“Finding My Deep Creativity” 3rd Place Winner ISE Essay Competition 2011

I used to think that finding my deep creativity was something that only someone else could tell me I had done. Unless I could trade it for money, fame, or power, I simply wouldn’t believe it had taken place. I just thought this was the way things went. And I was never asking for much. Just a bit of money, some fame, a little power.

For years I believed that finding creativity was like mining for oil. That you had to dig yourself down into a deep, dark hole, and that if you got far enough, and the sweat and the blood and the tears came heavily enough, then your well would come in. It didn’t matter that the rest of your life had become hideously lopsided. That you’d forgotten how to love. Art was a noble aspiration.

The fact that despite ones best efforts the entire world can still deeply and profoundly not give the slightest damn about your creativity was something of an epiphany for me. Taking a good, hard look at where it was flowing from I found the water stagnant, putrefying. I can remember that time so well. Looking around and having no idea what to do, where to go, how to be any different. I remember laughing one day and thinking that I’d made progress because I’d finally realized that I was totally and utterly lost. I actually rejoiced in the absolute certainty of the revelation that, yes, I was a blind man.

I stopped altogether that day. Realizing that I’d been going over my tracks for God knows how long, I stopped walking and just sat and made a pact with Him – that I wasn’t going to move until He told me to. I didn’t even know who I was talking to. I only knew that I didn’t know who I was or where I had to go, and that I could never pretend that I did again.

Life has a funny way of teaching us how to find our deepest creativity by grinding us down, tenderizing us. By showing us what it is to love. This was not lost on me. As I continued to sit I remember my mind ever so slowly beginning to soften, the noise beginning to fade. Industrial garage was initially replaced by Enya. Not exactly what I’d wanted, but it was a start. And so I went on sitting every day until one day POOF, something happened and like a pressure valve releasing a rank, foul air, the mist parted and I was able to look around beyond my art to my life … and survey the neglect. I couldn’t believe all the areas in need of my attention. For the first time I was truly beginning to see. All the cliches were coming true for me.

I began with myself, and for several months it was hard to conceive how cruel I had been for all those years. Forcing myself to work long hours, without any acknowledgment, or affection. Like a repentant slave owner who had used my entire life to serve the most degenerate of my desires, I began to forgive myself, reconnecting slowly at first, and gradually warming over time. We were soon conversing, sharing ideas, joshing. Like a dog I was overjoyed. I held no grudges. Now looking farther afield at the rest of my life and any other areas where I might have denied my creativity, I found people who deep down, and in spite of my behavior, I had loved the most.

It was around this time that my father’s business had begun to decline. His health had taken a turn that effected him in mysterious and troubling ways. He now counted his money anxiously. Recalculated checks over and over and over again. Watching him hand bills over a counter to pay for something I would catch him wince. The exchange had become a torture. Almost all at once he seemed to have lost his impossible buoyancy, his infectious humor, his joy.

One day, during a really bad month, I could tell he was winding up for a nose dive. I tried to ignore it as I had for so many years, but this time I couldn’t. Somehow I found myself there, for the first time, right there as part of the action, implicated by my very awareness of it. I had no idea what to do, but something deep within called me. At breakfast I told him that we were going on a vision quest. As he raised his head from his croissant he gave me a look as if responding to a small child who had just declared that he would now be going to the moon.

We set off to town and went straight to the bank. I told him to take out all the money in his account because it required him to have something he valued. He had 700 euros. I said we would split the cash and go to every store in town, one by one, and ask for change. But I only wanted single euro coins. A bag of gold. Old-school style.

“And when you hand over the money I want you to feel joyful, as if you’re saying goodbye to a friend you’re going to see again shortly. Not with the fear that comes from believing you are parting ways forever.”

He smiled and said he would do it. I watched him go into the first store, playing the role, yes, giving me that.

We did this for almost the entire day and collected over 7000 gold coins. We then drove out to a water hole not far from town with a small cliff overlooking a basin that local kids used to jump into for fun on weekends. As we parked and began to approach it I peeled off and climbed the slope that led to the jumping point. From fifteen meters above I asked if he had given himself to the practice and could now feel the joy and trust of letting go of the money like a friend he would see again soon. He said yes. But as I pressed him he began to grow nervous, wondering where this was all leading and glancing at the surface of the water. I held the bag of coins over the edge and asked him again. His face began to change and he raised his voice and told me not to be stupid, that he had done what I’d asked him, that I didn’t have to waste money just to make a point. “I got it!” he told me. I unzipped the bag and grabbed a large handful of coins… and tossed them into the water. He began shouting at me, threatening me, swearing. I shouted back asking if he trusted. He refused to answer and continued shouting at me to stop. But he couldn’t do anything. The slope that reached up to where I was standing required you to crawl through brush to reach it. He was too far away to do anything. I threw another large handful into the water and he flipped. We were screaming at each other by this time. The more he protested the more I threw. When he began stomping his feet a final shouting match began between us, him telling me to come down and me asking if he could trust in life again. By this time I had thrown in almost half the bag. Finally, and almost abruptly, he stopped, and did something that I’ll never forget. He looked up at me and suddenly started to laugh. I watched him stupidly for a moment. Then suddenly I began to laugh too. For an eternal moment we stared at each other in what honestly felt like a place beyond time and space. A moment that pierced through the deepest layers between us so that we were able to see each other for the first time in a completely new light. Looking up at me, still laughing he said “you’re really crazy!”

With tears in my eyes I nodded, “like father like son.”

He finally took a deep breath, nodded his head and waved me back. “Ok, I trust. Let’s do it.” I crawled down the slope, returned to his side and offered him the bag. He took it, made sure it was tightly closed and then threw it in. We stood by the waters edge and watched as it sunk out of sight.

When we got in the car, he gave a deep exhalation and began driving. At a stop light before the house I reached into my jacket and pulled out a bag identical to the one he had thrown in and placed it in his lap with a sigh of my own. He looked down, unzipped it and saw all the coins in tact. On my way up I’d switched the bag with another filled with pennies that I’d prepared in town. He smiled and chuckled to himself for a moment before continuing on through the small French backroads without a word. The sun was going down by then and the light was golden over the landscape.

Meditation taught me how to love. But as it emerged I found that it required the hand of creativity to shepherd it through the world. Once upon a time I would have never understood it, never imagined, not in my wildest dreams, how much healing could take place if I endlessly gave my creative heart to the moment.