The creative process and creativity as spiritual practice

NOTE FROM THE EDITORS

It has always been a radical act to share stories during dark times. They are regenerative spaces of creation and renewal. As we experience the desecration of our lands and waters, the extinguishing of species, and a loss of sacred connection to the earth, we look to emerging stories. In them we find the timeless connections between ecology, culture, and spirituality.

Launched in 2018, Emergence Magazine is an award-winning magazine and creative production studio that explores the threads connecting ecology, culture, and spirituality. Our work gathers voices—both human and more-than-human—with the potential to shift ways of thinking and being in relationship to the living world. Widening the frame of what a magazine can be, we offer storytelling and art across traditional and emerging mediums, from the dynamic and digital to the physical and intimate. Bearing witness to the change, loss, and possibility of our time, Emergence Magazine illuminates the ways in which humans are continuous with—and wholly dependent on—the living Earth.

Emergence Magazine

I love the following QuakerSpeak video where Linda Seger describes the same process I use when I sit in front of my computer each morning to discern what the Spirit is telling me to write that day. What story to write.

In this QuakerSpeak video, Quakerism, Creativity, and the Artistic Process, Linda Seger tells us “In the beginning of Genesis, it says the Spirit of God hovered over the deep.” That pause before the act of creation began has become a source of inspiration for her. “I got to thinking, that’s what Quakers do. We hover. We hover before we speak, and that’s what the artist can do… Before you go over to the easel, before you go to the computer, just sit there and hover for a minute.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tgKtF2a56Jw

In another QuakerSpeak video, Sterling Duns talks about his writing process. https://youtu.be/BgxO4OImpJw

Writing Poetry as a Spiritual Discipline

I feel like I’ve been writing hip hop verses or rapping for as long as I can remember, but I think when I got to college I really started to hone in on rapping and crafting my skills. I was an English major and poetry minor. I got my masters in poetry. Definitely having the opportunity to find my voice through poetry has influenced the hip hop that I do, and it’s been such a gift. It’s so cathartic for me – hip hop specifically – it’s this way that I use to speak my truth.

Guided by an Inner Truth

Quakers are constantly searching and re-defining what it means to really just embody Light and see that of God in everyone. You really are able to ask yourself some deep questions and be introspective and then from that introspection, I love the aspect of really dedicating yourself to social justice issues. That’s one of the things that really drew me to Quakerism. The spirituality, but also this action. You can’t just sit in the Meeting room and think about things, and then once you get out of there, you know, “my job’s done for the day.”

The Hero’s Journey

I am trying to wake up to ways that my culture – including white supremacy and patriarchy – has shaped me, a white man born in the late 1950s. Growing up, I read comic books – Batman, Superman, Spiderman, Flash, the Green Lantern and more. I watched Gunsmoke on TV, in which Marshall Matt Dillon single-handedly dealt with the violence of the Old West.

They informed my understanding of a hero as a lone actor who rarely if ever asked for help.

…

These stories have a hallmark of white supremacy: Individualism.

In the end, it’s about one lone white guy (or white Hobbit) accomplishing a seemingly impossible task. In the three stories above, they save humanity.

Those stories have the hallmark of white supremacy: Individualism.

Rethinking the Hero’s Journey

The hero often doesn’t realize they need a challenge. Thus, they don’t know they must search for their own challenge. They need to be aware of friends and mentors who can shed some light and point them on a new path. This path has different challenges: more self awareness, self control, and compassion.

Who is a hero in this context? Someone who faces the truth, stays grounded, and doesn’t let himself get lost in either self criticism or defensiveness.

A hero takes risks, and has the integrity to admit mistakes.

I aspire to talk less and listen more.

A hero is humble.

Finding your power

The message of that blog post, the message I want to share with you, is we need to find where our particular talents connect with the justice work. This work is difficult enough to do without forcing yourself to do things you think you should do, but don’t excite you.

I was blessed to discover this early in my justice work, though it took some time to realize it. In my case, my passions are writing and photography.

• I learned how to work in a photographic darkroom while in high school, at Scattergood Friends School.
• At twenty years of age, I joined the Friends Volunteer Service Mission in inner-city Indianapolis, where I was led to work with kids. One of the things we did was ride our bicycles around the city, taking photos (35 mm film). Then we developed the negatives and printed the images in a bathroom darkroom.
  • Also, at the beginning of my adult life there (VSM) I immediately realized I had no interest in attending committee meetings, which is what much of justice work seems to be about. I’ve avoided those meetings ever since.
  • Recently, over fifty years later, two of those kids connected with me via social media. Photography was what they remembered.
• My photos were published in a book about the new addition to the Indianapolis Central Library. That happened because the library didn’t have funds to pay a photographer. I donated the hundreds of photos I took there.
• Other photos were published on an Indiana state government website to attract filmmakers to the city.
• Working with the Kheprw Institute, a black youth mentoring community, I was asked to give photography classes.
• I took and shared a lot of photos of public demonstrations related to the Keystone XL, Dakota Access, Coastal GasLink and carbon pipeline events over the years.
• I continued to take photos of similar events when I moved to Iowa. I was honored when my justice advocate friends began to ask me to come to their/our events in order to document them.

I found my power in photography. I urge you to focus on what your power is. You already have your power, but you might not be seeing it in this context. If you don’t love what you are doing, you aren’t using your power, and you should make a change.

Rethinking the Hero’s Journey