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Reflections

Category: Creativity

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Creative Rhythms

The moon will be full this Thursday, February 21st. There are no children in our home (by choice, I might add), and so I gather “the sleeping infant of (my)self” to go out into the dark night and drink in the inky beauty of white rock in a sea of blackness.  My sun sign is Cancer whose planet is the moon.  I have always felt an affinity for the moon and her phases and rhythms, appreciating the profound wisdom of her gentle waxing and waning as a mirror of the movement of the seasons from flowering to death and back to blossoming again. 

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Serving the Mysteries

A couple of weeks ago, in my interview with Heather Williams Durka, she used a phrase to describe her work as an artist that has stayed with me: “Serving the Mysteries.”  I was really entranced by that image, because for me the spiritual journey is not so much about growing in certainty as it is about learning how to move more deeply into the heart of Mystery.  And so the idea of my work as an artist being about serving the mysteries resonates deeply. In the January/February 2008 issue of Spirituality and Health magazine, Thomas Moore wrote in his column about religion and the

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Artists Speaking About Their Art

I am honored to be included in this compilation of quotes by artists speaking about their art as a part of a grant project to explore creativity and spirituality.  Some intriguing words for reflection found there, not to mention links to some fabulous artists’ websites.  Click on over to find some inspiration. How would you articulate the connection between your creativity (whether visual, literary, movement, music, etc.) and your spirituality?  Feel free to answer in the comments below or provide a link back to your blog if you post a response there.  I’d really love to hear your responses. -Christine

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Creating Space

I had a dream the other night: In the building where we live one of the condos is going to be rented out for a couple of months, so I decide to go take a look at it. When I first walk in, there is a small cramped kitchen with a stairway going up from the middle of the room. I climb the stairs and discover a lovely room up above with floor-to-ceiling windows and a view of some lovely old stone church ruins (similar to the ones I saw in Ireland–photo above is on the Dingle Peninsula) and beyond

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Inevitable Creating

“After all, the goal is not to make art, but to be in that wonderful state that makes art inevitable.” -Robert Henri from The Art Spirit “I don’t believe in it. . .Plumbers don’t get plumbers block, and doctor’s don’t get doctor’s block; why should writers be the only profession that gives a special name to the difficulty of working and then expect sympathy for it?” -Philip Pullman, author of The Golden Compass (His Dark Materials, Book 1) These two quotes have caught my attention today, in part because they seem to each speak of a different end of the

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Inspiration as Grace

The other essay in the Theological Aesthetics book I am reading that has especially moved me is by the liberation theologian Leonardo Boff from his book Liberating Grace: “The poet, the musician, and the writer feel overtaken by inspiration.  On the one hand, it is they who do the work. Their energy and their deepest selves are totally involved. The effort to express themselves often leads to complete exhaustion. On the other hand, they feel possessed by something that is above them, outside them, or within them. It drives them to create, compelling them to express their inner experience to

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Art in the Cracks of the Day

Driving Under the Influence of Poetry Scribbling on scraps of paper On the seat next to me As my car sails down The freeways. Words tumbling out Around that sharp turn. Poems dashed off at stop lights They will not wait for me To sit politely at a desk. Poems on the run. No speed limit for them. They race in my head As I keep one eye on the road. Few know of these dangers. So, watch out for the drivers With a pen in their hand And a poem in their heart. Beware! -Pamela McCauley Pamela is a

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