WELCOME!
This is a new Blog hosted by Creating Space and Sacred Center and created/moderated by Christine Valters Paintner. It was created as a place for conversation around the intersection and integration of spirituality, creativity, and the arts.
The regular practice of art-making helps us to cultivate creative ways of being in the world. Ultimately, our greatest creative act is the living of our daily lives. Creativity is about making space and listening deeply to our lives and the world around us, seeing beneath the surface of things to the depth dimension of the world, opening ourselves to the newness that stirs there, cultivating a sense of spontaneity and playfulness, and giving form in a loving and intentional way to our commitments. Our whole lives are the arenas for creative work and living by giving expression and voice to the vision and newness being birthed within us when we make space to breathe deeply—in our jobs, our relationships, our leisure time, and longing for justice.
My hope is that the regular reflections offered here can help nurture awareness of the ways in which creativity is an essential and life-giving practice that requires spaciousness, attention, and intention for it to flourish, as well as a degree of surrender of our control over the process, listening to intuition and the wisdom of our bodies and feelings, acknowledgement that it is a lifelong journey and process, and a community that helps us to discern the creativity that is waiting to be born into our lives.
There is much wisdom in our spiritual traditions that can help us to cultivate creative ways of being in the world and this will be a place to develop those resources and connections.
I also hope that this will be a place to continue to develop the spirituality and arts community here in Seattle and beyond and continue to support each other in this exploration. I invite you to participate in the conversation by offering comments on the reflections posted here, or by submitting your own reflection on the relationship of spirituality and creativity for me to post.
What are the practices and resources that help you to nurture the creative life?
Blessings on the unfolding of your creative journey!
Christine Valters Paintner