At the end of the previous blog, I said I would follow up with some comments on how spirituality informs our search for connection. In the interim, I stumbled across a blog about spirituality which spoke to me deeply and which I want to share. It addresses the question that repeatedly echoes in my consciousness, namely:
“Why do I make such a big deal of all this? It is after all just a dance.”
(Editor’s note: Adapted from Mirabai Starr, Wild Mercy: Living the Fierce and Tender Wisdom of the Women Mystics (Sounds True: 2019) 159-160. Posted on Meditations@cac.org 12/11/2019 I have rearranged some of the sentences and paragraphs and substituted the word “dance” for “art” and “dancing” for “making art.”)
When we show up to dance, we need to first get still enough to hear what wants to be expressed through us, and then we need to step out of the way and let it. Dancing necessitates periods of quietude in which it appears that nothing is happening. We need empty spaces for musing and preparing, experimenting and reflecting.
We must be willing to abide in a space of not knowing before we can settle into knowing. Such a space is sacred. It is liminal, and it’s numinous. It is frightening and enlivening. It demands no less than everything, and it gives back tenfold.
Creativity bypasses the discursive mind and delivers us to the source of our being. The muse rarely behaves the way we would like her to, and yet every artist knows she cannot be controlled.
When we allow ourselves to be a conduit for creative energy, we experience direct apprehension of that energy. We become a channel for grace. To dance is to make love with the sacred. It is a naked encounter, authentic and risky, vulnerable and erotically charged.
A miraculous event unfolds when we throw the lead of our personal story into the transformative flames of creativity. Our hardship is transmuted into something golden. With that gold we heal ourselves and redeem the world.
(TO read the full post go to Centre for Contemplation)