This past weekend Mrs. Allen and I started decorating the house for Christmas. It caused me to stop for a moment and take in anew this place I live in.

Lisa and I spend a lot of time talking about sanctuary, the idea of creating environments that really support us physically, emotionally, mentally, and even spiritually. But I want to add yet another dimension to that.

In the sanctuary we have created for ourselves here, we have a place that supports us artistically.

What does that look like? It looks like spaces dedicated to creation. These rooms do serve other purposes, but all of the tools needed to create in our various modalities are right there, easily at hand.

It looks like books that line the shelves and fill every available cranny—books on philosophy, psychology, spiritual practices, art, music, design and architecture, and even creativity. Our shelves, our minds, and our hearts are filled with these books and the ideas within.

It looks like a beaded, Bohemian hammock hanging in our living room. It’s not only fun to sit in and gently swing when we gather there, but it’s a visual reminder to rethink, reconsider, and not to pass up the opportunity to do something more creative, more unusual, than absolutely necessary.

There are crystals here—lots of them. They are symbols of transformation and reminders of the beauty that can be hidden within us. The morning light is shining in at this moment, illuminating many of those crystals, and setting off a dazzling display of refracted light.

One last thing: it looks like lots of storage for projects to be put away when they’re not being worked on. Yours truly needs to take more advantage of this instead of leaving his various project pieces laying around.

I know I’m lucky—I live with a gifted interior designer that has a preternatural grasp of how the energy of spaces interacts with our own human energy. But my point here is that with some intention, we can all consciously support our inner artists by creating an environment where we have a few beautiful, thought-provoking, stimulating things around us.

So that’s my call to action today. Is there something you can add (or something you can take away) from the enviroment where you create to make it more supportive of your artist?

Maybe you haven’t yet consecrated a space for you to regularly practice your art—maybe that’s your call to action.

Maybe it’s simply to pay a little attention to the place where you work—both to feed the body and to feed the soul. Attention and intention together can do magical things.

My very best,

Philip

Conscious Creativity

The Artist’s Sanctuary