Creativity and Spirituality
I believe that creativity is a spiritual practice and a spiritual path. I encourage you to find a creative practice that nourishes your soul and spirit.
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Enjoy these beautiful quotes that speak to the intersection of creativity, soul, healing and spirituality.
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"Creativity constitutes the ultimate intimacy for it is the place where the Divine and the human are most destined to interact." Matthew Fox
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"Art-making is somehow all at once a journey, a communication, a modality, a healing, and a prayer. Art is a distinctly (though perhaps not exclusively) human activity. Through the arts we connect with the mystery of Creative Spirit beyond us, moving in us and through us. Through the arts we open ourselves to dialogue with the Divine." Betsey Beckman
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"Every artist dips his brush in his own soul, and paints his own nature into his pictures." Henry Ward Beecher
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"If we fail to nourish our souls, they wither, and without soul, life ceases to have meaning. The creative process shrivels in the absence of continual dialogue with the soul. And creativity is what makes life worth living." Marion Woodman
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"As you unfold as an artist, just keep on, and earnestly, growing through all that happens to you. You cannot disrupt this process more violently than by looking outside yourself for answers that may only be found by attending to your innermost feeling." Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet
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"There is no doubt that creativity is the most important human resource of all. Without creativity, there would be no progress, and we would be forever repeating the same patterns." Edward de Bono
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"ALL PASSES - ART Alone Endures"
"All Art is a gift of the Holy Spirit" The Baha'i Writings
"Art is the life energy of the soul." Unknown Source
"At the deepest level, the creative process and the healing process arise from a single source. When you are an artist, you are a healer, a wordless trust of the same mystery is the foundation of your work and its integrity." Rachel Naomi Remen, M.D.
"Art is not an end in itself. It introduces the soul into a higher spiritual order, which it expresses and in some sense explains. " Thomas Merton, No Man is An Island
"Write what inspires you. What heals and mends the broken pieces you've hidden away. Write from that place within your soul that refuses to be quieted. The voice that won't be silenced. Listen and surrender. Write because your spirit won't accept a "no." Write with abandon. But above all, write because your curiosity and hunger for life is greater than your fears." C.R. Lamothe
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"Painting does not occupy a limited compartment of life, but thrusts its roots and branches into the deepest parts of us, transforming our ways of being." Stewart Cubley
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"The Creation of Something New is not accomplished by the intellect but by the play instinct acting from inner necessity. The creative mind plays with the objects it loves." C. G. Jung
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"There is a vitality, a life force, an energy, a quickening that is translated through you into action, and because there is only one of you in all of time, this expression is unique. And if you block it, it will never exist through any other medium and it will be lost. The world will not have it. It is not your business to determine how good it is nor how valuable nor how it compares with other expressions. It is your business to keep it yours clearly and directly, to keep the channel open. You do not even have to believe in yourself or your work. You have to keep yourself open and aware to the urges that motivate you. Keep the channel open... No artist is pleased. [There is] no satisfaction whatever at any time. There is only a queer divine dissatisfaction, a blessed unrest that keeps us marching and makes us more alive than the others." The Life and Work of Martha Graham (1991) by Agnes de Mille, p. 264, ISBN 0-394-55643-7.
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"The artist's task is to save the soul of mankind; and anything less is a dithering while Rome burns. If artists cannot find the way, then the way cannot be found." Terence McKenna
"Art is an act of the soul, not the intellect....We are in the realm of the sacred. We are involved with forces and energies larger than our own. We are engaged in a sacred transaction of which we know only a little: the shadow, not the shape. As artists, we belong to an ancient and holy tribe. We are the carriers of the truth that spirit moves through us all. When we deal with one another, we are dealing not merely with our own human personalities but also with the unseen but ever-present throng of the collective, ideas, visions, stories, poems, songs, sculptures, art-as-facts that crowd the temple of consciousness waiting their turn to be born." Julia Cameron
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"When we enter into an experience of art making, we enter an alternate space. In this alternate reality there is an opening of the mind and heart to something universal. The world somehow expands and becomes more present to us as we also become more present to the world and to ourselves." Sally Atkins
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"I believe I am worth the time it takes to create whatever I feel called to create." Jan Phillips
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"I decline to accept the end of man...I refuse to accept this. I believe that man will not merely endure, he will prevail. He is immortal, not because he alone among the creatures has an inexhaustible voice, but because he has a soul, a spirit capable of compassion and sacrifice and endurance. The poet's, the writer's duty is to write about these things. It is his privilege to help man endure by lifting his heart, by reminding him of the courage and honor and hope and pride and compassion and pity and sacrifice which have been the glory of his past. The poet's voice need not merely be the record of man, it can be one of the props, the pillars to help him endure and prevail." William Faulkner
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Personal Creativity as a Spiritual Practice and Path (Presentation 4/24/22 - Jung Platform)
Creativity and Spirituality are closely connected. When we engage with our own personal art-making or other creative acts just for ourselves, we feel a deep connection to our own inner self and that which is greater.
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Invocation and Intention Setting - Let us take a moment to arrive, to gather together, to pull all the parts of our selves wandering about out there and everywhere back to our Self (with a capital S), let us pull our attention and energy back from all the places we have been pulled, scattered, fragmented. Let us bring ourselves back to our wholeness, our center, our peace in this moment. And if you are willing and able, bring a gentle noticing and awareness to our breath, to our simple inhale and exhale, to our beautiful and hardworking hearts that gently beat our life force, Become aware of your deepest self, the very core of your being and your spirit, your connection to all that is. And let us sit in this holy space for a moment together in our kindred community of like-minded and like hearted souls. It is said that in creating we are created. (Marion Woodman) It is said that when we are creative, we are intimate with the Divine. (Matthew Fox)
In this next hour, let us bring our attention to all the ways creativity and spirituality are essential, are vital to ourselves and our world, let us bring our attention to all the ways we are creative beings, artists of life, dreamers and seekers engaged with the creativity of life, with creation. Let us bring our attention to all the ways our creativity nourishes and nurtures our spirit. Let us rededicate and re devote ourselves and our precious time to our creative spirit. Let us allow ourselves to give in to our creative, soul longings. Let us decide to surrender to our creative spirit and spend time in creative pursuit just for creativity's sake, letting our Muses take us where they will - no expectations, no end product in mind - just the doing, just the creating, waiting for inspiration to come and waiting for the gentle guidance of what moves through us in each moment, whether we write, dance, draw, doodle, paint, sculpt, sew, weave, knit, quilt, sing, design, arrange, garden, cook, take pictures, scrapbook, tend a home... We all have an inner need, a calling, a drive, an instinct, an impulse, a craving to be engaged in and with the creative spirit and to create beauty, order, meaning, sanctuary in this bruised and hurting world. To uniquely express and make meaning of our own inner landscape, our own spiritual and worldly experiences.
I invite you to follow the call. Your call. To Follow the Bliss of your Creative Spirit in the days, weeks, months to come.
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Blessing for Creators
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May you find your channel to the Creative Spirit always open and flowing and allow yourself to be a vessel, receiving inspiration in abundance and finding joy and peace in the creating.
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May your Creations Bless the World.
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