Inspiration is life communicating to us.

Art, and the beauty it holds, can still our soul. It can calm the voice within which buzzes with a million permutations. It can re balance emotions and ignite possibility.

Glancing back over travel photos from Summer, 2018, I came across this fountain statue I’d taken near the Stattstheater in Stuttgart, Southern Germany. When I stumbled across it in a park near the city centre, it completely encaptured me. It was not in a fancy, high security museum in an overly known city. I doubt it was worth millions of euro. I did not even see the name of the person who created it, nor receive the opportunity to thank those who’d caused it to be there.

Yet it inspired me. Time stopped, as I stood before it, gazing upon her form, pondering who he was, wondering who’d inspired such a creation. What was the story, the drama behind the pose? What angst did the man hold to embrace her in such a way? What did they say to each other? And have I, in some far off, possible dimension lived a life like that, sat in that same way, held a man in my embrace?

Why did this particular statue speak to me, move me, when (literally) thousands of others I saw on my travels did not.

Art is empowered by the viewer. Whether words or a piece of music or a painting or a poem moves us is deeply personal. This is why I enjoy avoiding statements such as “That is the best film ever made!” “Her novel is the best book ever written.” “That is the most valuable piece of art.” Such generalisations do us a disservice, as humans, as creatives, as artists. They simplify our preferences to a tiny list. They limit possibility. They dumb us down.

Instead, I prefer to compile a list of possibility. At that time in my life, this statue moved me. So much so, a copy of it now resides beside my bedside table. Maybe it will always move me. Maybe in a year or a decade it will cease to hold profound meaning. Still, it does not matter, because right now, it offers me inspiration.

Inspiration is life communicating to us. So, what inspires you? Perhaps it’s a child’s story or a vibrant coloured jacket or an edgy, cool photograph. Maybe it’s a song lyric or even a simple melody. It might even be the perfect form of a neatly trimmed hedge or the sparkling froth of a wave as bubbles wash your feet on your favourite beach.

Inspiration is all around us. Inspiration is how we know we’re alive. Inspiration comes in many, many forms. The thing it has in common is that it moves you, it shows you a higher way of being, it speaks to your soul. And it lifts you up out of the everyday, mundane to the wholly.

What’s one way you have been inspired today? And, if it hasn’t happened yet, what’s one way you can be inspired now? Look around you. Listen. Enjoy.