I’m hearing a belief quite often these days that something’s only worth doing if it’s easy and flowing. I think the theory is that ease and flow demonstrate divine timing while absence of ease and flow show that whatever was coming into manifestation was not “meant to be” or that we are not aligned with the Divine Feminine.
Forgive me if I have not quite grasped the idea bu,t as a creative woman, this has not been my experience. Yes, there are beautiful times of ease, flow, grace, synchronicity and serendipity. Without these I don’t think many of us would be tempted to embark on the challenging process of creation. And these aspects require trust and surrender which are attributes of the feminine.
When we step up to be creators – whether we’re creating a business, an art form, a garden, a group experience, a community project or a new culture – we become co-creators with universal intelligence which showers us with inspirations and creative ideas every day. In order to complete our task, which is to bring these inspirations into form, we need to be willing to develop and employ a whole gamut of skills. These include:
Open awareness – paying attention, following inspiration from multiple sources, being awake to opportunities;
Surrender – staying close to the natural movement of the energy of inspiration, being willing to move with it and follow it wherever it leads, whilst at the same time remembering our
Focus and intention – ensuring we don’t get too distracted and forget what we signed up to do.
Presence and whole-hearted engagement – being willing to show up and engage 100% whilst at the same time taking care we practice…
Non-attachment and don’t get over-identified with or attached to the results. And at the same time…
Balancing our energy – so we don’t get so excited in times of ease and flow we miss important new information coming in, misread the field or flow right past an open doorway. And when we’re not in the flow we don’t get resigned and end up marooned on a mud bank…and
Persistence – because creating anything takes hard work, much of it detailed and repetitive and it just has to be done.
In other words, the creative process is a continual flow of energy, inspiration and information. When we accept a creative mission, we sign up to learn how to co-create with this flow and how to tune into, read and accurately interpret what is required of us to keep the energy flowing in a good orderly direction.
Creating is an ongoing conversation with the universe and the universe speaks in many voices. Right now, for instance, as I’m writing this article, I’m following a creative thread which has been emerging over several days and I’m excited and motivated. Part of me is travelling with the excitement and hoping it’s going to lead me somewhere new, somewhere I haven’t been before. Another part of my mind is with you, the reader, imagining you reading this and taking care to choose words which may challenge you a bit but won’t offend you, so I carry you with me all the way to the end of the piece. I don’t need you to agree with me but I want to provide you with enough stimulation so you can get even clearer where you stand and what your truth is.
Part of my mind is scanning my past experience so I can accurately represent what is true for me, while another part is on the look-out for ego – any ways I may be too sure of myself or too humble, too convinced that I know or afraid to really come out and tell it truly. I’m scanning to see where in myself my motivation is coming from – am I expressing my deepest, most authentic wisdom or regurgitating something that was true for me last year?
Right here, in this small creative act of writing a blog post there are many levels of skill being enacted. Any creative act requires this ongoing process of awareness, focus, adjustment and choice as we monitor and align with the creative flow. Sometimes the ride is fast moving and exhilarating, sometimes easy and gracious; other times we get stranded in a flat calm for weeks or months or even years, or whisked away in the tempest of some distracting drama which conveniently relieves us of the responsibility of creation; and there are times too when we have to get out of the boat and find help to push it up the beach.
Creating is a multi-faceted, multi-dimensional process through which we humans are given the outrageous privilege to refine and develop ourselves and to sculpt our world into beautiful shapes directed by the rhythms of the tides which flow through our hearts.
October 20th 2015
