CONCEPTION, HUNGER, DESIRE, DEATH & GRIEF

On beginning an embodied creative process

CREATING WITH THE BODY

A lot of people create purely from their mind. Their ego. They strive to create something based on what exists outside of themselves. Not what is emerging from deep within. It's often cloaked in a lot of insecurity and conditioning. That's why there is a lot of shitty art. It is not authentic, vulnerable, or true.

I'm not even saying this kind of art is wrong. We're all a little cloaked in insecurity and conditioning. It's impossible to be 100% self-aware; we DO create from the unconscious. It is the nature of creation…

But there is a way to sense, feel, imagine, perceive, smell, notice what is wanting to be created through us, with the body.

With the subconscious that IS the body.

Our emotions. Our feelings. Our trembling. The ache of our heart, the echo of our womb, the memory in our bones, our fascia. 

This kind of art is created from vulnerability. The vulnerability of having a body. The vulnerability of letting ourselves feel our body. The vulnerability of letting our body speak, of letting the parts of ourselves that we desperately want to hide, be seen.

And this kind of art has immense transformative power for both the artist and the audience. 

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BODY METAPHORS

Okay so there's a reason I gave this post this title. I want to bring this stage of the creative process to the metaphor of the body. The body IS a metaphor - or are we a metaphor for it?

Many mothers say that they often see their child before they get pregnant. That the spirit visits them first in a dream.

But pregnancy isn’t a relevant metaphor for everyone. How about something all bodies do - eat. You know how it begins with a pang in the stomach? Or a whiff of a warm chocolate cake in the oven?

Let's keep going. How about sex. Hot, steamy sex. Holding tension. Building. Holding. Building. Reaching the edge and jumping right off. An ocean of bliss. Love. Oneness. It all begins in the moment you see the look in another's eye. The hunger. The desire. The animal in them, seeking to feel the animal in you.

The God in them, seeking to feel the God in you.

This would not be a discussion about creativity if we did not mention death. How about those moments we feel death enter the room, or the car, the conversation. How it slices the silence like a sharp knife. Chills our skin. The truth of our immortality, of change, of endings hangs in the air like mist. Invisible yet so tangible.

And let's not forget grief. The sensation of the heart breaking. The agony and the ecstasy. The opening. The transformation. The transmutation. The way time stops. The fire of our own tears.

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THE SEED, THE ACHE, THE SPARK, THE RELEASE, THE OPENING

Making art is no different than any of these embodied experiences.

First, a vision comes to you. A seed.

You have a hunger.

You have a desire. A longing.

Some part of you wants to die [I will say more about what I mean by this another time].

In order to create, you must let yourself be the mother/parent. The animal. The lover. The ruler of the underworld. The god. The creator.

And let yourself feel courted by your creations like a child, a lover, a feast, an orgasm, a deep release.

What do I really mean by this? Let me be more practical:

                 - Allow the vision of your creation(s) to visit you. Meditate on them.
                   Think about them. Daydream.
                - Notice what sparks your hunger & desire for creation.
                - Feel which kinds of expression ignite your passion. Who do you want
                   to be like, who/what inspires you? Or even makes you angry? Triggers you.
                - Connect with the part of you that doesn't want to create.
                   That might want to hide or shrink or keep secrets forever.
                - Remember the heartbreak(s) that brought you to this moment,
                   and the lessons the heart continues to teach you by cracking open.


All of this contemplation is in service to the first step of the creative process, is actually a threshold to The Beginning.

Notice when ideas come and write them down. Make a map. See colors. Sink into memory. Catch, capture, tease, taunt, call your creation to you. And see how full your vision can get.