Creativity
Creativity is the nectar of the gods. When it flows, it’s the adrenalin in your veins. When bathed in it’s all-consuming fragrance, you know down to your bones that you’re part of something greater than yourself.
You lose all track of time. Your need for rest, for food, for sleep and especially, for thought, vanish.
The artist, graced with creative inspiration, makes paintings, writes music, choreographs dance, produces new shapes and writes books, because of this inner force. The inspiration (to be in spirit) needs a creative outlet on the physical plane, to express itself – The inspirational force is formless and so needs people to give it form. Without creative inspiration, nothing happens. Without the artist, nothing happens. Without a witness to the creation, the audience, there’s little point in creating. All three are necessary in the creative process.
Whether you paint, sculpt, write books, make music, dance, make crafts, design buildings, take photographs, write poems, act, cook, garden, make films or are active in science, you relish the moment when inspiration strikes. You can feel it. It’s time to move, to make, to do. You will not be distracted. When your muse calls, the physical world disappears and your focus narrows to the task at hand. Words and forms and sounds and design elements must all be assembled in balanced harmony so that beauty can be born.
All thought vanishes in an energetic frenzy that will not rest until all creative efforts are resolved into a wholly satisfying result. This is not the time for critique. Not the time for thought. This is the time to surrender, totally, to the direction from within. Like a cork in a swift-moving stream, you are willingly tossed this way and that, at the whim of the work. And, never forget-this is work…glorious work, all encompassing work, welcome work. Work that lets you know what it means to be fully alive, in the moment…100% involved and 0% attached to the results.
A thinking artist puts pencil to paper and makes marks. The inspired artist caresses the paper with graphite, lovingly and maneuvers the material to create genius on the two-dimensional level. Whether words or paint strokes or sounds, when the work is done, if only for that day, you are drained, but grateful to have been part of the creative equation. Exhausted, now comes pleasurable rest.
The truth and beauty of great art can be felt. People are moved by the legitimate expression of inner forces. That sharing of honest form can lead to tears of joy or tears of sadness…whichever the artist conveyed.
The harmonious combination of just the right measured elements and a regularly practiced technique – the proper balance of parts, the just right scale of proportion, the perfect word or sound or movement at just the right moment is beauty of the first order.
No need for instruction on how to react. When in the presence of honest, true creation, of any media, the heart knows how to feel. The pulse races in harmony with the creation. The appropriate applause comes naturally. The viewer and the viewed, or read, or sung merge in a willing dance of appreciation. Smiles spread and beam, bursting with feeling.
The artist creates from an inner urge to express. The force within gets to channel itself, through the artist, to become a physical creation. This formless power has been given form. The viewer is pleased to share in this creation. Force, artist, audience – a win, win, win situation of the first magnitude. All are satisfied.
The writer, the content and the reader are all necessary in this celebration of creative activity. All have a part to play. Each must be open to receive its offering. The force is grateful for a path to follow. The artist is grateful for the inspiration and the chance to use his/her talents. The audience is grateful to bear witness to truth and beauty.
Creativity is a fundamental human expression. It puts the civil in civilization. It is, ultimately, why we are here. Without us, the sound of the tree falling in the forest is lost. It is our destiny as a species to listen to our inner voices. We are obliged to receive what is offered in the loving spirit in which it is offered. We are grateful to be a channel for our inner force and to allow it to flow through us to others.
Inspiration, creator, audience. Sometimes we are one, sometimes another, but we’re all part of the creative equation. Creativity is the breath of life. We couldn’t live without it.