'bearing witness' can take many forms. Poet and editor Carolyn Forché, in The Poetry of Witness, defines it as a kind of writing that transcends the personal and enters the social sphere, where private experience and political reality meet. While my own work is often rooted in everyday moments rather than overt historical or political events, I still resonate with this core idea of seeing. Forché’s framing is grounded in bearing witness to injustice and historical trauma. What I offer for consideration is a way to expand the lens to include bearing witness to the subtler layers of human experience: the personal, the relational, the quietly transformative. That creative attention can be a form of presence, one that carries weight. Whether we are responding to injustice or simply holding space for a fragile, fleeting moment, bearing witness requires humility and a willingness to be changed by what we notice. Whether I’m filming snow falling, whispering a poem into dusk light, or writing about tumult and past trauma, the work becomes an altar, a place to return to. In this way, the act of noticing becomes a kind of memorial or elegy, an honoring of what might not have been, and in some cases a letting go of what has been. These poetic pauses preserve the moment not just as experience, but as meaning. Each one says: this mattered. The poem, or any creative act, becomes a kind of monument, built not from stone, but from attention. It acknowledges, it honors, it remembers. In this sense, creative expression becomes an act of devotion: not only to beauty or insight, but to the moments that might otherwise pass unmarked.

This concept echoes Czesław Miłosz’s use of “ruins” in poetry, where the remnants of destruction, both physical and spiritual, become a means of remembrance and reflection. For Miłosz, ruins symbolize the devastation of history and the erosion of faith, yet they also offer a space for witness and meaning-making. By creating poetry from the fragments, Miłosz, like many post-World War II poets who lived through the devastation firsthand, transformed loss into a testament of resilience. Similarly, when we pause to name what has passed or broken, whether a world event or an intimate silence, we, too, participate in this act of survival through art.

Here’s one of my recent Poetic Pauses, a short film rooted in presence, noticing, and meaning-making. (Video embedded below)

The Never-ending Note

One of the ways I keep creative momentum going is by keeping a running note on my phone, a continuous thread without titles or structure. I drop in phrases, sensations, overheard snippets, or images that won’t leave me alone. Sometimes, when the moment feels too immediate, or my hands are full, I’ll open the voice recorder instead. Whispered lines, half-thoughts, fleeting imagery spoken into the device like a quiet conversation with myself. This small act of recording is both practical and poetic: it lets me meet the moment as it is.

There’s something ancient in this practice too, an echo of oral storytelling traditions, where memory, rhythm, and breath gave shape to shared meaning long before pen met page. These spontaneous recordings carry that spirit: raw, alive, and unfiltered. Even now, rhythm and cadence help shape meaning since language reminds us to breathe, and the poetic line teaches us how. Just as the oral tradition carried memory through voice and breath, these modern gestures echo that ancient truth: sound shapes memory, and form gives it continuity.

Over time, these collections become a rhythm. The act of gathering builds anticipation for when I finally sit down to write or create art. This echoes philosopher John Dewey’s view of aesthetics, not as an elite practice, but as a democratic experience rooted in daily life. Dewey believed that art was not separate from living, but an intensified form of it. Our encounters with beauty, meaning, and expression are shaped not just in galleries or studios, but in the quiet, continuous moments of noticing and naming. It’s like planting creative seeds I know will bloom when I’m ready.

Creativity in Communion

There’s a particular kind of magic that happens when creativity is shared. I recently had the honor of co-facilitating Walking Earth: Plein Air Artmaking, a workshop hosted as part of the Museum of Friends’ EARTH Exhibit. We invited participants to step outside, observe the natural world, and create from direct experience. What emerged was not just a collection of sketches or reflections, but a collective deepening, with each person encountering the cityscape in their own way, and expressing something honest in response.

As part of the workshop, we introduced a mindful noticing activity, a version of the mindful scavenger hunt found in the Soulful Living Workbook. Participants were invited to observe light and shadow, the textures of nature across the cityscape, and their own sense of connection to place. It was less about collecting and more about being moved by what they saw, felt, and allowed themselves to be present with. These acts of attunement grounded the creative process, guiding attention outward toward the land and inward toward the self.

That same spirit of communal creativity also blossomed through another recent project: the Community Healing Tree. Installed as a participatory mural in the gallery space at the Museum of Friends, the Healing Tree has invited visitors to contribute their hopes, dreams, and intentions for healing, both personal and collective. Pre-cut shapes of leaves, flowers, and birds were offered as vessels for reflection. A nearby sign reads:

Each symbol is a seed, a dream, a prayer.

What do you hope to bring into the world? What needs nourishing in your life, community, or on Earth? What are you ready to release and transform?

I'm including these prompts here because they might also serve as a gentle starting point for your own creative practice, whether through writing, collage, journaling, or quiet reflection. Sometimes the act of responding to a single question is enough to open something meaningful inside us.

The mural continues to grow, still on display and open to contributions. Visitors are invited to help the Healing Tree bloom further, filling its branches with color, offering symbols of care, and sharing personal intentions. As the community adds new leaves, flowers, and birds, the artwork remains alive, dynamic, and responsive, a living archive of hope and connection. In this way, the Healing Tree becomes not only an artwork, but a gathering place. A reminder that creativity is not only personal but also participatory, connective, and deeply healing.

The Ritual of Return

None of these are things I "have to do." They are ways I return to myself. This is what Aristotle might have called 'eudaimonia,' a form of well-being that arises from living in alignment with our inner nature. Even when I don’t create something tangible, the rituals themselves become a kind of art. A way of tending to the inner world, of saying: I am here, and what I notice matters. You don’t need to be an artist to live a creative life. You just need to begin.

Try one of these practices this week. Choose a color to look for. Start a note. Take one photo a day with the intention to find beauty. Let it be imperfect. Let it be yours to build upon.

If you'd like more guided prompts and gentle support, the Soulful Living Workbook is filled with practices like these.  And of course, you're always welcome to explore my latest reflections, Poetic Pauses, or join the Soulful Living Insights newsletter for monthly inspiration.

Until then, may your everyday moments be your most creative ones.

Sources & Inspirations

• Aristotle. (1999). Nicomachean ethics (T. Irwin, Trans.). Hackett Publishing Company.
• Dewey, John. (1934). Art as experience. Minton, Balch & Company. (1934). Art as experience. Minton, Balch & Company.
• Forché, Carolyn. (Ed.). (1993). Against forgetting: Twentieth-century poetry of witness. W.W. Norton & Company.
• Hanh, Thich Nhat. (1975). The miracle of mindfulness (M. L. Tran, Trans.). Beacon Press.
• Husserl, Edmund. (1962). Ideas: General introduction to pure phenomenology (W. R. Boyce Gibson, Trans.). Collier Books. (Original work published 1913)
• Miłosz, Czesław. (1983). The witness of poetry. Harvard University Press.
• Miłosz, Czesław. (2001). Rescue. Ecco.. Nicomachean ethics (T. Irwin, Trans.). Hackett Publishing Company.