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For a long while – a decade or three – I thought and wrote and talked a great deal about ‘creativity.’ I taught workshops, spoke at seminars and wrote e-books on the topic.
It was, for me, the Great Mystery, the wonder of wonders that would flow in and infuse my work in the studio. I knew it well, yet I could never pin it down.
I understood, over time, what seemed to foster it, and what seemed to ensure its absence. I discovered it would only turn up when me-as-artist, me with the designs-plans-goals-skills-aversions was absent.
Eventually the gap between my two passionate preoccupations – ‘creativity’ and ‘the sacred’ – closed over.
Creativity is exactly that immeasurable, unknowable Creation pouring into the space vacated by the artist-person, manifesting ITs own magic, shocking the daylights out of me with its audacity.
And the sacred? Ditto. In other words, nothing I could put into words. Nothing I ever expected. Nothing that could ever be known.
And yet – expression happens! Such a marvel!
~
“I knew it well, yet I could never pin it downª
This reminded me of a saying by St. Agustine: ‘Si nemo a me quaerat, scio; si quaerenti explicare velim, nescio’ – If no one inquires of me, I know; if inquired I want to explain, I do not know’
Knowledge, creativity is “inside us” – it is our substance: That is what we are.
That’s so true here. It’s as though one’s tongue turns into lead and the brain to porridge – or vice versa!
Isn’t it awesome that we are rendered utterly silent by That which we are?
And yet, and yet, IT expresses…
Thanks for sharing your wisdom dear AM.
~ ml