Directing creation inward
to grow a new being
I posted the other week about nurturing the work side of creative work. This is still a focus of mine - making the time and effort to write, as opposed to waiting for inspiration and motivation to effortlessly flow from me.
I was being honest about what I wanted when I thought to myself, “Bridget you’re going to have to start making an effort if you want to write again.”
But, I also reminded myself that I have been creative in the months I spent writing little more than random blurbs in my Notes app. In this time when my writing has been limited, creation energy has been coursing through me as I grow a new life within me. Which is to say, I’m halfway through my first pregnancy.
People sometimes refer to their creative works as their babies. Authors use birthing analogies when they describe writing, publishing, and publicizing a book. There’s a possessiveness over what one is creating, a feeling of something being mine. And yet, there’s also a lack of control over the final product. The details of its surface, the essence that dances below and gives that creation - whether a novel, a painting, a sculpture, or a baby - its itness. The identity outside of you, the creator.
In making a baby, I brought an egg to the party and my husband brought the sperm. We had the plan and intention of creating a baby, so, sure, the idea of this guy started with us, but that intention isn’t actually one of the inputs needed for a germ to begin. Couples unconsciously bring sperm and egg together all the time. So can you call couples who have conceived creators at all?
Can you call artists creators either?
Is the existence of the fruits of their labor always there? A product of its own creation? Or of a higher creation if you want to go that route?
Either way, it’s definitely not me in charge of creating the way my controlling mind wants to think. And thank the maybe-higher-creations that be that I’m not the one doing the inventing!
What a narrow version of life I would conceptualize for my creative endeavors, and for the human being growing within me if I was the sole author. Not because I’m narrow minded, by nature, as a person, but because I am a person. A person with my own experiences, preferences, assumptions, and biases. A person who has only seen and done so much. A person who is, must, and forever will be developing and changing.
When I’m doing my job properly as a coach, I am setting aside my opinions and judgments about what I think a client could or should pursue. I’m helping them unfold what’s true and good for them at this point in their lives.
In the same way, as a creative person, and now as a mother, I have the chance to get myself out of the way and let the creation take shape in the way that is most good and beautiful for it to incarnate. And then, stand in awe of what it becomes. With gratitude that I got to be a witness to its formation.