BlissQuest: Becoming A Conduit for Divine Creativity

"This way," said one of my guides
during a walk in the park.

Listening to: Something for Connie.

Bliss: A kitten who wakes me in the middle of the night just to be petted. That same kitten finally (ha) having a sleepy day after a few totally crazy, totally "busy" days.

For our 12 Secrets book club this week, the secret is all about paying attention to, listening for your creative guides.

I read this chapter yesterday and have been thinking about it since. And not in that "what an amazing chapter!" way, but rather, in that "what the heck am I going to write?!" way.

And now it finally hits me that if I think about this chapter in reverse, it is about something I have spent a lot of time pondering: the lack of positive female role models for writers.

If you haven't already, watch Elizabeth Gilbert's TED talk about creativity. It fits right in with my thinking, especially when she points out that the 20th century is littered with the dead bodies of our most creative souls.

Some of my favorite writers took their own lives in that century, Sylvia Plath and Virginia Woolf to name only two.

Gilbert asserts that much of the death and self-destructive tendencies occur because we simply put too much emphasis on the control an artist has. We give the artist herself too much credit.

What? What does she mean by this, you may be asking. Too much credit? Isn't the credit all due to the artist?

I think she's right. I think it's healthier to think of the artist as a conduit but not the actual source of the energy. This can create a healthy mystical approach to our art and creativity. We just have to be prepared to receive, but we are not the actual generator of the gift.

When we are having a dry spell, it's not totally our fault. The muse -- or whatever you choose to call it -- is just busy with someone else at the moment.

This does not exonerate us, though. Our most important role becomes Showing Up & Being Ready. We still have to go to the easel, to the typewriter, to the clay...we still have to do the work. And it behooves us to do the work every single day so that when the Muse is ready to gift us, we are there to receive.

And we are gracious recipients, having honed our craft.

As a person who believes in mystery, who does not want every single part of her creativity dissected and "understood," who wants art and creativity to be seen in the same light as enlightenment, as this person, this idea works for me.

And suddenly the idea of "Guide" is no longer limited to human form.

I can light a candle and call upon my angels.

I can smudge my creative space and ask help from the ancestors.

I can sit in meditation and wait upon the Divine.

Suddenly, my art is my religion. My creativity is my path. My whole life is one sacred message to and from the gods.