
The Creative Journey | Nancy Hillis MD & Bruce Sawhill PhD
Redux: The Creative Journey of Nourishment & Becoming
This is a blog post from two years ago, very shortly after Bruce first became involved in writing them. Two years doesn’t seem like a very long time unless you stop and realize that COVID wasn’t even yet a word at that point.
Now our hope that we will ever be free of it is battered and bruised.
But hope is at the core of creativity, it was what was left at the bottom of Pandora’s box after all sorrow and pestilence dissipated. It’s what allowed her to press on.
Here’s to hope and creativity in this next year.
In the blog posts, Nourishing the Creativity of Your Inner Artist and The Cycles of Creativity we talked about the special properties of this dark time of year, a season that seems drab and dreary and moribund, but is paradoxically anything but.
This is a time of marshaling of energies.
In the landscape, a leafless and brown terrain belies the activity that is occurring unseen and underground.
Much of the world is invisible to human eyes and must be seen by the power of thought, the magic of imagination.
Seeds in the winter ground lie quietly, not putting out roots or shoots. But they are not dead. They are silently and slowly arranging their internal structures for a future time of growth. They listen but do not speak.
In our creative journey of growth, there are times when parts of us are like these seeds.
We are exploring our inner landscape, gently rearranging elements for a future time of need.
Listening to ourselves and the world around rather than speaking is important, and perhaps it is why as humans we have two ears but only one mouth.
This preparation is noble work, for without it we never germinate and grow.
I got to thinking about the remarkable nature of seeds. Not only the organic reality of them but also the analogies they inspire.
The first known use of the word seed was before the 12th century. Merriam-Webster has two definitions of the noun:
- the grains or ripened ovules of plants used for sowing
- the fertilized ripened ovule of a flowering plant containing an embryo and capable normally of germination to produce a new plant
As artists, writers, composers, choreographers, cinematographers, musicians and storytellers we are continually creating new forms, just as seeds are germinating to produce new plants.
Seeds are vital to existence. Examples of the ways we use the word seed reveal the depth of its roots within our collective psyches
- seed of life
- the top seed (the top seeded tennis player)
- seed fund
- sowing the seeds of discord
- going to seed
- seeds of knowledge
- seeds of change
- in seed form
- the seed of an idea
A seed becomes more than itself by accessing the adjacent possible. The seeds of your next artwork live within you, waiting and ready to manifest into full blown creations.
And with this in mind, my partner Dr. Bruce Sawhill told me the following remarkable story of his experience with seeds.
Bruce’s Story
When I was five years old, I loved walking in the sun-dappled deciduous forests that abounded where I grew up in Michigan, tall oaks and maples shading a loamy and mossy forest floor. It was like walking on a cushion of fragrant green life, my sneakers indenting the ground which sprang back up after I had passed.
I was fascinated by seeds. How could something so small become something so much more than itself?
I loved planting seeds to see the tender green sprouts push above the soil, unfurling into the light while doffing a little cap of dirt and split seed in deference to the rush of new life.
My parents played a trick on me. One day I planted several watermelon seeds in front of the house. Day after day I checked to see if anything would happen, diligently watering them from a paper cup.
Finally, about the time I was ready to give up, I saw a tiny cracked mound of dirt, the indicator of energies stirring beneath the surface.
The next day a watermelon sprout was there, with the two seed leaves, the cotyledons, small and green in the warm humid sunshine. These two leaves are special because they are part of the plant’s embryo, coming fully from inside the seed.
But a day or two later, the first true watermelon leaves emerged, much bigger and differently shaped from the seed leaves.
Those leaves start the process of photosynthesis, where the plant begins to relate deeply and fundamentally to the world around it.
The plant is now making itself out of sun and water and nutrients in the air and soil, rather than just unfurling what it started with.
The whole is more and different than the sum of the parts.
What is being created is not just embryo and not just air and soil, but something new and different united by process and energy.
The plant is exploring its adjacent possible, propelled by an imperative to create itself.
But here’s the trick I referred to:
While I was being fascinated by the germination of watermelon seeds, my mother had gone shopping and bought a full-size watermelon, perhaps 25 pounds (11 kilos). Before I woke up the next morning, she placed it beside the watermelon sprout which was all of three inches high and brought it to my attention.
Imagine the shout of glee when I discovered this. My first watermelon! My, it was large.

Watermelon
But glee quickly gave way to suspicion.
Even to my five-year old mind, something didn’t quite add up. How could something so big materialize so fast? Why didn’t I see it coming?
As it has often been said, “if something seems too good to be true, it probably is.” Nonetheless, we all had a good laugh when the trick was uncovered.
But I wasn’t satisfied with just one seed experiment.
On one of those walks through the woods, around a year later, I collected a pocket full of acorns. I found a patch of dirt and planted several dozen.
Oak trees are not as simple to grow as watermelon plants. Nevertheless, quite a number of oak saplings arose, even with scattered attention.

Oak Seedling
Over the next several years they became taller than I was and as thick as a broomstick. They started to crowd one another and eventually we had to do something.
With the help of my father, we transplanted them to the perimeter of the property. We planted a dozen or more of them a generous distance apart from each other, thinking of the future.
At that point they were on their own.
Over my teenage years, I was peripherally aware of the saplings becoming trees, growing and spreading, becoming as thick as my arm.
But my attention had turned to other things.
I moved away to college in California, my parents retired and sold the home, and the oak trees faded into obscurity along with the town and people I had grown up with.
I was on a journey like Odysseus, and the origin of the journey disappeared astern.
Several decades later, out in the greater world, I observed that the seeds of technology planted after World War II had become giant organisms like Apple and Google.
Along with devices that display information and provide entertainment came ways of storing vast quantities of distributed knowledge. Who could have predicted exactly how this would play out from disparate and obscure beginnings decades before?
One of my favorite of these modern technological fruits is Google Maps.
Maps are like art created from Nature. They’re beautiful in and of themselves.
One day I had the idea to explore my old home town in a virtual way, since I hadn’t been there physically in over 30 years. I found the old house, but it was hard to recognize, especially from aerial photos.
That was because the surrounding foliage was radically different, which temporarily threw off my pattern recognition.
Along one side of the old property was now a row of fifty foot tall stately oak trees, casting a rhythmic pattern of shade on the lawn underneath.

Oak row
I gradually came to the realization that those were the trees that came from the acorns I had planted. Other landscaping had been removed or added, but at least some of those oak trees were still there.
As T.S. Eliot said, “We shall not cease from exploration, and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time.”
This was that time.
This dark and inward looking season is a time of collecting one’s acorns and planting them. It may be a long time before their role in your development becomes clear, but you will know it when it happens.

Mature oak tree
You are assembling the architecture of your future self
Creation has its own rhythms, its own reasons.
When it seems as if not much is happening, a great deal is bubbling under the surface.
The seeds of your next creation are germinating.
All of this takes time.
And patience.
And belief.
The belief that you are a creator. You are an artist.
Your work, your art, your life matters.
With gratitude from my studio to yours,
Nancy
P.S. Now is a great time to prepare for 2022 and take your art somewhere new. Get your copy of The Adjacent Possible: Evolve Your Art. From Blank Canvas To Prolific Artist.

The Adjacent Possible Takes You Somewhere New- Nancy Hillis MD & Bruce Sawhill PhD.
Get your copy of The Adjacent Possible: Evolve Your Art. From Blank Canvas To Prolific Artist.
To see all my books, visit my author page.
Continuing this long winter’s nap, I hear drums beating, note twirling shapes of marks and smudges, loading the creative goodie jar on the studio shelf. A year ago I answered the call of your sirens. Now I’m back! ready for more exploring – secrets of the unknown poised to launch who -knows-what as the next page turns.
I love it Libby!
WOW! What a beautifully thought provoking post. Thank you Nancy and Bruce for sharing with us all. I am definitely in a dormant period in my art career and art creating and am recalibrating what my goals and intentions are for 2022. I now feel a bit more confident with the new visualization of being an acorn or a seed dormant for winter. It gives my “doing nothing” time more meaning and the guilt washes away. It’s been such a strange time and I imagine other artists around the world are also adjusting their goals and projects- but what we all come back to is that we are creators and we have to create to breathe….we will one day (hopefully soon) return to creating if we are taking a break, but in the meanwhile, let’s stand in the sun and soak it all in to grow. (I was shared your post from my mom Christina (printmaker) who is taking your course!). Much aloha, Mika Harmony
Hi Mike,
Thank you for you lovely note. Wow!!! Christina is your mom! Say “hi” to her! Yes, I believe that in these times of relative stillness, a great deal is bubbling under the surface, preparing to burst forth on its own time. Aloha to you too,
Nancy & Bruce
Hello Bruce and Nancy, a very happy and covid free New year
I so enjoyed your blog, uplifting for this dark time of year when we have long nights and short days and more restrictions creeping back.
I feel that I have seeds of something that I don’t recognise nor could put word to, so that’s exciting and I’ll see what will happen.
To you Nancy and all my art friends, may masterpieces fall off the ends of our paintbrushes!! 🤗
Love from Margaret
Hello dear Margaret!
A very Happy New Year to you as well! So lovely to hear from you. Yes to masterpieces falling off the ends of our paintbrushes!
Love,
Nancy & Bruce
Thank you both, amazing and eloquent souls.
This is a wonderful commentary, Bruce. As a wild child who roamed the woods, I relate. I can still feel the magic of walking on the pine needles and leaves in the forests of southern Arkansas and letting my imagination soar. Happy New Year to you and Nancy. I would love to be attending another retreat instead of cancelling yet another vacation because of this virus.
Hi dear Sue!
Thank you! Yes to another artist’s retreat! We’re missing seeing everyone- especially you and “the adjacents”!
Love,
Nancy & Bruce
Thank you both for this blog post. I think of Blake’s “to see eternity in a grain of sand”, and want to reply, “yes, and all of life itself in a seed”. I lived as an anthropologist for twenty years in the Rajasthan desert, where the profundity of life, pushing its way up through barren landscape after a monsoon rain, was the stuff of miracles, bringing life and hope to desert peoples. So very much to think about in all of this, and then to carry this on as analogous translation for our art making. Wow. And. Wonderful.
Wow Nancy! We both love what YOU wrote Nancy! Thank you for your lovely note. I love hearing about your time in the desert as an anthropologist and your observations.You totally brightened our day.
Warmly,
Nancy & Bruce
Hello Nancy and Bruce, thank you for this invigorating, hopeful post! I needed it and am comforted and inspired as I so often am with your thoughts! Bless your hearts and Happy New Year!🥂😘
Hello Denise! Ah…we’re so happy to hear this. Bless you too…and a very Happy New Year!
Warmly,
Nancy & Bruce
Hi Nancy and Bruce.. I thank you for the inspiration I can draw from you both. Thanks to you Nancy, although I am still a beginner, I am loving intuitive abstract art. I have family and friends asking me to paint for their homes and even an office…!! Hope is indeed the anchor for our souls. Many blessings. With warm regards from South Africa
How beautiful and profound. 🙏Thank you so much for sharing.
Now I feel a lot better about not feeling like doing any creating.
As much as I’m aware that these times occur it can still be disheartening, I am grateful for the reminder,
Thank you both
❤️❤️❤️
Christina
Thank you Christina! The life/death/life cycles of creating continue. Sometimes, it seems that not much is happening…but a great deal may be germinating during quiet times.
Warmly,
Nancy & Bruce
Hi Nancy
From New Zealand where the creative season of summer is evident how we love the warmth and balmy weather of the long evenings The time and evidence of what has passed before.
Loved the analogies that Bruce told in his story
The festive season takes away from the miracles around us except for the miracle of family what a treasure they are and to be part of their pathways is indeed very humbling and awe inspiring. As a grandmother a very important role to nurture the growth of the generation that is developing Indeed a great privilege to be part of their lives
With warmest greetings
Janet M NZ