Welcome to spring and the beginning of production on your creative project. I want to rest here a moment with you and reflect upon where we have started this journey and appreciate the effort that you have poured into the work up to now. In December, you started with the germ of the idea – scrawled on a notebook page or doodled into a sketchbook. We have progressed through gathering inspiration from myriad sources and collecting it in a concrete space, so that it can be easily accessed. We have begun to create preliminary summaries of the creative endeavor, with progressively more and more substantial iterations over the past few months, as we develop the connections between the rational and intuitive aspects of our minds. This is the scaffolding upon which the work will wind its tendrils over the next three months, as we actually begin to construct a fulsome draft of the project, whether that lies in the narrative or visual arts.
I am excited to launch into this period of the process. It is where discoveries are made. But I want to first open with a discussion of how we can look toward relating to the creative project, and our work as an artist. I have several writing projects that I am juggling right now, including these posts here. I really enjoy the opportunity to organize my thoughts about creativity into a cohesive passage each week. I look forward to it.
Except when I don’t. Thankfully, those moments are rare. But, nevertheless, they exist.
I didn’t write last week. At all. The words just didn’t flow. I didn’t even jot down a few notes for these postings on creativity. I had plenty to say. I have mapped out this entire year. Winter posts form the germination stage of the project. This period is then followed by the production of the work as spring and summer flourish. Then finally we settle into gaining insight about the project as the sun wanes in the autumn months. I am continually invigorated by it. But this past week, I couldn’t be still and write. I felt like the world was asking me to pause for a moment and settle into thoughts that might be more challenging but carry a deeper kind of wisdom.
I looked at my pen with wariness.
I don’t like to look at these moments as writer’s block. I bristle at the term. It suggests that we can just sidestep around a concrete obstacle in our path and push merrily forward, if we only had the grit and fortitude. When the words halt, it is time to ask yourself some questions. What am I not seeing? What evades my pen’s line of ink? Where is this endeavor heading?
Treat this moment as an opportunity to search out a deeper wisdom.
This particular moment also felt prescient to me. Over the past three months we have been working toward broadening our creative grasp, finding ways in which the rational and intuitive sides of our mind can communicate more freely. Now, we are shifting out attention and asking our muse to lead us into the depths of our project, and, in turn, into the shadowed corners of our mind.
Most of the artists that I admire search out a spiritual lens through which to examine their creative process. The poet and author Pat Schneider entwines spirituality with creativity. Pursuing one path inevitably leads to insight into the other. She writes a lovely line about this connection: “Allowing writing and prayer to overlap – writing as spiritual practice – invites a dynamic relationship with mystery.”
This caduceus of thought is never more apparent than when one is faced with a lack of inspiration. The muse isn’t really speaking to you. Schneider writes elsewhere: “By turning toward that mystery that holds me in loving attention, I myself become a prayer. No words are necessary unless they arise spontaneously.” I see in this line a suggestion to open one’s heart to possibility. Step back from the creative endeavor in these moments and reflect not only upon what you haven’t yet said, but also upon what you haven’t even noticed yet. Wisdom is waiting in the wings, ready to be called forth, onto the stage. Take time this week to watch for it, moving into your line of sight. It beckons in the shadows.
