What is it about creativity that brings us alive?
Are we hooking up to divinity?
In communion with the creative energies of the word?
As writers, we use the word to see - to look into ourselves and to see the world outside. Through the act of writing a poem - we become the poem - we live the poem before it reveals itself upon the page. The words become the connection between us and our environment, us and people, us and nature, us and planet earth - they act as a bridge and a guiding light, revealing incrementally something our body or being knew, but our mind did not.
The poem, the story, the letter or the article are paths of connection. With what,…depends on what you believe. For me, I am hooked up to the energy of the universe - the collective field and all it contains - the animist aliveness of everything. I am in communion with nature - or the pure energy of what it is, among the everyday stuff.
Creativity - whether art, writing, dance or filmmaking is a relationship with an energy of life that moves through us in the unique forms we choose to express.
A poem can be a communion with the divine - capturing an expansive essence with words. Energy vibrates on a page that holds the power to transform a moment, change a mind, expand the horizon, still the soul, soothe the tender heart or fire the passion.
Through poetry and story, we seek and we find. Words are our probes, feeling forward like the senses. Bringing life into our books, calling soul into form through our language. Through the process and the journey - we find more of ourselves; we discover, through the unfolding on the page, the unfolding of who we are in our lives.
This act of communion is love - it can be quiet, a subtle moment or a beautiful explosion.
This poem by Sufi master, Hafiz, speaks to something of this power of communion and connection:
I Have Learned So Much*
I
Have
Learned
So much from God
That I can no longer
Call
Myself
A Christian, a Hindu, a Muslim,
A Buddhist, a Jew.
The Truth has shared so much of Itself
With me
That I can no longer call myself
A man, a woman, an angel,
Or even pure
Soul.
Love has
Befriended Hafiz so completely
It has turned to ash
And freed
Me
Of every concept and image
My mind has ever known.
I commune with creativity - with the word - to commune with the energy of everything, with the divine spark of life that animates my body in action. It is like making love with life through the word.
Do you feel like you are ‘in communion’ with something through the act of creativity?
Feel welcome to share in the comments…
with love
Jane x
ONLINE WORKSHOP
Join us for HYDRATE - An Online Creative Writing Workshop to Rehydrate your Writing Life on Tuesday 16th of April 7-8.30pm. Sliding scale donation. This month, we’ll be exploring themes of nature through inner and outer seasons and cycles to spark our creative muse - it’s incredible and often unexpected what can emerge. Join us here.
Previous participants have left HYDRATE feeling:
"Refreshed, glowing, stretched (in a good way), brave, flowing, loose, energetic, lifted, watered, with a bit more hope, inspired by others creativity, invigorated, ready to refocus on work and writing, woken up with purpose, very inspired and excited for my future as a writer.” Others found the workshop: "Precious time, it opened stories I forgot about, creative, innovative, refreshing, inspiring, relaxed, varied, surprising.... a natural and warm atmosphere"
If you enjoy my newsletters and writing and would like to support it, you can ‘like’ each piece by tapping on the heart icon, share on Substack Notes and/or social media or with a friend. You might also enjoy my book and workbook:
Language of the Feminine - Awaken the Source of Your Creative, Intuitive & Sensual Self
*p32, The Gift - Poems by Hafiz The Great Sufi Master - Translations by Daniel Ladinsky, (note - the original poem is centre-aligned which is not possible to do here).
Thanks to the poet, Padraig O’Tuama for a spark of inspiration.
📸 credit- my own.