Inward Vision

This is the third part of a short series on energy movement

Free play, spontaneity, and creativity are perhaps some of the better recognized assets of the child’s natural gifts. They are also the first to dissipate in a traumatic or high stress environment. When I worked as a child therapist, it was so reliable that it was a diagnostic indicator: the degree that free creative process was present or stifled. Another term for it might be capacity for imaginative play. Some young people are so naturally geared towards expressing their energy creatively that even under duress they find ways to do so, often within a certain structure that created the necessary safety that their environment didn’t offer. For example, tracing their hands or painting them and making prints (I am here, this is me); or observing and copying/drawing from life an early age (this is where I am, this is what I can see); or utilizing more direction based crafts such as origami and art kits (I am in control, there is a right way to do this and I can execute it).  Indeed for some, play becomes a necessary venue for escape and safety, to retreat within the expansive space of the creative unconscious.

Maybe even moreso as adults, engaging in a free and unencumbered creative flow requires a degree of frustration tolerance. We might have a certain idea in mind of what we wish to create, and our physical capacity and skill may not allow us to execute it exactly. Or a feeling of I don’t know or boredom unfurls when you finally make the time to create. The ability to tolerate boredom and lack of inspiration is a skill that is rapidly being lost in our attention-grabbing era (and it is a reclaimable skill).

Can you remember times when you were a kid and you were bored? Or when you were having a completely fine summer day but you just weren’t that into it? It is in those moments of boredom, disengagement, and mild melancholy when imagination is the resource that is needed. 

Imagination is not only about creation, in spite of what capitalism might tell you. 

It is about transformation. Creativity is not exclusively about producing things, it is about expressing and transforming. Sometimes expressing is a process of destruction. Fellow Art Therapists who are reading this know that creating something that expresses intolerable and painful feelings and then destroying it is a natural form of catharsis. And who can’t relate to experiencing that personally at some point in time, the expression of energy that comes from breaking or destroying something?

It’s a confounding duality that creative flow and free play require a degree of felt safety, but imagination can also create safety where our environment does not provide it. It is a refuge, a space where we can occupy the center and all the spokes of the wheel. Trancework is a form of play sometimes, as is energy practice, but when we express our imagination creatively we have a tangible record of what transpired. Sometimes we are surprised by it.

When I was creating Inward Vision I was amazed at the experience of reading back through my expression in writing. It captured palpably certain anxieties and unique moments of the pandemic, it reflected a personal process that had many ebbs and flows. At the risk of sounding hyperbolic, there are some periods of transformation that are so dramatic and gut-wrenching that we almost lose a sense of who we are. And yet in the reading I felt how that connecting thread was always there, even when I didn’t feel it at the time. It was interesting to see my own version of creative expression being constrained, by burnout, the pandemic, and personal matters— and how the ability to share freely and without fear began to take shape. 

Perhaps the creative process offers an anchor at times, a capturing of the core self while its expression is in a state of change. 

Or maybe it’s the opposite, holding a venue for change and experimentation while the core self anchors below it.

Are dreams a creative process? Certainly they are a space of imagination where anything is possible. 

If you are not lucid, is the dream creating you? If you are lucid, are you creating a reality within your consciousness?
Is creativity about imagination or representation?

When you create does it become real? Or are you expressing something that already existed in the creative unconscious waiting to be brought to life?

When you pull at the corners of this creative portal can you step all the way through, creating a new version of yourself as you express the reality you’ve seen and felt?

I was recently invited to contribute some writing about creativity and the transpersonal, which got me thinking about some of these questions. I had not really thought about breaking down the creative process chakra by chakra as suggested in this request. In my mind’s eye I pictured a beam of creativity separated through a prism into its unique attributes.

I decided to explore this on my own, and then to create a group offering. Reiki, the Chakras, and Creative Expression is a seven week group, each week focusing on a different chakra. ALL forms of creative expression are welcome, including visual art, dance/movement, creative or expressive writing, poetry, music, and anything else you can think of.

The experiential portion (meditation and sound component) will be recorded for those who may need to miss a week or two. The remainder of the class will not be recorded to ensure privacy and intimacy.

It’s almost the exact mid-point of the year, what are you creating?  What dreams are beginning to manifest, and which are asking you to let them reform?