Dear Anne,

This summer has been full of unexpected detours — and I've been sitting with the challenge of navigating a creative ebb. There might be something in it you recognize in your own life.

Right before the summer solstice, I was having a beautiful burst of creative flow — writing, painting, building, connecting, feeling genuinely exuberant — and then life arrived with some unexpected demands. (We rescued a mama cat and her three kittens, which has been simultaneously sweet and significantly more stressful than I anticipated. Kittens are adorable. All the things that come with kittens: sometimes less adorable.) And alongside that, I simply stopped feeling the pull to be in my creative work. My inspiration seemed to evaporate. Everything I'd been working on had no energy around it, and if I tried to force reconnecting — it made things worse. It just made me frustrated.

For someone whose creative energy is central to everything — to my work, my sense of self, my relationship with my own wellbeing — this abrupt halt felt alarming. Where did it go? Why has it left? Will it come back?

If you've ever been in a creative ebb — and I believe most of you have, whether you'd call it that or not — you know this feeling. It can masquerade as laziness or lack of discipline or something more frightening, like maybe you just aren't good enough in some way. Ebbs are also marked by a lack of clarity — we simply don't know what to do next. Our culture doesn't help. We live in a world that measures worth by output, treats pausing as falling behind, and has very little language for letting something rest before it can be expressed.

So we push. Or we spiral. Or we wonder what's wrong with us.

Here's what I've come to understand again in this past month:

The way through is stillness. Not necessarily stillness on the outside — stillness on the inside.

The ebb is not the absence of creativity. It's where the inner work percolates and simmers. Creative flow doesn't operate on a linear, productivity-oriented schedule. It moves in cycles — surges and expansions followed by periods of integration, where everything generated needs time to metabolize before it can become something new. What feels like a creative drought is often, on a deeper level, a kind of composting. The material is there. It's just not ready to be expressed yet. Something needs to align and settle within — and when it does, the flow returns, and so does clarity.

I was reminded of this in a conversation I had recently with a client I've worked with for many years. She is extraordinarily capable — someone who has always prided herself on accomplishment, responsibility, and getting things done. When she first came to me, she wanted to reconnect with her creative self, which had gotten buried under a very productive life.

I remember early in our work together trying to explain the concept of what I call creative puttering. Those unhurried stretches of time where you're just tending to things — watering plants, tidying up, wandering through your house without an agenda — following your energy rather than directing it. In my experience, puttering isn't the opposite of creative work. It's essential to it. You move around in a gentle, unscheduled way, the energy in your environment shifts, you enjoy the simple activity of being with your life, your space, your body (your kittens) — and then, almost without announcing itself, an idea arrives. A window opens. You find yourself back in the flow.

She looked at me like I'd suggested something mildly insane.

But something shifted for her over time. She told me recently that she finally gets it — that after years of allowing herself more creative space, she's discovered that puttering is about allowing the return to flow. It's a way of being in stillness without literally sitting still. Creativity doesn't flourish inside a productivity-only mindset. It requires a different kind of attention — one that is receptive rather than directive, curious rather than goal-oriented, willing to be surprised rather than insistent on a plan.

I think the deepest thing these ebbs ask of us is self-trust. Trust that the flow hasn't abandoned you. Trust that the quiet is doing something even when you can't see or feel it. Trust that you are a creative being not because you produce things, but because creativity is woven into who you are — and it will find its way back through you when the conditions are right.

I'm writing this today because the conditions finally feel right. I let myself enjoy the kittens, let the kitten-tending be its own kind of puttering, trusted that the integration was happening — and the flow returned. (Kittens are excellent teachers in this department.)

And here it is.

If you're in your own ebb right now — if the ideas have gone quiet, if life is giving you detours, if the right choices seem unclear or the inspiration feels distant — I want you to know that's not evidence of failure. It's evidence of a deep energetic reset, a creative system doing exactly what it needs to do.

Putter. Rest. Water the plants. Cuddle with a kitten if you have one. Follow your energy rather than your to-do list for an afternoon and see what finds you.

The current is still there. It always is.

Love & Light,