The Art of the Creative Process
As I lay in the grass watching a spider weave it’s web, I liken it to my own orb of creativity. The way it so tenderly joins the fine web to leaves, the way it’s body moves, completely immersed in the process of allowing its home to be created through it. And sometimes, even with such presence, it misreads the strength of a blade of grass and it is made to start the whole process again.
As I watch this creature create I realise that I have not seen many spiders actually making a web before, only the finished product. Oftentimes way too close when bush walking between trees and sometimes when it’s too late and it’s tangled in my hair. I notice some webs are stronger and bigger than others, yet all are exactly what that species of spider needs.
I wonder if spiders compare their webs to one another and I conclude to myself that it is their nature to create the type of web they have, their process, as unique as the rings on trees and the patterns of prints on our fingers. And I notice how, as I lay here, the process takes time. The back and forth, the joining, the trial and error and the surrender to allowing the web to be created through the creature. The silent communication with all of nature surrounding.
This takes time, presence and devotion.
Because when the spiders web does get walked through the creature does not question whether it will begin the process again, it questions; where would better suit? How can I make it stronger? And it surrenders to the powers bigger than it. It is not seen as a waste of time, perhaps it’s just part of the process. (Although I can’t speak spider).
I was inspired by the spiders unquestionable commitment to the process of creating its home and it illuminated to me the magic of the creative process in bringing me home to myself.
In my own personal creative process I have learnt about the gifts of failure, of breaking and learning. The necessity to give myself space and time to ‘get it wrong’ and grace when bringing untouched-by-physicality ideas into the physical form.
I have learnt to surrender to the forces of life moving through me which can sometimes look like not doing anything at all for a little while.
The creative process can be all consuming and a slipstream to flow state, it can be frustrating and clunky and everything in between. The creative process is a reflection of the textures of life and of Self. It’s debilitating, breathtaking. It’s the balance of doing and being, of being embodied.
It has taught me to honour the cycles of life and death. Sprouting ideas and decaying projects, being in awe of projects in full bloom and respecting the soil that the flower grew from. The time it took to care for the soil and all of the ecosystems within. I have learnt to respect the unseen processes behind and underneath all completed creations and know now that even these competed projects will continue to transform.
I have learnt to shift expectations to soft wishes and comparisons to inspirations and reflections of magic. The bravery it takes to trust in the forces of nature, the ebbs and flows of the unlinear, imperfect, unique creative process that is an expression of life itself, a teacher of life.
As I lay in the grass watching the spider weave it’s web, I saw myself. I was reminded that we are all weaving our webs whether we’re conscious of it or not.
Some podcasts I’ve listened to that have supported me to anchor in the truth of creation:
Some things I do to be in flow with my Creative Process:
Create outside and spend time in nature
Meditate and move before creating
See failure as a gift
Pray
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