Diving in…
What do you need in order to enter into creative space? Here are some of my ideas, or ideas that have been given to me by others (teachers, mentors), and the things that help me to get started.
Being creative requires:
- Selfishness: a releasing of others’ needs of you, and the demands of everyday life.
- Disconnecting.
- Prioritizing the process. A sense that what you are doing is important, important enough to neglect other things. That whatever the outcome, even if you dump it all, the process is necessary. The experience of making the thing matters.
- Being able to picture yourself in the creative space, in the studio, at the writing desk, on the dance floor, and then taking the steps to get yourself there.
- An emptying out of time and space.
- Entering into a sacred space, that is just for you and your process.
- Quiet, or silence, which creates space both internally & externally.
- Ideally, a lack of interruptions.
- Allowing yourself/your nervous system to settle into the activity.
- Open-endedness. Attention. Care. Investment.
- A familiarity with the tools or materials, or a willingness to be unfamiliar and to play and experiment.
- A willingness and curiosity to explore an idea, image, thought, or movement.
- A willingness to not know what’s going to happen, to not know what comes next.
- Freedom.
- Longing.
- Devotion.
I believe being creative is both a mindful and spiritual pursuit. You are engaging with the unknown, creating something from nothing, and giving your awareness over to something outside of yourself. I believe that this activity can help every single one of us be better humans. It can give us the time and space we need to heal something in ourselves. It can add something beautiful, or messy, or real to the world. It gives us the chance to consider how we think about ourselves or others, or to express our hopes for the world.
Here is to engaging outside of ordinary reality.
