The Creative Relationship
A creative relationship can be something anyone can develop. You don’t have to have special talents or gifts. You have to want to cultivate a special relationship with yourself. It doesn’t happen overnight and it takes effort and focus.However, the gains are so worth the legwork required. You can develop this kind of relationship as a painter, writer, ceramicist, gardener, musician, chef. It means time spent alone with a creative process of some kind; time spent alone not knowing what the next step is, but feeling your way through it. It involves an uncertainty about what will happen but allowing yourself and your materials of choice to create something together. It means getting out of your head and letting your materials and your hands and inspiration take over. It means time spent alone in devotion to creating something that previously did not exist.
This process can take you on a journey. It can take you to parts previously unknown.It can surprise you. Most importantly, though, it can sustain you. A creative relationship gives back as much and more than you give it.
When the way is dark and you are alone with your craft, when you give over to being an active member in this kind of relationship, you get something in return. You get a product. You get a form of expression that may reflect your state of mind at the time of it’s creation, and you may get something totally unexpected. You may get a moment of grace. You may get something coming through you that opens your heart. You just never know. But what is sure, from where I stand, is that when you devote this time to you and your creative relationship as a practice, no matter what else is going on in your life, you fulfill an aspect of self. This fulfillment is yours alone. It will feed you in countless ways that nothing else can touch; no substance or human relationship can fulfill you like the satisfaction of your own creation.
It’s the sense that I made this, I wrote this, I concocted this, and that something that came though a different part of you, and not your biology. No drink is quite so delicious as the elixir of having created something wonderful that is all yours. You don’t have to be an artist to do this; you just have to be willing to open your heart to the creative spirit that lives within you.