Planting Seeds

Weekly wisdom to level up your creative life in 3 minutes, for free.

A SHORT STORY

I have been thinking a lot about the types of seeds we plant in each other’s lives that often continue to grow long after someone is gone.

Recently, I lost my friend Brad Bradley to cancer, who had a particular strength in planting seeds. In fact, he was known to literally plant flower seeds around his neighborhood as a way to create more beauty in the world.

I met Brad through Mark Fisher Fitness, but our bond grew deeper through a daily practice of meditation and gratitude over the past three years.

At the beginning of the pandemic, Brian Patrick Murphy and I started a daily meditation group with my friend Geshe Tenzin Damchoe as a way to serve our community. We continued this every weekday for three months until other teaching conflicts got in the way.

Brad decided to keep the practice going with a smaller group of individuals that he called the “Zpak”. I joined them, and many of us still meet every weekday to practice gratitude and meditation.

When Brad passed, even though he had an illustrious career on Broadway, few spoke about those accomplishments. On the other hand, every single person spoke about the seeds he planted — the small actions of kindness he did like showing up to support others when they needed it the most.

For myself, I can’t help but think about the type of impact he had on my own life, planting that daily reason to show up and be grateful even in the midst of chaos.

What kind of experiences and ideas do you wish to plant in others that continue to grow long after you are gone? How do you want to be remembered?

A CREATIVE TOOL

As AI allows us to produce art at unprecedented speeds, I have been encouraging my students to search even deeper for their reason behind creating their art.

Recently, while giving feedback on my friend’s play, I returned to Jose Rivera’s 36 Assumptions about Playwriting as an incredible guide. While they apply to playwriting, I do believe his creative advice is universal.

Here are three of my favorite.

A PIECE OF ART

Art is mysterious. Still, there are moments when an artist can get closer to the mystery through language. Recently, I came across an interview with the great actor, Mark Rylance, who shared this powerful insight in response to a reader’s question.

So many of your recent cinema, stage and television roles have been about tragedy. Plus, you have experienced terrible personal tragedy in your own life, including the death of your stepdaughter and, more recently, your brother. How do you recharge your batteries – physical, emotional and spiritual?
Amy Hersh, New York

It’s interesting the way this question is phrased, as if those events drain one’s life batteries. I feel hollowed out by loss but I don’t feel the need to refill that hollow place. Initially, there’s a temptation to drink too much or smoke too much or work too much to try to fill the space with something else. But then you realize that empty spaces can be good. Miles Davis’s trumpet, Jacqueline du Pré’s cello would be nothing without the emptiness inside, carefully carved out by someone. And eventually you realize that emptiness is something you feel comfortable with. This person I adored is gone and now there’s a space there – but in a way they also live alongside me in spirit. And if you try to fill that space they left, it won’t work and the effort will wear you out. Better to think of it as a beautiful thing. Again, I think of artists like Miles Davis and John Coltrane, how the air moves through those hollow spaces and makes beautiful music.

-Mark Rylance

Grateful,

Michael