The post below was originally posted on the now defunct Make and Meaning, a project headed by Diane Gilleland and Paul Overton. Other contributors included Pip Lincolne, Alice Merlino and Kim Werker.

After the chaos and stickiness and vacations that summer tends to bring, autumn ushers in that familiar longing for knitting with wool, the urge to make soup, the welcoming back of your heavy coast and sweaters along with a healthy dose of enjoying cups of tea that much more because it warms your hands. And I’ve noticed lately that I’m not the only one stirring around more than usual now that the air is getting cooler and the days are getting longer.

So, in the spirit of creating, I’m reposting an old post (see above), along with a video that never fails to make me smile, think and devise new projects and adventures. Maybe it will inspire you, too?

Flow.

Ever have those moments when you start a new project with excitement and then the next time you look at the clock hours have passed? Although I love when that happens, I always wondered why it occurred, was I just sleepy? Or in ‘the zone?’ Then I discovered the work of Mihalyi Csikszentmihalyi, the psychologist who named this passage of time “flow.”

Below is a TED Talk that Csikszentmihalyi gave last year. Not only is it really interesting, but you also get to hear how one night in Zurich he went to a lecture Carl Jung was giving about flying saucers!

Like the idea of flow? Well then hop down to the library and pick up Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience. Then read it, and wonder where this book has been all your life. As for Csikzentmihalyi’s current work, he’s Director of the Quality of Life Center at Claremont Graduate University.

Oh, and I’ve had the following quote from Finding Flow handwritten in chalk on a tiny chalkboard of mine for the past few years:

“Within an evolutionary framework we can focus consciousness on the tasks of everyday life in the knowledge that when we act in the fullness of the flow experience we are also building a bridge to the future of our universe.”

Who knows, maybe all this autumn activity will directly lead to amazing things far in the future? That would just be future gravy for all the present days of making, cooking, walking, dreaming and thinking.