Being Creative

Being Creative, and even the simple term creativity, particularly to those who have a self-image of themselves as “artists”, can be an issue worth discussing and contemplating.

 

What is it that makes creativity, creativity?

What makes one person be imaginative, open to and interested in art, inventions, colors, materials, composition, and to another …these all seem rather boring?
What is that within us, that which we call the creative spark, that ability to tap into and be attuned, that which sometimes is so accessible and effortless. And then other times is so far from us, so unreachable that it is just a vague memory of possibility, a memory which we don’t even trust that was real and alive.

Is this inner connection to creativity, that which some called grace? Is it divine guidance? Is it our connection with our pure heart?
Is it our personality that drives us to create or is the one that creates beyond personality? Is the process of creativity always a growth from our past? Is it a strengthening element, one that allows us to give birth to our higher self, through inner work? Or is it merely the sum of our tendencies, talents and skills, combined with luck and refined expertise?

 

What is that which opens the door to that fountain of creativity within, that force that is sometimes so flowing, so vivid, gushing and wide, fresh, inviting and so satisfying, while other times it is just not there, as if someone has shut it off completely and it’s unclear if it even exist at all.

We feel so good when we are in tune with that creative stream, sometimes it feels like a sweet river we just need to let go into, and flow with. But when we feel it has abandoned us and we feel stuck in an endless desert, lost in with no water, no shade, no compass to show us the way, tired and dry, not knowing where to dig or in which way to walk, we feel so weak even to try.

 

Feeding the sacred fire

Our love relationship with ourselves, just as those relationships which we have with others, with our dear ones, our spouse, life partner, or with our friends, with people we love, these are happy relations, prosperous and healthy, when we effortlessly nurture them.
When we naturally care for the relationship, for the subject of our love and our connection with them. When we are happy and generously invest in these our time, energy and attention. Fire needs wood to burn, needs to consume to provide warmth and to give light, same with any heat flame. Relationships, if they are alive and fueled, are continuously nurtured, loved, and cared for. This cultivation is not necessarily felt as “work”, often it is simple and completely obvious. When we love someone it is easy for us to nurture the relationship with the one we love. There is no contradiction between something being natural and it needing for us to tend to it. If a vegetable garden is not tended for, weeds sprout and animals may eat the crops. The same goes for the inner garden, the internal relationship with ourselves, with our creativity.

This tending for our wellbeing may come more, or less, naturally and effortlessly. Feeding our inner creative fire may at times seem strange, particularly when it is weak and unstable, when we feel dry and unmotivated, for we may remember it burning so strong and proving us with so much heat and driven by powerful inspiration.

This inner flame is ours to enjoy, and to tend to. It is our very own, our own responsibility and our inner burning power.
Even if we believe we are creative and even if we do not, it is ours to claim.
Even if we are skillful and have been trained or if we naturally were always drawn to art, or not; these all do not change that existence of that fire, that creativity that longs to be ours.