Review: Stimulate Your Creativity with FOR YOU by Maggie Lynch
By: Ellen Dostal Jan. 16, 2015
Like many of us, I love words...and I love to lose myself in a good book. But these days it seems like life moves at such a fast pace that there is little time to relax in the embrace of a good story, lost in a world of new ideas and adventures. The truth is - we're all busy. We all have to-do lists we can't possibly burn through in the time we've allotted, and as soon as one task is marked off we add another to our list until it becomes a revolving, unending, and often unmanageable mountain we race to scale at the expense of the view. The result is that we end up exhausted. Can you relate?
I knew that if I wanted that to change in 2015 I'd need to make a conscious effort to create a new routine. That's why I decided to start slowly, with author and photographer Maggie Lynch's recently released For You, a 72-page easy-to-manage paperback that combines the keen eye of a spiritual photographer and the expansive thoughts of a conscious poet.
Even better, I decided to experiment and use Maggie's book as an inspiration a day. I would focus on one photograph and its accompanying page of poetry each morning, and then try to review it at least once during the day and again before I went to sleep, just to see what impact that might have on my day. At the very least, I hoped it would help slow the typical breakneck speed with which my days often fly by. At best, well...who knew what that might be...
"Don't expect what you can't receive
Make room if you expect
Celebrate its coming
Receiving"
What I found was that focusing on one thought and one image became a kind of simple meditation that I quickly looked forward to. It was incredibly satisfying to take those few minutes to really see the picture and feel the words...and then go about my day. The poems are short and the photographs beautiful which make it a joy on a purely physical level. And on a spiritual level, it is perfectly designed to satisfy a mind that craves the freedom to fly without requiring a commitment to 500-pages and a lot more time.
"...Grab the light
Pull the light in
Capture it..."
I experienced wide open spaces in the pages of For You and a nourishment of the soul that has helped to restore a little of the peace that so easily slips away when stressful situations arise. Out of that space of peacefulness comes unlimited ability to access creativity so for those of you who are busy actors, writers, directors and creators of all kinds, I highly recommend this lovely book as a restorative companion. Lynch's poetry will awaken different thoughts for each of you, but what they'll have in common is the power to stimulate your imagination with vivid intensity. And as far as I'm concerned, that's time well spent.
One last interesting note is that Lynch also lists the locations for all of her photographs in the book on her website. From Hawaii and California to Ireland and points in between, they are a gorgeous collection of stills.
FOR YOU
By Maggie Lynch (pictured right)
Paperback: 76 pages
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0990362809
ISBN-13: 978-0990362807
Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 0.2 inches
Publisher: Maggie Lynch; 2nd edition (2012)
Available on Amazon: http://amzn.to/1v4vjeD
Also at Book Soup, 8818 Sunset Blvd, West Hollywood, CA 90069
For more about the author: www.maggielynchbooks.com
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