Where will you be when you realized everything has changed?
Flow chart poem - a midweek creative prompt
This week, I have had a deep urge to create. There’s something about the pending wave of destruction that feels like it’s coming (we know is coming) that has me feeling deeply into creativity as an act of resistance. As an affirmation of life. As a reminder that there is more to all of this. As a reminder of our power.
I told a friend earlier this week that it feels like we’re in the part of the wave that pulls back out to sea, before the big crash. That gentle pull, before you get thrown. Where are you in the wave?
Can we create more than they can destroy? I have to believe we can.
Create something. Anything.
Flow chart poem
In the depths of this urge, I stumbled upon a new (to me - I don’t know if this otherwise exists) medium this week: the flow chart poem. Let me explain:
You cut words out of magazines (you could also just cut any words into slips of paper, but I enjoyed the parameters of using the words available in the architecture magazines and home furnishing catalogues from the late 2000s/early 2010s that were left in my house).
You put a theme in the center or at the top (a true flow chart would be at the top; I put it in the middle. You do you). In my poem, the question that guided the poem came from the magazine, so you could choose a word or phrase or just make one up.
Then you flow. Make branches of possibility. See what happens.
You could also just do this in writing with words - pen and paper - but I enjoyed the act of cutting and gluing and using the words from the magazines.
Here’s mine:
Flow chart poem: Where will you be when you realize everything has changed?
Welcome!
Where will you be when you realize everything has changed?
At home, always
what goes around comes around
Always.
Feeling
Amazing
Royally classy
Amour
Sunny.
Work: Let’s do better
Work: What goes around comes around (always).
Inside
Relentlessly glittering
Relentlessly making magic
Making magic live on.
Adorning the world
Sleeping deliciously (in)
Dream factories
Live on, Mon Grace.
My favorite lines are “Relentlessly glittering / Relentlessly making magic / Adorning the world.” I believe this is my new mission statement.
The question that guides the poem feels deeply meaningful right now: “What will you be doing when…?” It’s what you’re doing right now. Whatever the question, it’s what you’re actually doing. Right now.
When the wave comes, I want to be adorning the world.
When the wave comes, I want to be relentlessly glittering, relentlessly making magic.
Where do you in want to be? Go do it now. We don’t know when the wave is coming (yes, we do).
Try it out. See what happens. If you try a flow chart poem of your own, please let me know or share below!
Go forth and adorn the world.
With love and care and so much faith in our creative power,
Stephanie