The Driftwood Project

Spreading the joy of words one piece of driftwood at a time

Years ago I was a resort manager of a meditation retreat centre. It was one of my favourite jobs, and it wasn’t a job to me, it was a way of life – creativity led me to this moment and it was exactly what I needed at the time.

One of the promotional materials in a marketing swag bag that we put together was a single piece of driftwood with the single word, Namaste, ‘The light/divine in me sees the light/divine in you’, hand written or printed on it. My partner and I hand-picked each piece of driftwood that came from the edge of the ocean we lived next too, it was a project of love. Somewhere all over Vancouver Island, the mainland and part of Alberta are pieces of Namaste.

After I left the resort, I kept a few pieces of the driftwood and placed them in our home. Then I started to pick new pieces of driftwood on walks along the ocean because the driftwood spoke to me. Words came to me that I wanted to share, and putting them on a piece of driftwood popped into my mind. One Christmas not so long ago I felt compelled to make a centre piece for our table, the word faith lingered in my heart and I found a sharpie and placed the word on one of the pieces of driftwood. I placed that piece on my meditation alter in my writing room. It was the beginning of my personal driftwood story.

What is the Driftwood Project? I like to keep things as simple as possible; I will write one word on a piece of driftwood, place it somewhere, take a picture of the worded driftwood and share here with you. Maybe that word will stir the same kind of curiosity it does for me or for another person, take away what is needed from that word, write a story, a poem, flash fiction, a picture, whatever comes out of the word is yours – of course I would love to hear about your sparks of creativity, please drop me a line and I will share it with everyone (unless you tell me not to). A sharing in you is a sharing in me.

The word faith came to me first, the word faith to me is more than faith in a religion or whatever you may call it. Faith is in myself and my very deep faith in the universe, providing what was needed and what is needed to maintain this beautiful and intentional creative life. I am also very faithful to my passion of writing, faithful to the creative process, this is why I am here on the page with you. I want to share the journey of this creative life to spark your creative life.

The second word that came to me was, devotion. I wrote this to accompany the word faith. Devotion to the faith of creativity that has been shared with me to share with you. It’s a very passionate love affair, me and creativity, we have been together for a long time, creativity has always been there with me as I have been right next to creativity. I always knew I had something to share, I just needed to get out-of-the-way to get there. Words keep me grounded and show me the way, one word at a time.

Now, I am sharing pieces of driftwood in my community, in random places where people may find them and that word can speak to them however it is needed. What is needed to be sparked will be lit and hold true for the reader of the word they may come across.

The word faith was needed during the month of November during NaNoWriMo, writing 50K in 30 days. I woke up every morning and saw the word Faith as I started my morning pages and I was filled with the notion of faith that I was able to complete this November writing challenge and I did. I wrote 50K words, and then some more words, I am not finished the novel, but I devoted my faith in creativity and finished a goal I set out, for this I am very grateful, and this is why I am sharing the Driftwood project with you.

Faith: what does it mean to you? What kind of spark does the word stir up for you? Or nothing at all. Is faith something you’ve been devoted to or something you struggle with, remember there is no right or wrong answer here, only creativity. I struggled with faith for a while and now I’m at a place of trust and dive deep in the faith of creativity.

I look forward to hearing from you. Until next time, keep on typing. . . .