Creativity is an expression of who we are, our Divinity and our experiences in human form. It was designed as a fountain, resides in the right brain and can flow through the Body. It can be stifled, suppressed. It is an energy of being and of our uniqueness in being.
Let it out. Let it out. LET IT OUT!
Creativity shares, and craves to be shared; it is a sharing of who we are and how we experience the world. It solicits Empathy from others to connect with the expression of our Truth so that they may explore theirs.
Creativity is how we might be seen, heard, tasted and felt. Creativity expresses how we see, hear, taste and feel.
Creativity journals the senses. It lets feeling flow and be experienced.
Creativity makes art, love and children. It feeds dreams and imagination. It can create the picture of what we will be. Creativity plays. It loves the Body. It loves Nature. Creativity makes poems, paintings, skits, dance and song.
It can be silence, an effective pause. It is colorful or black-and-white. It is political, or not. It showcases pain. It showcases Beauty.
If you are lucky, it wakes you up in the middle of the night and says: Do this. Make that. Let this flow out of you.
It can leave no choice but to express that part of our Truth calling for expression.
Creativity can lie dormant as a well. It can be kept secret until it ripens for voluntary or involuntary harvest. Creativity is a practical skill and manner of removing restraint and limitation upon thought and expression. It is a rebellion against convention, and a commentary of it.
Not restricted to the artist, creativity can come to the tinker, tailor, soldier, spy, entrepreneur, scientist, chef, bureaucrat, or engineer.
It can make muses of the mundane. It can permeate our lives.
Creativity documents humanity. It celebrates life, liberty, the dark and the Light. It is an essential quality of our being that we participate with it. When we do not, we suffer the consequences of stifling energy of movement that helps us emote.
It doesn’t fear failure, as there is no failure in expressing who we are.
“Where I create, there I am true.” -Rainer Maria Rilke
First, Make Love
Love is a verb. Love is part of our innate way of being on a soul level and therefore Love is our Truth. And this Truth needs expression.
Love is an action of release, flow and the removal of barriers to make a new energy of Love that would otherwise not be present without us.
The spiritual element of Creativity demands that, if we create nothing else, we first make Love. Make Love your art. Espouse it. Emote it. Be it. Share it. Fill space with it.
Creativity is further linked with our sexuality. Our sexuality is an unchangeable expression of who we are, and therefore our Truth. With it, we make Love of a direct and intimate nature. With it, we can create Communion and we can create life, little angel-earthlings.
With Love, Communion and procreation, we can see Creativity as a sacred expression of who we are. We can see Creativity as an expression of our Love, Gratitude and Devotion for the Divine, wrapped in a spirit of Humility.
“If your daily life is poor, do not blame it; blame yourself that you are not poet enough to call forth its riches; for the Creator, there is no poverty.” Rainer Maria Rilke
The Ultimate Act of Creativity
The totality of how we choose to live our lives is our greatest act of Creativity. We have the ability to design and steer our lives so that they are a continual expression of our Truth. Creativity will have us look at our life as a work of art. With it, we can create Love. We can create abundance in many forms. We can leave Beauty as a legacy. We can create Healing and Service for others.
With Creativity we ask ourselves if our lives are an authentic expression of Truth and Divine nature. In creating our authentic life, we want to always be conscious of the Energy that we are creating. We want to create Energy of what some call a higher vibration, Energy more closely associated with the Divine. We want to be artists of this creation of Divine Energy.
Our Creativity can be hijacked by ego, or lower-level Energy. We can create that which appeals to base motives, like porn, gossip or sensationalism. We can simply copy the Creativity of others. We can create a business that is all about money, or we can create a business that is about providing fair value and treating employees and the environment well.
Creativity binds us to being conscious of what we Create. Our life as lived will stand as our ultimate expressions of our Creativity. We want it to reflect who we are. What will our life say about us in the long run? We may want it to say: I was alive and I lived my Truth!
The totality of all Creativity expressed, endearing or reviled, serves as a barometer of the human condition as well; it defines who we are as a people, whose truths were expressed and whose were left unexpressed.
“There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you.” -Maya Angelou
Art as Therapy; Art as Service to Humanity
As humans, we are constant Creators of emotion. Emotions, having the root word motion, are clearly intended to flow and be expressed, not stored and suppressed. It is their nature to move. Through a variety of factors, such as social conditioning and survival dynamics, we as a group have generally become less inclined to express emotion and to “just let it flow.” We store it. We stuff it and don’t feel it. We become uncomfortable “just sitting with it.”
Trauma, a separate and related issue, can result in an overabundance of emotional charge which gets stuck in the body and psyche, unexpressed or expressed in incomplete ways. Expression of the emotions associated with trauma might appear too overwhelming to express, as if one might implode or not even survive if one were to begin to express them. So the Body holds on to these emotions as a matter of self-protection, waiting for the day when we are better able to express them.
We continue to Create emotion on top of what may be stored up within us. Creativity can serve to express ongoing emotion while helping us identify and remove anything that blocks its flow.
Art is emotion as well. Art is a means of expressing how we feel. When we create art, we are letting emotions flow. When we observe and participate with art, it solicits emotions to flow. It solicits Empathy. It helps us to release emotions that have been stored and blocked from flowing. Art is the great therapy for all Humanity, artist and patron alike, because of its ability to help emotions flow for all.
For those stuck in trauma, art typically represents a safe mode of expression. Art therapy might serve to titrate the release of emotions a person might need to let out in manageable doses until the overall expression becomes bearable.
In modern society, artists have been often labeled as “tortured souls.” For some individuals, art’s purpose is to express the darkness within, thereby helping others to express their darkness by partaking of the art. A sad movie expresses the feelings of the artist involved in creating it. For the moviegoer, it may help release residual emotions of sadness which have been stored within them.
The more we express what we Create everyday (i.e. our emotions as they occur), the better. Art and Creativity will help us do this and help us to release that which has been stored. Artists are true servants of humanity as they aid others in this process.
Creativity, in its highest form, Serves others.
“The value of art work resides in it potentiality to transform the art appreciator.” -G.I.Gurdjieff
Recipe for Creativity
There is no one way to facilitate Creativity. Great artists may differ or even struggle to explain their unique processes. It is our duty to find our unique process.
There are some general inferences that might be drawn from the Energy of Creativity itself as we further discover our own unique relationship to Creativity. Remember, Creativity is part of who we are in that we are always Creating our emotions and our entire lives. Creativity is an innate aspect of our Humanity. In this way, we can affirm:
I AM A CREATIVE BEING.
Creativity is an Energy that comes up when allowed to. It never forces. I love the quote of the poet Charles Bukowski when asked about his prolific output. “Don’t try,” says this very famous American poet.
Our Freewill facilitates Creativity, but only in the softest and most subservient of manners. Our Freewill can open the gate.
“When you do something like creating art, there is no time to think of how and why you do it. It will drive you crazy if you think too much about it. So you shut your mind off and just keep going, not knowing how the story will turn out.” -Billy Martinez, Artist
When you do something like creating art there is no time to think of how or why you do it. It will drive you crazy if you think too much about it. This I know from experience. So you shut your mind off and just keep going. Not really knowing how the story will turn out. Again, Creativity in its purest form has an Energy of being unconcerned with judgment or external validation. It is an expression of who we are and how we feel with no right or wrong to it. Beyond sharpening our technical skills, the key to facilitating Creativity may be to capture that child-like mind, unfettered by social conditioning and filled with awe and Wonder.
“Every child is an artist. The problem is staying an artist when you grow up.” -Pablo Picasso
Being able to sit with and examine our pains and traumas may also be something that serves Creativity. On the other hand, destruction might be considered the opposite of Creativity. Yet some will say we need to break down in order to know ourselves and be able to Create, i.e. that the process of destruction actually helps us to Create. One thing is certain: if we break down the barriers to feeling our feelings, we will break down the barriers to our Creativity.
“For a seed to achieve its greatest expression, it must come completely undone.” -Cynthia Occe
Muses
Knowing who our muses are can be immensely valuable. Muses inspire. Muses trigger. Muses unblock barriers to Creativity. Know your muses. They may be human, in the here and now, or they may have already passed. The Muse may be an image of you in a certain state, achieved in your mind’s eye. Your muse may be Nature. It may be silence. It may be a cup of coffee.
Ask for help. After all, Creativity is Divine, intended to serve Divinity and Humanity. Let God be your muse. What we do to connect with Divinity can also connect us with Creativity. Relax. Pray. Meditate. Do what puts you in Communion. Express Gratitude with Humility and ask that Creativity be let to flow through you.
“When I ask for help with my creativity, I get it.” -Julia Cameron
“In your light I learn how to love. In your beauty, how to make poems. You dance inside my chest where no one sees you, but sometimes I do and that sight becomes this art.” Rumi
Intention matters when it comes to Creativity, yet it is cast with a broad net so as not to attempt control of the final outcome. We can look to Truth and Service as intentions, creating as a matter of expressing our Truth and as a matter of serving others (helping them to live their Truth via their connection to our creations). We can look to Wonder as well as intention, being in awe during and after our acts of creation and just enjoying the process of being an alive, Divine, creative human being. Outcomes are not held on to though. Rather, the journey and action of Creativity itself becomes our focal points. We honor process over outcome.
“It begins with a distant notion, a plaintive whisper of the heart. It comes in the flash of an epiphany or through a deeper unexplainable longing that it has always been present. It is the recognition of conception, the understanding that a new idea has been born. It is embracing the dreamscape that is imagination, and having the courage to go there. For those who accept a life of self-exploration through willful acts of creation, the journey offers the ecstasy of all that is possible, along with the agony of unattainable perfection. It is a solitary road into the unknown self, and offers no destination but the journey. But for those who follow, it does lead somewhere, and such a life will never be uninteresting.” -Foreword to the documentary, “Amargoza”
“A creative person has little power over his own life.” -C.G. Jung
ALCHEMY
Truth is the foundation of Creativity as Creativity is ultimately about the expression of our Truth and of some manner, at the highest level, of our Divine nature.
Creativity is also directly supported by Surrender and Freewill which step back to open the gate for Creativity to flow, granting intention as necessary.
Empathy can serve to connect the Creativity of one individual or group to others.
Non-judgment serves to further facilitate its expression.
Courage and Intuition inform Creativity. Reason, in small doses, can serve it as well.
Healing and Creativity maintain a reciprocal relationship. Creativity helps us heal and Healing can remove barriers to Creativity.
Infinitude serves to affirm Creativity as it can result from being in a place of pure, unfettered expression of our Truth.
Beauty, Nature and Truth inspire Creativity. Body serves as a vehicle of expression.
Service to others can inform it and/or result from it.
Love and Joy will tend to entwine themselves with it.
PRACTICE
- Try different mediums of expression. Sing. Dance. Write. Act. Draw. Play. Do what calls you to express in order to lower the inhibitions to your expression. Have fun with enjoyable methods of self-expression in a Light-hearted way.
- Be aware of and support the Creativity of others. Creativity is manifested in everyday life through out-of-the-box thinking, problem solving and free expression. Support Creativity in children with great Love and Nurturance. Support your friends and relatives in their creative pursuits, including those who may have a talent they are not actively pursuing, such as your friend who is a lawyer and just happens to also be a great painter.
- Think of your life as an art form: How have you designed or constructed it? What message do you want your life to convey to those around you, or to those who may hear about you in some way? We can design our life to create an Energy that serves our Truth and the Truths of others. We can make Love. We can create Community. We can create connection and Beauty.
- We want to practice Mindfulness from the perspective of being aware of when we might be too much in the Rational mind. We also want to be Mindful of when we are fearful of the opinions of others or constrained by social conditioning as we express ourselves.
- Support free expression through participation and financial support. Purchase art or donate to museums if you have the means. Volunteer to help others create art, in the form of workshops, classes for children, or if you’re so inclined, becoming an art therapist.
- Play. Have sex. Make love. Laugh. Play. Have sex. Dance.
- Feel your feelings as they arise. Beware of any suppression mechanisms that may exist.
MANTRA/PRAYER
I Am a Creative Being (I Create).
I Am Poetry In Motion, A Work of Art. Let Me Create
I Surrender to My Creativity; I Let it Flow; I Allow; I Let it Flow.
I Express Freely Without Reservation; I Express the Divine.
Let Me Hear My Truth.
I Am Free To Be Me and Feel My Feelings.
I Promise to Still Sing (or Express Myself) No Matter What