Notes from the creative deep...

 You can listen to this post here.   It has been nearly a month since I pressed send on an email to my mailing list which nearly turned me inside out. Since then I think I have literally turned inside out, in the good kind of way.Let me explain.The email was a leap into the unknown and a simultaneously declaration of faith- in an idea.The leap was to finally and publicly fully commit to a hunch/ calling/ feeling that had been following me around.For a while the idea was a shadowy figure which tracked me like a fugitive. It followed me on walks, popping out from behind trees and from under the waves. It followed me into the shower, tugging at my heart as I was standing bare. It crept into my dreams and deposited it’s wrappers in signs and symbols which would later pop out from behind trees and from under the waves. Yes, it was one of those ideas which was more than an idea; it was a feeling. It was more than a feeling, it was a gut feeling, which is a demanding thing in that it comes from a place deeper than our heart and inhabits our whole self. You could call it a soul thing.When our ideas are our soul things, then not listen to them is to give part of ourselves over to a death. I knew that if I didn’t do something, even a small thing, about this calling then something in me would die. I also had a sense that the thing that would die would be intrinsic to my sense of self: hope in myself, or trust in myself, or even belief in myself, and when those things go, it’s a dark place to find oneself. I had been there before and I didn't want to go there again. So, you see, I really had no choice, but to write, but to press send, but to walk out to the edge of the cliff and say, ‘I am here, listening, take me’.It has taken me, this soul thing, and it has been a beautiful, and wild, and soft, and difficult and demanding and luscious thing. So, this idea: to write a book. Yes, that is it. Words and blank pages. Something that has been going on for years and years. Who knew it could be so revelatory! I had written before, so why was this to be so different.As I write, I am learning: it wasn’t the book, it was the stories to be placed in the book. My stories.You see, part of the calling was to gather my own stories, the dark and the light, and to bring them into constellation with each other as my own rite of passage, in time for my 40th birthday next year. The writing was to be my ritual, my honouring of my own cycles and a way to move into the next phase of my life with intention and with hope. My stories.(But who are you to have your own stories? Who do you think you are? Do you think you are special, or something? And what do you even have to say…) That critical inner voice was quick on the scene, pushing harsh words into my ear. I turned my head. It shouted in my other ear.Then, one evening, a friend, one of those soul friends, looked my in the eyes and said: these are the stories we all need to hear Clare. Write’.Sometimes we need soul friends to speak to the place below our hearts, so that we can really hear.So, I wrote and wrote and stayed up late, and wrote, and woke up early, and cried, and wrote, and I am writing, and I am listening, and I am crying and I am writing, and I am laughing and I am dancing, and I am writing, and boy is it a precious and beautiful process, this writing.I’m not done yet. The stories are coming in fragments. I am letting them fall, one by one, some with a thud, some that need coaxing. I have yet to weave them. That comes later. First, the falling.As they come, I am learning a few things about the way it is happening too, which I am working to capture, to remember, to share. So here are a few thoughts on this work in progress: the book, and me in evolution in between.1.It feels something like this:This book is a tunnel. A dark one. But by virtue of it being a tunnel, I know that there is light at the end of it. This particular tunnel has a bend it in. I enter into the dark, not knowing when or where this bend is, but I trust that the light is around the other side.To enter, things need to squeeze a little. Some stories just don’t fit and will get left behind. Some things feel more intense. I take one step in front of the other. I enter.Right now, I’m somewhere in the bend, yet to come up for light. The dark has it’s secrets for me, and it’s silences. However it’s only now that that I am in there that I realise it is not the scary kind of dark after all (I have yet to meet bats, or even ghosts) but the womb-like dark- warm and fertile and feeling like a home I forgot I once belonged in. Step by step, word by word, story by story I make my way through, nudging the sides and making marks on the skin of pages. The black ink is my tunnel.2.Creativity and Wellbeing are wedded. There’s this myth: that to create is to loose your mind; to be a good artist is to give yourself over to the madness that is art.Some myths still linger because they feed a fear, and where there is fear, there is ground for exploitation. It’s in someone’s interest to keep the myth alive.I want to blast it with this: that deep creativity, the soul kind, may touch on dark places but doesn’t have to become it. To create is to be well. To be well means to be listening to intuition, to the body, to gut feelings, to the creative spirit which shows up in the shower and under the waves. It is not linear. It can not be measured in quantifiable, predictable patterns. It can not be sold in pills. Creativity is just intrinsic to our human-beingness. To create is to be fully alive. Creativity wedded to wellness is matrimonial bliss.3.When stuck, dance.Still stuck? Paint.Still? Then stay… write the rubbish until the dirt has a chance to reveal its gold.I pinned this note up to keep me writing even when I didn’t know what I was writing.Which brings me to…4.Our stories tend to settle like sediment. The ones we tend regularly (the stories we tell others about, or the stories in our heads with we use to define ourselves) are the ones we feed. Below them are many layers. Hidden stories. Forgotten stories. Silenced stories. We can pick the ones at the top, but to get to the bottom, we must be willing to write our way through the layers and layers until we hit the gold. Once we are there, the stories on the top tend to make more sense again. We are all many layers deep.5.To be silent is to surrender to the possibilities of the silence.To enter the silence we must make some choices. Turn up. Turn off the phone. Tell the internet to go away for a while. Create a parking zone in ours head where all the negative voices can hang out while we get on with the work. It takes conscious commitment to give ourselves the gift of silence. When we do, we will discover that the silence is an expansive place, leading outwards, beyond the boundaries we have placed upon it and into the place that has no name. Our creativity can take us there, if we let it.6.Your story = Your power.When I say yours, I mean it. When I say mine, I mean it too. These stories from the deep, I am realising, have the thread of humanity in them. What is hard for me, is hard for others too. What is challenging for me, others have faced also. What brings me joy is a bridge to another’s freedom. When we share from there, we have the power to weave a new story- for ourselves, for each other and for the world we want to live in. I write to figure out the stories I need to leave behind, the ones I need to heal and the gold ones to add to the cauldron of our emerging world.

More than ever I believe that our stories matter. Mine and yours.…

I’ll be adding to this list. Maybe changing it. Maybe not. It is all a work in progress.To keep in the loop with this process, be sure to sign up to my mailing list here.And if you are interested in supporting the writing process by becoming a patron, you can find out more and make a one off or monthly donation here.Thank you.Until soon,Onwards and with love…Clare. xx....