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Thin Places

Lesson 23 from: Discovering Your Creative Voice

Chris Orwig

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Lesson Info

23. Thin Places

Next Lesson: Devil’s Advocate

Lesson Info

Thin Places

Celtic mythology considers some places to be thresholds or doorways to the divine. Places like trees, rivers, hilltops, mountains, and as one traditional Celtic saying goes, "Heaven and earth are only three feet apart, "but in thin places that distance "is even smaller." And these thin places are often associated with wild landscapes or oceans. And what makes a place thin, isn't so much as the geography, but the experience there. And whether or not we fully agree with that I think we've all had those experiences where you go somewhere and you just say wow! And you have that sense of awe. Some of those places I think of are those locations we go that are good for our soul. Like we're in the city, and we just get out of it and we come up here and we can breathe kind of in a brand new way. Why does this matter to the creative process, to discovering our own creative voice? Well what I've discovered is sometimes what we need to do is to get away from the fray and get to those areas where t...

he places are a bit thin. I like how John Muir put it he said, "Everybody needs beauty as well as bread, "places to play in and pray in, "where nature may heal and give strength " to the body and soul." So what is the actionable step that we can take related to this concept of thin places? Well I have three ideas. Inside, outside, and upside down. The first one is to ask yourself, well how can I find a thin place indoors, inside, or inside of myself? Maybe that means just taking a deep breath to recenter or perhaps to practice meditation, to take a couple of minutes and just sit in quiet. That's inside. Outside, well take some time to travel to a location. And it may mean that you need to go far away or just around the corner from where you are. Upside down. This one is about a perspective shift. You know sometimes when you're on the ground and climb a tree, it's just that change in perspective that helps you to see in a new way. You know in almost every photography 101 class, they'll tell you that the camera heights or your camera height is almost always wrong. It shouldn't be eye level, but you should crouch down to the height of a dog. And if you go down and look at the world that way, then all of a sudden, you can see it with fresh eyes. So again, three ideas for you, three different steps that you can take. Inside, outside, upside down. One internal, two getting out there and doing something, and then three a perspective shift. Now if you want to dig deeper into this whole concept, I have a book recommendation and a couple of talks. The first one is "The Power of Now" by Eckhart Tolle, beautiful book. Next, a few TED Talks one by Matthieu Ricard called "The Habits of Happiness." Second, Andy Puddicombe "10 Minutes of Mindfulness." And there you'll learn more about meditation and how that can benefit you and help you to become more creative as well.

Class Materials

Bonus Materials with Purchase

Discovering Your Creative Voice - Bonus Video - HD
Creative Voice Resource Guide
Ikigai Template

Ratings and Reviews

Lynda Adlington
 

Excellent. Would recommend this to every creative soul. Inspiring . Thank you very much Chris for this course.

Brenda Pollock Smith
 

Chris is an evangelist for all creatives. He facilitates expanding our creativity in very simple, practical ways. Really good stuff! Thank you Creative Live for offering this kind of soul food content.

François Morisset
 

Wow...we need more of Chris Orwig..His wisdom in life mix with photography is extraordinary! What a great gift I got from creativelive..that gift is Chris Orwig. thank you soo much

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