The Seven Chakras
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Eminence in any art form is not to be reviled - absolutely I want to be an eminent poet. And there is a deep and moving thrill we all feel on some level when we see or hear or touch a great piece of artistic expression. But my poetry, and I think basic immanent creativity, is an expression of some vital aspect of myself that is not satisfied by eminence. Creativity is how I live my life. What is it I really want to say? How do I really want to express myself? Creativity is a state of being. And we all have the capacity to be creative: this is not only our birthright, but also a pathway to the divine.
Creativity sparks our spiritual movement toward wholeness and understanding. It is our pure connection with the divine that pours out of us as urge and curiosity, and the playfulness that moves us to ask, "What if? Why?" Without our imaginations we would be less inclined and perhaps even unable to hear that still small voice within us. It is our imaginations that allow us to make those leaps of connection with seemingly unrelated elements of life, bridging the worlds of heaven and earth.
Creativity bestows wisdom and understanding in an open mind as piece after piece of the living puzzle settles into place with an "ah ha" rightness. Somehow, through creative thought, we come to know what our soul desires, what our sacred path is and how to walk it, or how to solve that last elusive corner piece of understanding. Creativity gives us the capacity to act in moral and compassionate ways. We, as humans, can empathize because we are able to imagine what others are feeling. And we are able, I would add, to imagine different outcomes for various actions. Cause and effect is more than a pre-determined or programmed response because we are able to imagine different scenarios, meging experience with projection and imagination. Our creativity gives us a level of personal control through this understanding of cause and effect, so we are not moral slaves to outside conditions. We possess a capability to project possible causes and effects and choose the one outcome or sequence of events that we see as desirable. It is our creativity that ultimately allows us to create the life we choose, because we can imagine what it is we desire. The ability to remove our selves from the chatter of our ego-minds and step back and see the larger picture requires imagination and creativity. Changing points of view, identifiying beliefs, seeing beneath the layers of our repetitive behaviors all require creative imagination. To be a good psychologist, therapist, coach, teacher, or healer of any sort requires creativity.
Creativity urges us to communicate our thoughts and desires, and we find ways to fashion our true voice into something which will stir and touch others and, as a result, will return to us in a vital and satisfying completion and union with the greater community. Creativity has at its cornerstone a need and an appetite for communing. I have a need, as do most people, to be heard, to be able to speak my truth. How I go about fulfilling my need in a healthy and productive fashion is guided by my creative voice.
Creativity draws us into relationships with others, always finding new ways to open hearts into understanding. Creativity opens us to tolerance and compassion. We imagine what another person is thinking or feeling and that imagining gives us empathy. When we truly understand someone, even those with whom we fervently disagree, we can become more tolerant and more compassionate of that individual or group. It is through creativity that the human race will come to understand the differences in other cultures and ultimately come to embrace those differences without altering them, just as a painter requires contrast, shadows and light, to take a canvas from a sterile emptiness into a masterpiece.
Creativity is a fire that requires the fuel of action — "What happens when I do this? — the creative person wonders. "How will that feel, how will that look? How can my idea be realized in the world?" Creativity is not simply about pretty paints or words; it is the drive to engineer solutions, to find solutions to life-threatening situations. Through creative actions, our social concerns and activism begin to find problem-solving pathways. This intense curiosity spurs us onward, and may be, ultimately, the life force that saves our species from self-extinction. Certainly the creative fire frequently saves us from ourselves, drawing us out of a small and drab notion of who we are and how we want to be in the world. Our creativity helps to burn away our illusions.
Creativity allows the flow between energy and matter and opens the space for that flow, watching it swirl with delight. The creative process allows dualities and polarities. In fact, creativity thrives on the movement between those things, and that movement may be the generator of our passionate urges. Nothing is definite. Nothing is fixed. But the movement is a flow of energy. The urge to create, to share and merge, heats our blood and our bodies into a sexual flurry, a delicious expression of body, soul and mind at its best. Our creative passions make life joyful and colorful. This passion is our creative juice, and it's what makes our lives juicy.
Creativity is what takes us from a lump of cells into exploration — "What do those toes taste like? And how can I stand and move into that area of the room?" As children, we want to play and make things. Young babies will smear their first bowl of spaghetti on the high chair tray to experience the feel of getting their hands all gooey and really just to experience something new. Our willingness as a species to try new things, to use a stick, for example, in a new way may have been our evolutionary genius. Ultimately, we see our deep connection to this earth, this matter through creativity, and more importantly, we begin to feel this powerful drive to live and be creative through our connection to this natural world that includes the very cells of our own bodies.
Our creative urges are usually associated with Svadhistana, our second chakra and the seat of unconscious creation and passion, and with Vishuddha, our fifth chakra and the seat of communication and expression or conscious creation. And although these chakras are most certainly a vital well of our creativity, all of our chakras are involved in our creative expressions. Each chakra has a unique and powerful role to play in creativity. Each has its own power and its own deficiency, depending upon environmental circumstances, upon our involvement and attention to each and upon our genetically encoded propensities. And though I tend to think of them as jewels stacked upon each other, these intricate energies are more of a river flowing, swirling into itself and around itself, and perhaps making it difficult to discern where one abruptly ends and where one commences.
Creativity moves in both the manifesting current of our own chakras, as well as the liberating current. But just as important as these two flows are the currents of reception and expression. We, as creative creatures, seek to take that which is just beyond our understanding and draw it into concrete knowledge. Tracing these currents of creative flow in each of the chakras, letting them develop voice and express their energy, exploring how the creative spin in each chakra draws sustenance or becomes depleted is a pathway in and of itself. |
