what if creativity IS spirituality?

growing up, being spiritual was really complicated. there were a lot of rules, a lot of judgement, a lot of “good” people and “bad” people, a lot of “right” and “wrong” things to do.

but the more i walk down my own spiritual path, the more i’m convinced that our “job” or our “purpose” is simply to be in awe, which is another way of being in love. 

perhaps it is our job simply to sing in awe of life.

for some of us singing may look more like dancing, writing, quilting, cooking, gardening or teaching… but maybe you don’t have to be good, get a promotion, be famous, publish a book, make $8 million, get more than 1,000 followers, travel to every continent to really do this whole life thing.

for me, my creative practice is one of the primary ways that i access the Portal to what feels like Source. i no longer differentiate between the creative offering of a prayer, a session, a fire ceremony, a poem, a dance, cooking dinner.

all of it is,
perhaps,
to love what we love
wholeheartedly, wildly
and sing for it
make things to it
offerings
which are how we praise them
and then to miss them when they are gone. 

i think of the poet Mary Oliver, and how most (if not all) of her work, is simply

looking at the world
with heart-eyes wide open and in praise
and then singing it back to us
so we, too, may see it.

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“You were made and set here to give voice to this, your own astonishment.”

— Annie Dillard—

 and when we see the world, we are able to shape the world

in the same ways we shape bread dough, or paints on a canvas

or arrange a pillow here rather than there.

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“We do not worship God.

We perceive and attend God.

We learn from God.

With forethought and work,

We shape God. ”

— Octavia Butler —

and in that shaping is our praise
our awe
our consideration and care
which honors what we feel to be the Beautiful
that is worth praising
worth being in Love with
even for all the aches and grief it will also touch us with.

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“the whole world is a work of art… there is no Shakespeare… no Beethoven… no God; we are the words; we are the music; we are the thing itself.”

— Virginia Woolf—

we can’t lose it
because we are IT.

so what if, as an experiment,
our creativity was our ceremony
in praise of what we Love
in grief for what we Love

in offering to what moves us
and how we are moved
as if that is something worth paying attention to

because it is
what feeds our Soul
which is what keeps us here.

it’s all here.

and you were born into the giant art studio

of Life inviting you to paint your life on its canvas

so what are you going to make?

our creations makes us
just as we make them.

they show us ourselves
they show us what is really going on
they show us what we really know
and they bring us back to the Source,
which is us
the “Thing itself.”

 in honor of your creative, devotional and sensitive antennae to Life which wants to Love you back in all the ways that you Love it even though you might be afraid to but that’s okay you can make it any way.

i bow to you.

i bow to your work.

i bow to what you love.

courage,
grace