Your Creative Spirit

She painted her path to healing. It was the best way for Laura to activate her consciousness, her spirit, to help her body regain balance. Laura’s blood counts had remained low, even months after the stem cell transplant. She wondered if there was any way to influence that invisible world within.

The best way, of course, was indirectly; not through the mind, but through some deeper aspect of intention. So, what she painted flowed freely from her subconscious self, filled with the wisdom and balance she was naturally wired with. She just needed to connect to it, and that connection came through the brush.

I encouraged Laura to go big and to paint with abandon.  Boy, did she ever! Five feet of canvas filled with spontaneous imagery; archaic symbols of energy, life, and restoration. It has a garden of Eden feel to it, and everything has its double. The painting is dominated by a tree of life that seems to walk upon the land, leaves swirling in energetic vitality. Another grows behind the man, centred in tree pose. He is learning from nature how to maintain strength and balance. His partner has her hands in the water of life, drinking in its nourishment, celebrating the flow.

Downstream, a pair of loons mirrors the couple’s partnership, swimming near healing echinacea and dandelions. Above, two eagles represent courage – one tests the wind, the other taking flight. A dolphin frolics nearby. Her dynamic energy is coupled with the eternal celestial energy of the moon. Day and night, water and land – everything in balance.

Laura was not aware of the profound meaning in these symbols as she painted. She moved with free association, trusting on the intuitive level what her soul was saying. And, as hoped, her body responded. Her blood counts returned to normal. We can never know the direct connection (though studies support the link), because we’re talking about a process that cannot be reduced to a formula. It can, however, be experienced as foundational to what it means to be human, to become whole.

Creativity expands our consciousness. Fundamentally, it is a spiritual process that returns us to ourselves, expresses meaning, and reveals the hidden parts of our psyche. It unleashes energy that knows what it needs to do, where it needs to go. We don’t control it, we can’t measure it, and yet it is so accessible, accessed through any creative pursuit. Mine is photography, but yours might be cooking, carpentry, dance, journaling… The key is to open, listen, flow.

This is a spiritual practice, among the most powerful ways to connect to God through the very process by which you emanate from God. It is happening every moment. It is happening through you right now. St. Paul, in Acts 17:27, puts it this way: God… is not far from any one of us. ‘For in him we live and move and have our being.’ As some of your own poets have said, ‘We are his offspring.’

In modern terms, we could say that Consciousness (God) is the ground of being from which we, and all reality, arise. Think of this: as God conceives, Spirit creates, and the universe (including you and I) experiences. But God must remain hidden in this creative process, otherwise our analytical minds would be engaged and start to filter, control, block the process and the Presence. All the more since what is in need of repair are the broken parts of ourselves, the parts we avoid and suppress. This is why creativity is such a powerful tool for self-psychology, soul repair, and somatic reparation – the body’s healing.

Creativity is among the most powerful ways to connect to God through the very process by which you emanate from God. – David Maginley

Question: How might you engage creativity to facilitate healing for mind, body and soul?

Want to explore this process in-depth? Then join me and an incredible team of teachers for Inscape: Imagining, Dreaming, Creating, a week-long workshop exploring the fundamental aspects of your consciousness through creating art, working with dreams, meditation and group discussions. Explore what it is to be a spiritual, creative being having a physical experience.

 

5 replies
  1. Linda Longmire
    Linda Longmire says:

    HiDavid
    This resonates with me . Both in experience of the connectedness of creativity and flow and deep spirituality . And also need for my own healing in my grieving for my brother’s death from cancer and my profound sense of having failed him .

    Reply
    • David Maginley
      David Maginley says:

      Hi Linda,
      I deeply appreciated your vulnerability – it’s there that we shine the brightest, as it evokes a tender ache in others, in me, that connects to what is most important. Grief is love with no place to go, so I hope life provides more ways to integrates that. If my musings helped, I’m deeply grateful. Peace.

      Reply

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