Creativity is Contagious
In silver cursive, the show window of our local art supply store proclaims: Creativity takes Courage. After some thought, Yes. Creativity ventures where no one has ever gone before. A pseudopod of the cosmic amoeba, stretching out into the mystery which enfolds us. When it is true, this creativity, it brings out on display something that has been seeded and gestated within the self, safe and nourished, until it disdains the confinement and breaks forth into expression. Sometimes we lack the courage.
Courage is contagious.
Recently I read a book by an Australian climate scientist. She wrote of her qualifications, her education, the fire in her belly, and her position on a United Nations panel that is keeping track of global depredations caused by our ignorance and greed. Even if we stopped, right now, she wrote, all our activities that are destabilizing the global systems, it would be centuries before the Earth would be able the restore the balances that allow most species—including ours—to survive.
I skipped to near the end. I can handle only so much. I want only enough information to keep my tail feather smouldering. Near the end her trajectory blossomed and the smoulder of my tail feathers burst into celebratory fireworks. She sees creativity as offering our only hope. Creativity takes courage. Creativity feeds courage by it very expression. Creativity is contagious, feeding the contagion of the courage.
An artist friend I met on the street stood still long enough for me to try this idea out on him. “It's like a smile,” he responded. “Self- reciprocating. If I smile I feel better. If I feel better, I smile.” Creativity and courage. Like smiles, contagious and self-reciprocating.
Today we need courage. In order to sidestep despair. And denial. Panic. Shutdown. Rage. Because we are not helpless. The more we live into the solution, the creativity with which we each are uniquely endowed, there develop glimmers of hope. Joy, even. We are fully engaged in a great battle. A fierce joy. Unfurl the banners. Create and sing our songs. Sing clearly and with full-blood. BE with all the verve and clarity within us.
I had a friend who said she wasn't creative. Paints, pastels, clay, paper, yarn, thread, glitter, toys. Nothing sparked that life within her. So sad. Until we realized that she, as a preacher, crafts sermons of unsurpassed elegance and depth. Creative. Takes courage. It's contagious. Let's find the smoulder of our tailfeathers, let the discomfort fuel us on to what we uniquely can do, and to support and encourage others on our way. Creativity. Discover our own. Courage. Discover ours together. Be gloriously contagious. In both creativity and courage.
What Kind of Spark
By Susan Gerretson
What kind of spark are you going to ignite?
Is your spark going to be a quick - bang - flash kind of thing? Is it a brief torrid affair that blows up in your face, like a firecracker that you held too long?
Is your spark going to be a tiny flicker in the dark? Will it lead to a small ember like a glowing cigarette – a tiny nugget of truth that lingers until it slowly disappears?
Is your spark going to make a wildfire? Is it that one sole spark that leads to a raging inferno carried by the wind - taking no prisoners- totally unpredictable and scorching the earth like that ill-fated love affair that destroys families and lives - brilliant while it burns?
Is your spark going to be incendiary like a huge city block full-fledged conflagration- a real five-star alarm calling all to assist, while onlookers stare both dazed and excited? Is it virulent to the status quo or so powerful that it leads to a revolution?
Is your spark like that defiant candle in the dark? Is it the creativity that burns within you giving you the strength, perseverance, and courage to do what you feel driven to do as it gently guides you through the night?
Is your spark so gentle that it’s like the flickering of fireflies or is it like the glory of the aurora borealis? Is it sparking ideas with like-minded people, generating a greater creative energy and expanding far beyond ordinary expectations?
Is your spark harder to come by? Perhaps it’s started by friction, by a magnifying lens or maybe by flint? Was it long in the making? Hard won but doing the job? Was it carefully woven over the course of time? Was it worth the wait?
Is your spark living on? Are there gem-like hot embers remaining, leaving you with a warm glow, a radiant feeling of satisfaction, or a sense that everything is in its own time?
What kind of spark are you going to ignite?