The Syncreate Podcast: Empowering Creativity
Welcome to Syncreate, where we explore the intersections between creativity, psychology, and spirituality. Our goal is to demystify the creative process and expand the boundaries of what it means to be creative.
Creativity. It’s a word we throw around all the time, but what does it really mean? On the Syncreate Podcast, we share stories of the creative journey. We talk to changemakers, visionaries and everyday creatives working in a wide array of fields and disciplines. Our goal is to explore creativity in all its facets, and to gain a better understanding of the creative process – from imagination to innovation and everything in between.
The Syncreate Podcast is hosted by Melinda Rothouse, PhD. She helps individuals and organizations bring their creative dreams and visions to life through coaching, consulting, workshops, retreats, and now, this podcast. She's written two books on creativity, including Syncreate: A Guide to Navigating the Creative Process for Individuals, Teams, and Communities (winner of a Silver Nautilus Award for Creativity and Innovation), with Charlotte Gullick. She's also a musician (singer-songwriter and bass player) and photographer based in Austin, Texas.
The Syncreate Podcast: Empowering Creativity
Episode 78: Creative Spark Series - The Art of Impermanence with Melinda Rothouse & Charlotte Gullick
In this episode of our Creative Spark series, Melinda shares insights from her recent Art of Impermanence Retreat, an annual contemplative arts retreats she leads each January in Patzcuaro, Mexico with her colleague Jake Lorfing. The Art of Impermanence explores the Buddhist teachings on impermanence, and their relationship to creativity and the arts. Essentially, it’s a mindful approach to creativity, grounded in present-moment experience. This episode, like the mini-episodes that preceded it, also includes insights from our book, Syncreate: A Guide to Navigating the Creative Process for Individuals, Teams, and Communities.
For our Creativity Pro-Tip, we share a poem by Nancy Paddock called “Lie Down,” which describes a mindfulness practice of connecting to the earth. We encourage you to try it out, because when was the last time you laid down with your face to the ground? It’s quite a profound experience.
Credits: The Syncreate podcast is created and hosted by Melinda Rothouse, and produced at Record ATX studios with in collaboration Michael Osborne and 14th Street Studios in Austin, Texas. Syncreate logo design by Dreux Carpenter.
If you enjoy this episode and want to learn more about the creative process, you might also like our conversations in Episode 49: Creativity in Challenging Times, Episode 51: Curiosity & Exploration, and Episode 67: Moving Through the World with a Creative Eye.
At Syncreate, we're here to support your creative endeavors. If you have an idea for a project or a new venture, and you’re not sure how to get it off the ground, find us at syncreate.org. Our book, also called Syncreate, walks you through the stages of the creative process so you can take action on your creative goals. We also offer resources, creative process tools, and coaching, including a monthly creativity coaching group, to help you bring your work to the world. You can find more information on our website, where you can also find all of our podcast episodes. Find and connect with us on social media and YouTube under Syncreate. If you enjoy the show, please subscribe and leave us a review! We’d love to hear your feedback as well, so drop us a line at info@syncreate.org.
Episode-specific hyperlinks:
The Art of Impermanence Retreat (2026 Dates Will Be Announced Soon)
Show / permanent hyperlinks:
Melinda: Creativity and community are absolutely vital in challenging times. Welcome to Syncreate, a show where we explore the intersections between creativity, psychology and spirituality. We believe everyone has the capacity to create. Our goal is to demystify the process and expand the boundaries of what it means to be creative.
We talk with visionaries and change makers and everyday creatives, working in a wide range of fields and mediums - from the arts to science, technology and business. We aim to illuminate the creative process - from imagination to innovation and everything in between. I'm Melinda Rothouse and I help individuals and organizations bring their dreams and visions to life.
Charlotte: Hi. I’m Charlotte Gullick and I'm a writer, educator and writing coach. We are the co-authors of a book on the creative process, also called Syncreate. At Syncreate, we're here to support your creative endeavors. If you have an idea for a project or a new venture and you're not sure how to get it off the ground, find us at syncreate.org. Our book, now available in both print and audiobook format, walks you through the stages of the creative process so you can take action on your creative goals.
We offer resources, creative process tools and coaching to help you bring your work to the world. Our monthly creativity coaching group has begun. We'd be delighted for you to join us. We'd also love to hear your feedback on the show. Please drop us a line at info@syncreate.org. We're looking for feedback on how we can improve the show, what's resonating for you and what future topics you'd like us to cover.
Melinda: Alright. Welcome back to the show everyone. We hope your year is off to a good start. Whatever that looks like for you in this moment. And I wanted to share for this Creative Spark episode a little bit about a retreat that I just finished leading in Mexico, a couple of weeks ago. It’s an annual New Year's retreat that I facilitate with my friend and colleague, Jake Lorfing. And it's called The Art of Impermanence: New Beginnings.
So, this retreat explores the Buddhist teachings on impermanence as they relate to art and creativity. So, the idea of impermanence is simply that all things change, right? Nothing is static, things are always shifting and changing and evolving. And according to the Buddhist teachings, part of what creates suffering is our resistance to change - our desire for things to stay the same. Our inability to let go and move with the flow of life.
So, the idea here is that reflecting on impermanence - which can sometimes feel heavy, right? I mean, the Buddhist teachings talk about sickness, old age and death - things that we all experience - but the flip side of that, is that it really helps us to be fully present in the moment and appreciate the beauty and the preciousness of life.
Charlotte: So isn’t it - what are the things they say when we're - depression is about looking back and anxiety is looking forward?
Melinda: Yes.
Charlotte: Not to over-minimize the depth of how that can feel - such as a pool - a pool in our bodies - like, the visceral feel of anxiety or depression - but thinking about that in terms of how - learning to learn how to be present.
Melinda: Yes. Yeah - and you're right - exactly. If you really think about it, the only thing we have is this present moment. And this present moment. And this present moment. You know, the past is an idea and the future hasn't arrived yet. And yet, how much time - and as you say, anxiety or depression or whatever - it might be ruminating on the past or fearing what's to come or even planning what's to come. Right?
(Laughter)
Charlotte: Okay - you’re planning for a conference or retreat in Mexico. You're getting yourself ready. You're packing, your thinking about all the things. How much anxiety is present for you when you're going to teach about this? Do you stop yourself sometimes? Like, "Hold on! I’m in this present moment…” or you're like - so does it pull you? How does it play in action as you prep to travel?
Melinda: Yeah. That’s a great question. So, the nice thing about this retreat - this is the third year we've done this particular one - but we've been doing retreats at this location in Mexico for a number of years. And Jake and I have been teaching together for quite a long time so we're quite comfortable with each other and we've got kind of a nice structure and framework for the retreat - that it's always different and fresh every time and we vary some things. But I think the key is that we're comfortable enough with each other that we've really come to trust each other.
And so, there's not a lot of anxiety around it. You know, we do some planning. We have some calls with the folks that run the retreat center and kind of figure out what we're going to do. There is some planning involved but most of the anxiety is just packing the suitcase and getting to the airport, you know. The usual travel things.
Charlotte: So, when people are thinking about their creativity, and I'm sure that there's some thinking about the past, there's some thinking about the future..,. does what I'm doing in this moment matter? I think at Syncreate, one of the things we're trying to say - every moment of creativity matters. Because we really want to bring the joy, and I think maybe to expand that - the joy and the sense of presence in our work.
Melinda: Yeah.
Charlotte: But do you have any thoughts on that?
Melinda: Yeah. And we really kind of delve into that with some of the exercises that we do. So, the location - Casa Werma, which is in Patzcuaro, Mexico -it’s got this absolutely gorgeous garden. And it's kind of in the middle of the town, but it's like a little oasis. And when you step onto the grounds, it's just this lush garden. And so, we do a lot of things in the garden because the garden is the perfect metaphor for impermanence. You look around and you see buds that haven't opened yet. You see flowers in full bloom. You see the flowers that have died - are withering away. And, like, all stages of life are in the garden.
I remember when I first arrived this time, I took a walk around and in the far kind of corner of the garden, I just saw this pile of feathers. And some cat had gotten a bird and it was like “That's impermanence.” It's right there, you know? So like, one of the exercises we do is have people connect with a flower or a tree or something in the garden, and then go back to it each day throughout the week and maybe take a photo or draw it or something, and notice how it changes over time.
You know, it's so interesting - I saw a reel, I think, on Instagram or someplace just the other day - where somebody did a time lapse video of their plants. Like, over a 24 hour period and plants just look like they're sitting there like, “Hmm”. But actually, the plants were moving and following the sun and these were - it was amazing, you know?
Charlotte: Super cool. Super cool.
Melinda: Yeah. So things are always changing, right? And some of the other things we do - we go to a local cemetery and do a little ceremony there where several of our local folks who attend the retreat have family members buried. So, kind of a similar thing that one might do at Dia de los Muertos - just honoring the dead and kind of cleaning up the grave site. This year we also did a mandala. Kind of like the Tibetan monks do with the sand mandalas that are so intricate with the colored sand, and they spend all this time making these incredibly intricate patterns.
Ours wasn't quite so intricate but it was a mandala pattern. And then, instead of colored sand, there's a tradition in Mexico of using colored wood shavings that are dyed different colors. And so, we had a local artist help us to draw the outline of a mandala and then he dyed the wood shavings for us. And then throughout the week, we had these buckets of different colors of the shavings and we filled in the mandala, and it was so beautiful. You know, everybody had a chance to contribute to it, and then at the end, we swept it away and gave it back to the garden - so that's impermanence.
Charlotte: Yeah.
Melinda: Yeah. So, another one of the exercises that we did this year - and I think this speaks to your question, like, “Is the present moment important for our creativity?” Absolutely. So, my friend Jake learned about this practice - it’s based on a poem - it's called “Lie Down” by Nancy Paddock and -
Charlotte: Is this your Pro Tip?
Melinda: Yes. So I'm just going to describe it and then the Pro Tip will be actually practicing it. So I'm going to read it.
Charlotte: Okay.
Melinda: I’m going to read it out loud. And Jake received this from another friend who lives in New Orleans who does a lot of contemplative arts work - Laurie Dietrich. So, this is called “Lie Down" by Nancy Paddock, and we encourage you for the Pro Tip to actually not just listen to this, but go and do this as a practice.
Lie down with your belly to the ground,
like an old dog in the sun. Smell
the greenness of the cloverleaf, feel the damp
earth through your clothes, let an ant
wander the uncharted territory
of your skin. Lie down
with your belly to the ground. Melt into
the earth’s contours like a harmless snake.
All else is mere bravado.
Let your mind resolve itself
in a tangle of grass.
Lie down with your belly
to the ground, flat out, on ground level.
Prostrate yourself before the soil
you will someday enter.
Stop doing.
Stop judging, fearing, trying.
This is not dying, but the way to live
in a world of change and gravity.
Let go. Let your burdens drop.
Let your grief-charge bleed off
into the ground.
Lie down with your belly to the ground
and then rise up
with the earth still in you.
Charlotte: “Rise up with the earth still in you.”
Melinda: Yes. So, and we did this as an exercise - we all went out to the garden and found a spot - laid down, face down. People could use a blanket or a mat if they didn't want to just be directly on the ground, but there's something amazing. How often do we just lie down on the ground - period - let alone face down? Maybe when we were kids we did that, but how often do we do that now? And it was just amazing to like, number one - just lie down and do nothing for an indefinite period of time. We didn't put a time limit on it. It was just like - nowhere to go, nothing to do, no one to be, lie down, smell the earth.
So, for our Pro Tip today, we encourage you to try this practice of lying down, face down, and see what happens and what it sparks for you, and maybe you'll then feel inspired to draw or create something based on that experience.
Charlotte: And if anyone asks you what you're doing, you can tell them and ask them to join you.
Melinda: That’s right. (Laughter)
Melinda: Try it out.
Charlotte: Find us and connect with us on YouTube and social media under Syncreate. And we're now on Patreon as well. If you enjoyed the show, please subscribe and leave us a review.
Melinda: We're recording today from Record ATX Studios in Austin, with Charlotte joining us from the Hudson Valley. The podcast is produced in collaboration with Mike Osborne at 14th Street Studios. Thanks so much for being with us and see you next time.
