Purls of Wisdom

Deb and I are at the "Purls of Wisdom" Retreat here up at Norloch Resort outside Huntsville. And the instructor is Sally Melville; a smart, smart, stylish and clever Canadian designer/author/teacher. I think the name of this weekend was extremely descriptive. I'm sure Deb will have lots more to say, but I just was struck yesterday, quite forceably, at a key, no, fundamental, critical? no, an epiphany? No, that's still not the right word ... but one CRUCIAL, important, strikingly obviously but completely ignored piece of information in our daily lives .... we need to get sleep. Yes, sleep. LOTS of sleep (yes, I know I'm shouting with the capital letters but that's how it struck me and the 6 of us in our cabin ... it's been quite the discussion this morning).

Sleep is hugely important to our creative ability. Hugely important to life. And the striking piece of information? The vast majority of dreaming doesn't actually occur until the end of the sleep cycle and not until your body had completed its healing etc, and so on, but the key part is the largest amount of dreaming doesn't occur until something around the 7th hour ... of sleep. Yes, you absolutely need 8 hours of sleep a night to function at your best and to be creative. Period.

Ignore the implications rampant in our society that it's weak to require 8 hours of sleep each and every night. That it is something to be proud of to only get, or need, 6 hours. Science shows that this is not true. And quite dangerous, but for me and the creative force in this little cabin? It's the negative impact on our creative life that's struck us. So, that's our purl of wisdom for you this morning. Get some sleep. Please.

So, signing off from Norloch from Laura, Darlene, Elissa, Karen, Karen (yeah 2 of them!) oh, and me, Lynda. And we all had a great nights' sleep and we're going to go and be creative this morning. : )