The Bereshit Bara Creativity Series asks 13 Creatives to wrestle with how they make the first move, write the first word, fling the first brush stroke, peel back the first layer of clay? What inspires them, what moves them, what drives them? I’d also like to hear from YOU. Send me your thoughts or a link to your post wrestling with these questions at rossgale4@gmail.com.

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When bull kelp, coiled en masse, is healthy in a rich and deeply burned amber tone.
Kelp forests attach to pillow basalt; curve and lap on black hardened bubbles.
This is peacefulness away from things.
When it is sunny it is easy to be outside.

This is a belief: satisfaction is achieved from continually forming bonds and memories with the natural world, humans included.

Optimism, the relative feeling that some level of fulfillment is present and/or expected is inspired by satisfaction, but also by creation which can be a product of confidence gleaned from satisfaction, or unrest.

A pigeon guillemot bobs past the bull kelp, flying away from brambling youth and their loudness.
High whistles on the pacific slope, dry, fly, and cider.
These waters are expansive, clear, and full of reminders.
Our minds recognize wholeness from bits of patterns; the mottles on an american bittern.

When we are fortunate to create something, we get to experience patterns forming and connecting before our senses, and we get the feeling that this was done by our own movements, our own design. We are inspired to keep the pattern evolving, and the control of our actions to ensure that this happens seems effortless. The actual physical patterns could be mathematically repetitive, like checkers or Escher, or the patterns could be perceived metaphysically as in the wonderful case of abstraction.

And any moment when bonds and patterns are realized, satisfaction grows, and optimism expands.

At one point, the English and Americans were disputing the ownership of San Juan Island. They had their separate camps, cannons, and stories. The Americans had the better position, on the far southern point of the island, watching guard over the strait, and life was apparently peaceful, albeit cold and rainy. That was a century and a half ago, but the flagpoles still stand. For some reason I don’t care too much about this. I am in a state of pattern searching that recognizes a begging fox at the old American camp, and wonders about its state of optimism.

Christopher Hunter lives in Olympia Washington. He teaches science to people in the 8th grade. He eats one chocolate croissant per week and prefers cats over dogs. Although he didn’t write about it, he believes challenge and discomfort are catalysts for creativity, and that often these are delivered by fateful forces. So to this, he often succumbs.