Creativity: Part I – Creativity as Birth

Acorn Idea

Create (v.) “to bring into being,” early 15c., from Latin creatus, past participle of creare “to make, bring forth, produce, procreate, beget, cause,” related to Ceres (the Roman goddess of agriculture) and to crescere, “arise, be born, increase, grow,” from PIE root *ker- (2) “to grow. “Dan Vaan writes that the original meaning creare“ was ‘to make grow’, which can still be found in older texts…” (parenthesis mine)

From etymonline.com

Creativity is the act of bringing new life into the world, something never before brought to bear. It contains new DNA. And though like any birth, it is bound to have characteristics of what it is derived from, as well as other characteristics from several, or hundreds or thousands of other creations before it, it is still uniquely its own. This newborn thing is unique in the world, one of a kind. Birth is labor and it is the culmination of gestation, and often birth is the expression of love.

Everything invisible in the soul longs to become visible according to John O’Donohue. In his book, Anam Cara, O’Donohue makes it clear that in our deepest selves we long to express, we long to create. In fact O’Donohue goes even further declaring that, “When your soul awakens, your destiny becomes urgent with creativity.”

Why is it that this urgent creativity is so seldom our experience? O’Donohue suggests that our “eye has become indifferent,” our “words have become thin,” our listening is no longer “worshipful” and we no longer resonate with the concealed profundity of the Presence around us.

Practicing presence is key to restoring urgent creativity in our lives. Being present in the moment, present to ourselves, our own interior landscapes and our interface with the world around us, present to what our senses are bringing to our soul, present to our own instincts, the natural world, the divine – present to all, both pleasing and challenging.

This is the foundation, the framework and the substance. This is the work, this is the union that brings forth life, the union with presence.

At its root, the creativity I put out into the world is a child of mine. It is born out of the belly of who I am, conceived in a union of love with Presence. It is my little tendril of life, sprouting up out of my soul, trying to find a way to be.

Every “child” was once a seed, uncertain of its destiny, a shy idea, an undeveloped oak…only an acorn. Nurtured, nourished, given a safe place to grow, a candlelit space of gentle coaxing, it grows into a viable, vibrant, and thriving expression.

What is being conceived in the belly of who you are?

Writing Prompt for the Week: Urgent Creativity