the spooky death crucible of creativity
There have been 3.5 days this fall in which I've had the excitement of wearing a sweater. A few days of promising chill, followed by murky warmth and mild humidity. Confusing. I haven't even brought the rose geranium and white sage in from the garden yet. Frost still feels like a distant dream.
And yet, the leaves are changing color. They're drifting to the ground in yellow sweeps over the river, crunching under footfalls. In the forest, it looks like autumn, even if it doesn't feel that way in the air.
This autumn has me wandering through the forest, mulling over the connections among smoke, death, and creativity.
Perhaps it's the transition I'm looking ahead to, or just the leaves falling, but I cannot stop thinking about how death always precedes creativity, and how creativity actually is our life force, and how both these factors make creativity perhaps the most terrifying act of all.
I believe that the creative urge itself is our life force. To be alive means to have the urge to create, whether you might create a lasagna for dinner, a child's birthday party, or a masterpiece painting.
In addition to the obvious acts of creation, there's something else we're all continuously creating: solutions to problems. Every unique solution to a problem is a creative act.
When you have a situation that you just don't know how to navigate, when you have a dream that feels impossible -- these are problems that require creativity to solve.
When you engage with the creative urge, you are engaging with your life force, and that feels good. You get a nice high after you've made something.
But sometimes creating doesn't feel good at first -- sometimes it feels terrifying. Sometimes we balk at the prospect. We resist it. We get blocked.
Why is that?
Creativity is terrifying because, before we create something, a part of ourselves has to die.
That's right, I said it: death precedes creation. And that's frightening.
Of course, this happens on a spectrum -- the more major the creative act, the more you are called to let death sweep through your existence. When you are called to make a major life change, you must allow an old identity to die. When you are called to make a change to your family structure, you must allow your former understanding of family to dry out and crumple like a leaf, falling to the feet of the new structure, nourishing it with the memory of what came before.
This call to death is a spooky, unsettling sensation that swirls around us as the urge to create stirs within us.
It is precisely this terror that leads us to balk, to freeze, to get stuck before we create.
What do you do when you feel creatively stuck?
What do you do when you can't imagine a way forward, when you can't seem to get yourself to keep writing or painting or making, when you are desperate to make a change but feel that it's impossible?
I'll tell you what I do: I journey to the Otherworld.
I light some herbs, waft the smoke, pull out my rattle, and pass through the Veil to the Otherworld, the land of plant spirits and guides and ancestors, the place where wisdom abounds and insights await.
When I am frozen and cannot find the answers on my own, I seek guidance in the Otherworld. It always helps.
And so, Magnetizing, because I cannot stop thinking about Creativity and how it is truly the most terrifying, spooky act there is, and because smoke + Otherworld journeys have helped me so much as I've navigated life + all my writing projects, I would like to invite you to a free workshop I'm hosting next week:
The Creativity Crucible
Are you feeling creatively stuck?
Perhaps it's a book you haven't started yet, a major life change you're scared to make, or a seemingly impossible situation you need to navigate -- these are all, at their root, a creativity block.
Join me as we delve into the crucible of creativity. Through gentle smoke magic, shamanic journeying, and reflective writing, we will travel to the Otherworld to seek the insight you need to move forward with your most potent dreams.
Saturday, October 23rd
10:00am -12:00pm EST
Includes:
Guided Shamanic Journeying
Reflective Writing Prompts
Stories of smoke + the Otherworld
And, before you ask -- YES! a replay will be available :) The workshop will be recorded and a link will be sent to you immediately afterward. You'll be able to access the recording for one week, until Saturday, Oct. 30th.
Bring:
A current Creativity crisis (artistic, major life decision or change, etc.)
Your journal
A small bit of herb to burn
Tarot or Oracle cards, if you have them