Suzanne McDermott, watercolor after Winslow Homer, Fishing Schooner, Nassau, c. 1888-89 (private collection)
On any journey, you must allow for course correction. Whether you're walking along a wooded trail, navigating wide open waters, or soaring through the air, you'll encounter obstacles and situations that require you to step to one side, tack your sail, shift your rudder, or adjust your altitude.
Sometimes it's not a rock or snake in your path, or a shift in the current or wind, or a change in the weather that makes you change course. Sometimes, it's your internal state, a reasonable thought, realization, personal experience, something you've overheard, or just a gut feeling.
Sometimes, it's a matter of, you know, I don't think this is going to work. Or, I've gone down this path so far and I've learned this much and it's just not right or it's a dead end or I definitely have to cross the river and go through a different scene to get to where I'm going.
Course correction is refinement. It's a way to sharpen focus and sometimes better define the destination and time of arrival.
Allowing for course correction helps you be more open minded to suggestion, inspiration, and your very own intuition which allows the light of the divine to shine through. Who doesn't want the light of the divine to shine through?
Throughout the process of creative wayfinding, it's best to be open to course correction because it brings the stuff of magic.
Anyone who thinks that they can exactly plan out anything, especially a creative project, is first of all, mistaken and also missing out on who and what will naturally show up. Don't you want help? Do you really think that whatever you're intending to do, wherever you're intending to go is all up to you? Well, it is. And it's not.
What is up to you, for sure, is your mindset. I'll address that more in the future. What is not up to you is exactly how you'll get to where your going.
In other words, your responsibility is the what, maybe the where, but definitely not the how.
You know that saying? "If you want to make God laugh, tell him [sic] your plans." It's true.
I am reminded of the great, Scottish mountaineer, W. H. Murray who said,
Sometimes it's not a rock or snake in your path, or a shift in the current or wind, or a change in the weather that makes you change course. Sometimes, it's your internal state, a reasonable thought, realization, personal experience, something you've overheard, or just a gut feeling.
Sometimes, it's a matter of, you know, I don't think this is going to work. Or, I've gone down this path so far and I've learned this much and it's just not right or it's a dead end or I definitely have to cross the river and go through a different scene to get to where I'm going.
Course correction is refinement. It's a way to sharpen focus and sometimes better define the destination and time of arrival.
Allowing for course correction helps you be more open minded to suggestion, inspiration, and your very own intuition which allows the light of the divine to shine through. Who doesn't want the light of the divine to shine through?
Throughout the process of creative wayfinding, it's best to be open to course correction because it brings the stuff of magic.
Anyone who thinks that they can exactly plan out anything, especially a creative project, is first of all, mistaken and also missing out on who and what will naturally show up. Don't you want help? Do you really think that whatever you're intending to do, wherever you're intending to go is all up to you? Well, it is. And it's not.
What is up to you, for sure, is your mindset. I'll address that more in the future. What is not up to you is exactly how you'll get to where your going.
In other words, your responsibility is the what, maybe the where, but definitely not the how.
You know that saying? "If you want to make God laugh, tell him [sic] your plans." It's true.
I am reminded of the great, Scottish mountaineer, W. H. Murray who said,
"Until one is committed there is hesitancy, the chance to draw back, always ineffectiveness. Concerning all acts of initiative or creation, there is one elementary truth...that the moment one definitely commits oneself, then Providence moves. too. All sorts of things occur to help one that would otherwise never have occurred. A whole stream of events issues from the decision, raising in one's favor all manner of incidents and meetings and material assistance which no man would have believed would have come his way.”
Murray is actually writing about commitment, which is the first step to a particular end, but imagine making a commitment and then not allowing for course correction. As you set out on the path of your journey, if you prepare yourself for anything, prepare yourself for Providence to intervene and be willing to change course as needs be.
What are you committing to now? Where are you planting your step next? What, exactly is the destination you imagine?
©2021 Suzanne McDermott
What are you committing to now? Where are you planting your step next? What, exactly is the destination you imagine?
©2021 Suzanne McDermott
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Suzanne McDermott is an artist who helps creative women heal themselves and find their way from A to Z.
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