The art of beginning again – how creativity holds our cycles
There’s something holy about a blank page.
It doesn’t matter how many times you’ve filled one before. Each fresh sheet carries the same quiet question: “Will you begin again?”
And every time we do, we’re reminded of a truth often forgotten:
Life is not linear. It moves in cycles.
Just like art. Just like breath. Just like us.
The myth of straight lines
Our culture loves straight lines — forward, upward, faster, better. But in my experience, creativity doesn’t work this way. Neither does healing. Neither does living.
Instead, they spiral. They ebb and flow. They ask us to return, to repeat, to begin again.
Each time I start a new canvas, I must let go of what I thought I knew. And yet, every beginning carries echoes of the last. It’s not starting from nothing — it’s starting from everything I’ve carried, and everything I’ve released.
Beginning again as creative practice
In the studio, “beginning again” takes many shapes:
laying the first wash of color even after yesterday’s attempt felt heavy.
choosing a different brush because the last one didn’t speak the right language.
starting over entirely — not as failure, but as faith.
This practice has taught me that beginnings aren’t fragile. They’re resilient. They know how to return.
And so do we.
Cycles in nature, cycles in us
Nature models this truth better than any textbook:
trees shed and sprout again.
the moon waxes and wanes.
rivers dry and return.
We are not separate from these rhythms. When we allow ourselves to begin again, we step into the same current. We move with life, not against it.
For therapists & space holders
Cycles can be a powerful framework in creative or therapeutic work. Instead of aiming for “progress” as a straight line, invite clients to notice where they are in their cycle.
Is this a season of letting go, like autumn?
A pause, like winter?
A return of energy, like spring?
Creative exercises — such as painting circles, spirals, or repeated motifs — can help clients embody the safety of returning and beginning again.
For artists & seekers
If you’ve abandoned a canvas, a poem, a project — you haven’t failed. You’ve paused.
What would it feel like to return with new eyes?
What if the work itself is not asking you to finish, but simply to begin again?
Your art is not keeping score. It’s keeping rhythm. And rhythm always returns.
Ritual objects for new beginnings
When I created the Silver Feathers Rising series, each piece became a small altar to this truth:
that no matter how many times life asks us to start over, beauty is always waiting in the return.
Each original work is paired with an affirmation card — a reminder that beginnings are not weakness, but strength. They are anchors for your own cycles. Objects to hold when you forget that starting again is part of the path, not a detour.
To begin again is not to erase the past. It’s to weave it into the fabric of what comes next.
Each cycle, each spiral, each canvas begun again is proof of resilience. And resilience, I’ve found, is always soft, never loud. So here’s to beginning again, and again, and again. May each return be a rising.
