"Art is crucial in changing society. It is important to realize that life itself is art. The problem is that we compartmentalize everything. The artist is not a special kind of person but everyone is or ought to be a special kind of artist. We are whole and we live our lives with art and out of that there may come some specific creation that we call art, but everything about being human is an art.”—Mother Tessa Bielecki
“I suppose the reverse of Professor Higgins’ question haunts me: ‘Why can’t a man be more like a woman?’ Not that it is our job to save him-but all who are privileged and burdened to live just now do have some responsibility for creating a world that is safer and saner and more just than the one we have. What better way to do it than with words, holy words.” —Marilyn Sewell
Artists of all kinds—painters, sculptors, musicians—find and express spirituality in and through creativity, and many practitioners find their way to the heart of a spiritual tradition through its emotional and aesthetic expression in art or music rather than through theology.
In addition to relating to the art of others, the process of creativity can itself provide a sense of the sacred for women whether or not they think of themselves as artistic. Few things are as creative as dreams—those elaborate messages from the unconscious once believed to be sent by the gods. By working with dream symbols, keeping a prayer journal, or by creating artwork in a meaningful way, we are able engage deeper levels of our being, thus expressing and synthesizing elements in ways that often surprise our surface mind.
Over and over I have found that in writing, the sense of connection comes not at the point a book is published, but in the primary process of creation. When I’m writing hard, a sort of humming starts at the edge of my consciousness; earth slides away, the sky opens. I’m in, quite literally, another world. Something comes to me, through me, something sings me, hums me. When you are able to set aside your judgmental mind which limits you to what you think you can do well, you can participate in this primary creative act, can connect with this source.
Creativity—whether through writing, painting, or creative imagination— releases us into a timeless world where all things are possible. In this magical realm we can reclaim past events, retrieve former selves, live out what almost was, what could have been. Through creating, we are able to fill out the hollows and blank spaces in our lives, to make sense of and give reality to our experience. In this private arena where conscious and unconscious meet and interact, we are granted a unique opportunity to negotiate peace settlements between inner and outer, between self and other, between sacred and profane.
To think and to write about spiritual life is to engage actively in the process of integrating and shaping that life.
“Deliver me from writers who say the way they live doesn’t matter. I’m not sure a bad person can write a good book. If art doesn’t make us better, then what on earth is it for?” —Alice Walker
Writing, like breathing, is a way of connecting the mind and the body, the conscious and the unconscious. Through writing, we can slip the moorings of our own personality to look at the world through another’s eyes, to walk in their shoes. By imagining into their situation, we develop understanding and compassion, explore new ideas, new modes of being. Through writing and/or visualizing, we can overcome our fear of death by “experiencing” our own, thus leading us to live more lightly in the time we have left. Through keeping a dream journal, we can catch the hints and interpret the stories our unconscious sends us nightly. Through active imagination/visualization we can overcome psychological obscurations that block our spiritual path.
Over the years I found that it is easy to read coolly, superficially, only with the mind, but writing requires emotional involvement; it engages the whole self. By simply picking up a pen and writing for twenty minutes on a given subject, we often find out not only what we think about a topic, but also what we feel, what we fear, and what we hope. Writing about a subject will frequently reveal hidden truths and latent ideas in a way that nothing else can.
Writing in a journal or composing any kind of ongoing record of one’s thoughts, activities, and events, creates a storehouse of information, even if incomplete and sporadically kept. Writing about your spiritual journey will help to deepen the experience as you write, and teach you to be more aware, more conscious of your ongoing process.
When writing, don’t edit yourself as you go along. Don’t worry about spelling, grammar, sentence structure, stylistic devices, or any of that. If you do, you engage the left side of the brain, and this inhibits the free flow of imagination and the ability to synthesize. Sometimes it helps to be less blocked if you write with your nondominant hand.
Putting emotions and buried experiences into words is the first step toward getting them into consciousness. After you’ve learned that writing can take you below a certain level of mind, then you’re embarked on a profound journey that is perhaps best not talked about too much. There is something out there/in here, something
conscious that holds the world together, something that is know-able, something that can be understood in silence, in loneliness, something that reveals itself gradually or swiftly, something that can be taken away sometimes for weeks or even years. What to call it? To name it might limit it, but let it work through you, trust it, trust yourself, trust the process that binds you both together. Trust and honor it. You have to be very quiet, very still to hear it, like catching a tune being played in the far distance. Learn to be still and let it work through you, heal you.
Kimberley Snow
Writing Yourself Home
~ A good method for beginning a writing meditation is to set the clock for twenty minutes and not let the pen stop moving until that time has elapsed. Don’t worry about spelling, grammar, or style-just write. If you find that you are stuck, simply write the same sentence or word over again until the pen “takes off” on its own.
To visualize, or use what the Jungians call “active imagination” (see Robert Johnson’s Inner Work, Harper San Francisco, 1986), simply relax the body, relax the mind, and open the inner eye to whatever images present themselves. Watch for a while and participate when your inner voice tells you to do so. Even though you may not be able to visualize clearly at first, by making the effort you create the means of a new way of perceiving.
For more on pursuing art as a path of self-knowledge and meditation, be sure to check out the following sources: Julia Cameron, The Artist's Way: A Spiritual Path to Higher Creativity, Tarcher/Perigree, 1992; Natalie Goldberg, Writing Down the Bones, Shambhala, 1986, and Wild Mind, Bantam, 1990; Joanna Field, A Life Of One’s Own, [1936J Jeremy P. Tarcher, 1981; Frederick Franck, Art as a Way: A Return to the Spiritual Roots, The Crossroad Publishing Company, 1981; Shakti Gawain, Creative Visualization, Whatever Publishing, 1986; Judith Hooper and Dick Teresi, Would the Buddha Wear a Walkman? A Catalogue of Revolutionary Tools for Higher Consciousness (products and services to expand your mind), Simon and Schuster, 1990; Peter London, No More Second Hand Art: Awakening the Artist Within, Shambhala, 1989; Ronald S. Miller and the Editors of the New Age Journal, As Above, So Below,
Jeremy P. Tarcher, 1992; Sandra Shuman, Source Imagery: Releasing the Power of Your Creativity, Doubleday, 1979; Frances Vaughan, Awakening Intuition, Doubleday, 1979; and my Writing Yourself Home, Conari Press, 1990.
For more on painting and creativity, see Betty Edwards’s Drawing with the Right Side of the Brain.
“Whenever you trying to pray, and man plop himself on the other end of it, tell him to git lost, ”say Shug. “Conjure up flowers, wind, water, a big rock. ” —Alice Walker
Section Four Table of Contents from Keys to the Open Gate:
4 THE PATH OF CREATIVITY, WRITING, DREAMING, DRAWING, 165
4 THE PATH OF CREATIVITY, WRITING, DREAMING, DRAWING
Writing as Meditation, 168 Kimberley Snow
Letter to God. 170 Joan Melcher
Blessings Journal. 171 Kimberley Snow
Prayer, 172 M. Lily Hodges
A Testament, 174 Anthony de Mello
Unbearable Son, 176 Thich Nhat Hanh
Spiritual Diary, 178 Kimberley Snow
The Tale of the Sands. 179 Idries Shah
“The Innerbird," 182 Barry Spacks
Contacting Angels, 183 Alma Daniel, Timothy Wylie, and Andrew Ramer
Computer Exercise, 186 Kimberley Snow
Dreams, 186 Karen Slgnell
Dream Yoga. 190 Namkhai Norbu
Messiness is Next to Goddessness, 192 John Boe
Making a Fetish, 193 Vicki Noble
Art and Spirituality, 195 A talk with Phyllis Glanuille
Writing as Meditation, 168 Kimberley Snow
Letter to God. 170 Joan Melcher
Blessings Journal. 171 Kimberley Snow
Prayer, 172 M. Lily Hodges
A Testament, 174 Anthony de Mello
Unbearable Son, 176 Thich Nhat Hanh
Spiritual Diary, 178 Kimberley Snow
The Tale of the Sands. 179 Idries Shah
“The Innerbird," 182 Barry Spacks
Contacting Angels, 183 Alma Daniel, Timothy Wylie, and Andrew Ramer
Computer Exercise, 186 Kimberley Snow
Dreams, 186 Karen Slgnell
Dream Yoga. 190 Namkhai Norbu
Messiness is Next to Goddessness, 192 John Boe
Making a Fetish, 193 Vicki Noble
Art and Spirituality, 195 A talk with Phyllis Glanuille
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