In Jill Mellick’s beautifully-written book The Natural Artistry of Dreams, she talks of how fragmented creativity has become for us, “modern people.” Being creative is something separate from what we do day-to-day. But this is not how it always was. In traditional societies, making things was part of everyday living.
Jill gives us an example of this:
“Rina Swentzell, an architect and Native American from Santa Clara Peublo in New Mexico, explains that there is no word for art in her language, because Tewa people do not experience art as an activity separate from any other in life. The word that most closely approximates the artistic process is po-wa-ha, which translates as “water-wind-breath,” the creative force that moves through the water and the earth.”
For the Tewa, artistic creativity is “closer than breathing,” an experience that many sensitive creatives will resonate with.
They think of it as life moving through them and everything around them.
“The potter making a pot does not need to separate herself from family life or make special time for her inner life; in creating art in the seamless context of her daily world, she is simply living her life! Being and doing are one, because she is experiencing the movement of life within her as it flows through hands and eyes.”
It is hard for us sensitive creatives, living in the industrialized world, riding on the quick-silver of modern technology, to tap into this way of being. Today, we live by a different drum-beat than the rhythm and flow that kept time with people’s lives before. And yet, I think as we go marching along on the calls of more and more, we hunger for the simplicity and flow of just this kind of experience.
Jill Mellick’s description of the potter sparked images I have seen in my life in India. In a little village in Northern India, where my grandparents’ house is, I have touched this kind of time – slow, languid. I have touched this way of being.
Even today, all over India, potters make pots in this same old way. They touch this same old process.
Of course, it’s easy to romanticize them and this process because many of them are the poorest of the poor. In impersonal, clawing cities like Delhi, these are the marginalized people, the one whose work is not valued. But in smaller places, places where life has still not become as big and advanced and as complicated, these are people who still live close to the creative pulse of life.
They will never be called or considered “artistes,” and yet, the creative force flows through them.
It is natural that it does. For them, like the Tewa, being artistic and creative is closer than breathing.
Jill tells us that: “For the Tewa, art is a process, not a product. There is a product, of course; however, to the traditional Tewa potter, the product is incidental– the experience, essential and always available. The real product is inner renewal, a sense of oneness with the life force.”
The real product is inner renewal, a sense of oneness with the life force. This is something that we have probably experienced as well, if we are highly sensitive people who are also highly creative.
Jill goes on to tell us that pots that are made using this creative, dynamic process are not identical. They are unique. There is no life-killing standardization. Some pots have imperfections. All of this is okay. All of this is wonderful.
Maybe, this is what we are looking for when we feel fragmented as highly sensitive people.
As sensitive creatives, we want to be able to make things without judging them. We want to be able to experience things, experience that sense of oneness with the life force and be renewed again. Maybe, that is the true value of work and the true meaning of what we create.
Maybe, we need to look at being creative as something that is always available to us. It is the pure life force that flows through us as sensitive souls. It is something essential that is always there to be lived and tapped into, and not some flippant, extra thing that we get to only after the real work has been done.
What do you think? Does this resonate with you? How can you honor your sensitive creative soul?
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well said
Thank you Sanoop.