Creative Cycle

Last Sunday I gave a sermon at my congregation on the Creative Cycle and how it relates to life on the whole and not just about creating art. I thought I'd include it here in three parts, It was well recieved on Sunday and even got an unauthorized applause! It was nice to speak on something that so many people responded to, so here goes, Part 1

THE CREATIVE CYCLE

The creative cycle I’m going to share with you today began 25 years ago with an interest in the creative process while studying art and has evolved to a four step model which I’ve been working with for 12 years. This creative cycle is in my art, in Nature, as the four seasons, and in creating my life. I’m not talking about the craft of painting but rather how the creative process applies to me in my thinking and doing. I will talk about getting stuck on the creative cycle and what that is like, and some helpful hints on keeping the flow moving.

The main thing to be achieved in the creative cycle is balance and flow, the ability to move through the 4 aspects without getting stuck, and to stay long enough in each one to learn what the lesson is to be learned. Balance and Flow.


The first Aspect of the Creative Cycle is Inspiration

In Nature, Winter snows melt and water flows in abundance and Spring bursts forth upon us in blossoms of magnificent color.
In my Art, I paint landscapes and it starts with the Ah-ha, the point of inspiration, an emotion or excitement. I love this part: trying to convey something greater than what can be seen with our eyes, … this is the joy of painting for me…. It usually lies in the play of light and shadow, or the sound of water, or the rhythms of warm and cool color.

And Life is like this too: there are moments of unexpected inspiration and “ah-has” of an idea that becomes clear, a truth not realized before, or something that needs to be done, a simple change.
It’s all inspiration.

Being stuck in Inspiration, is not being able to move forward into choices. It’s inspiration after inspiration without the commitment to the dream, an exciting place of continual entertainment without personal connection and commitment. Ideas of things outside myself rather than the deeper dream of who am I and what is my purpose, my dream. Inspiration is a gift that needs to be nurtured, pay attention and allow it to grow. Renew your commitment to Life and your Life. It is personal commitment to the vision that propels us forward into the second Aspect: Assimilation and choices.

In Nature Spring moves into the abundance and growth of the long days of Summer’s sun.

In Art I was taught, “that the clearer the image is from the beginning the better the result.” Now this is not a painting lecture. The point is the importance of clarity of vision, as the inspiration unfolds. This is important, the clearer the image is from the beginning the better the result, because deeper is the commitment.

I want to go into this more: How to develop clarity. It is so important in the creative cycle. First, energy is all around us. Even color does not exist out there, only light. On the subatomic level it is more empty space and energy than it is substance. Second, thought is a pattern of energy. Third, energy cannot be destroyed, but it can be transformed. So, through visualization, by putting the thought into emotions and senses of sight, sound, touch, and even smell we transform that pattern of energy into something larger and more physical…. Our living bodies become generators of this energy pattern, so the greater physical universe begins to align its energy field around us in the same frequency and pattern. Some people call this the Law of Attraction. By changing thoughts into sensations I am more apt to recognize opportunity that may already exist. Reality changes with the way I think.
In Life this is how it works: Once, I was focusing on how to experience more joy in my life, and imagining what it felt like to laugh, and right away Nancy speaks up and says something that just made me smile. Later at lunch, she suggested having a chocolate milk shake, which I definitely agreed to treat myself. After all, it is chocolate. And she asks, is that not adding more joy to your life?

I cannot hide my thoughts and my emotions; they are continuously evidenced in my life, without question. They are the conscious and unconscious forces that drive me forward in my life…. But I can be responsible for my choices and how I choose to think I can change my thinking habits that keep me stuck in my reality.