Once upon a time there was a little girl with blonde hair and a growing love for words who wanted only to write stories and paint pictures. She wrote and wrote, and drew and painted, and was very happy.

But They told her that although she was good at those things, and even though they often rewarded her for them, she must know she could never do them for real when she grew up. She must do something that was sensible, acceptable to Them and preferably the same as everyone else.

She lost faith in her spark, so she put it all to one side for many years, and the creative light inside her grew very dim.

Without her light, the girl’s world grew very dark for quite some time. Everyone was rather worried. But little by little and slowly slowly, she saw that listening to Them had shrunk her and she wasn’t living her own life, and she stood up, and began to walk away from the dark. She was very wobbly on her brave new legs at first, but she found help and support, and she moved away to live by the sea.

With each step she took, the spark inside her grew larger, until it ignited into a tiny flickering flame that lit her up a little and made her glow. She found a wise teacher who helped her to cultivate her light into a steadily burning flame, that grew and grew until it shone out of her for all to see. She picked up her pen and her brush once again, and cast her light further by creating things that gave pleasure to people who saw them.

Then one day she realised that inside her was a big treasure chest full of Wonders, and that sharing them helped others to remember that they had a spark inside them too. She saw that there were lots of people just like her, who had sparks inside that had almost been put out a long time ago by Them.

She set about finding ways to help more people to find their inner sparks, using her own to show her the way.

She made many many paintings, and wrote many many words, and she found a special place to live where she could share what she knew with people who were looking for their sparks too, and where she could show them how to find them. It was a very exciting time. She wrote a book for the spark hunters. She shared her words and pictures with kindred spirits around the world, and her special space with those closer to home.

She had found her creative spark, and, in the process, herself.

And she lived happily ever after. {Mostly.}

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Yeah, of course, she’s me. But I’m guessing at least some of her story is also your story, give or take a few details. Stay tuned for part two, where we will learn what came of discovering the spark, and how we can all do it, with a bit of support and encouragement. 🙂