Creativity: Part II – Longing

Beyond

The woman has pale translucent skin. She wears an inky black summer dress and the brim of her hat sweeps its black width down partially covering her eyes. Her cheeks are awash with a healthy, ruddy glow, the only show of color in the frame. She looks over her shoulder at a distant horizon and watches ships sail toward infinity.

When I saw the painting, Le Soir, by Jean-Pierre Cassigneul, I was deeply moved by the sense of longing it conveyed, Not the “come and go” kind of longing that is experienced time and again in our culture and then is quickly forgotten, but the lingering, insatiable and haunting kind of longing that lies at the bedrock of our humanity.

It’s difficult to recognize this kind of longing. We so often anesthetize ourselves with carnival-like distractions or we invest our energy in substitute pursuits. They prove empty in the end, unable to address what our soul is speaking to us, the something that is calling us beyond.

“The human heart is always drawn beyond the here and now…In its very structure, the body strains towards the beyond: the eyes and the hands reach out, the voice and the words, the Eros and the listening are all drawn beyond. Thoughts are of course the ultimate pilgrims; this means that the beyond is also within us and this is the source of desire in us.”

From Beauty By John O’Donohue

What form of response to this longing, to this desire will genuinely answer to its thirst? Perhaps one response might be to fall deeply in love with the reality of the moment we are in and to allow that sense of union to bring a creation of expression.

Some of the most profound creativity we can engage in is what Sue Monk Kidd calls re-conceiving our selves. She talks about this in her book, The Dance of the Dissident Daughter.” She is speaking here of an experience of awakening to a new reality, one that has to do with who we have perceived our selves to be and how that is at odds with our true design. To respond to the longing born in this awakening is to engage a new frontier. And may even be the basis for all authentic creativity.

On some level creativity is purely instinctual. One of the signature drives of the universe is to procreate. It’s not surprising to find the connection between embarking on a wild frontier journey, where deep instinct is preeminent and the birth of creative expression.

The challenge of longing is to find its source. That takes patience.

How would you describe the longing for the beyond?

Writing Prompt for the Week: Re-conceiving your self.