Take pen in hand and list 10 activities that always make you feel more grounded, for example:

1. Making soup

2. Vacuuming

3. Changing my sheets

4. Doing the laundry

5. Baking a pie

6. Watching those horse-training videos

7. Waxing the car

8. Cleaning the refridgerator

9. Calling my best friend from grade school

10. Cleaning my office and paying bills

The regular use of this tool is one of the most confirming rituals possible in a creative life. This tool helps to put a sense of grounded celebration into our creative life. It does this because it emphasizes life itself. While we may "live for our work," our life is, and must be, larger than our work. By allowing the dailiness of life to step forward again, we become, in a sense, our own parents, saying "Welcome home" after each of our creative flights.

A student-turned-colleague adds the writing of congratulatory postcards to herself as a regular part of this route. "Good work!" the postcard exclaims. She has postcards on successfully completing arranging assignments, recording assignments, and musical workshops. As her jumps get larger and more public, her private practice of self-congratulations grows even more important. Our work feels not only good, but better, when we place it within the comforting confines of our ongoing routines and relationships.

What you are after is a grounded sense of connection to your life and relationships before, during, and after creative flight.