Fire-Breathing Dragons: Inspiration Is The Theme For March

March 1, 2008 · by Joanna Paterson · in

Inspiration:

  1. an inspiring or animating action or influence
  2. something inspired, as an idea
  3. a result of inspired activity
  4. a thing or person that inspires
  5. theology
    1. a divine influence directly and immediately exerted upon the mind or soul
    2. the divine quality of the writings or words of a person so influenced
  6. the drawing of air into the lungs; inhalation
  7. the act of inspiring; quality or state of being inspired

Thanks everyone for your comments and feedback on the theme for March. The options I suggested were integrity, intention and inspiration. There were some strong arguments made for an exploration of both integrity and intention and I’m going to find ways both to work them in during March and to explore them more fully in the future.

There was a general consensus though that inspiration would be a good topic to look at as a follow on to the energy of leaps and bounds, and to mark the change in the seasons into both spring and autumn.

And that’s what I’m going with, though it comes with an additional twist and challenge. A couple of readers mentioned that inspiration is an over-done topic, which can make it boring. And of course anything over-done and boring is utterly uninspiring…

So the challenge to myself is to find ways to explore the theme of inspiration without relying on cliches, covering already well-trod ground, trying too hard to be inspiring (an immediate inspiration-killer) or losing your interest (and mine).

Fortunately a quick look at the dictionary definition revealed many different layers of meaning that might help us to look at inspiration in a non-boring way. Thinking for example about:

  • What animates us to write, and what animated writing looks, feels and sounds like
  • The things, people and places that inspire us – and the things that dampen or squash that inspiration
  • Writing with the aim or intention of inspiring others

But where do the fire-breathing dragons fit in?

Well the root of the word lies in the verb “to breathe”. We still see it in the dictionary definition: the drawing of air into the lungs; inhalation. Breath has found its way into my interpretation of inspiration too:

Inspiration Writing that’s inspired, that inspires you, and inspires others. Knowing what inspires you – and what to do when it seems out of reach. Finding inspiration in the every day. Writing with the breath of life; writing that’s come from the source.

And as I mentioned in a comment here recently – on foggy days, and seeing the breath in our writing – it’s how I picture the writing process. How I think about writing when I need to fire up my intention either to write myself, or to help others to realise the power of their own words:

…sometimes I think of writing (I hope this isn’t too fanciful) as breathing out fire. And when I coach people it’s because I want to help them breathe out that fire too.

Last but not least, today is St David’s Day, which seemed like an auspicious point to celebrate the power and spirit of fire-breathing dragons.

My plans for what to write about in March are still kind of… fluid… so please do chip in ideas and
suggestions for things you’d like me to cover.

I won’t be running another group writing project this month though: I’m still sorting through the wonderful contributions from last month and will publish the results early next week, plus there are plenty other interesting projects out there (more on those at the beginning of the week too). I do have an interesting tag though which I’m hoping to answer soon and will try and turn into something we can all play along with. More on that to follow too…

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