February 3, 2012
C is for creativity
(I wasn’t sure I would be able to squeeze out this Pagan Blog Project post. Because the songs just wouldn’t stop coming….)
Kemet is rife with creator Gods, and we, their children, are creators too. Our words take on life, the breath of our mouths as we speak or sing or laugh; our hands with their skill give form, color, and texture; our bodies are eloquent in movement, tracing the shapes of our emotions, our patterns of our relationship to the space around us. Even if we don’t necessarily consider ourselves “artists” or “talented” — we write, we draw, we do crafts, we sing alone in the car, we arrange our homes or our rooms or our shrines, we collect things and put them together in ways that speak to us, we weave magic and rituals, we build, code, problem-solve, design, embellish, and adorn. And so much more. In so many ways, we shape worlds, and we fill them with what’s in our hearts.
Writing is my own main form of creativity, although I also dabble in various others. Whatever form it takes, though, my creativity tends to be compulsive, cyclical, and all-consuming. I get swept up by what I’ve taken to calling “enthusiasms,” which feel very much like what I imagine the Celtic experience of “fire in the head” must be. (“Fire of the sun” in a Kemetic context, I suppose. Or maybe “fire of Sia.”) Once I’m struck, there’s no letting go until the energy has burned through me. And then it passes, and I don’t quite know what to do with myself until the next round begins.
Sometimes it can be exhausting. Especially when I’m working on a song and I end up singing a tune over and over and over waiting for the words to come — my voice gives out, my brain feels hot and raw, scraped by the repetition of half-finished lines, and I just want to whimper, “Please, God, make it stop!” But I don’t really want it to stop. Because then I would miss the extraordinary joy and triumph of accomplishment when the work is finally done and ready for me to let it go. That feeling never dims, never gets old. Each creation is unique in its process, its challenges, its significance. Each one shines with its own light.
The work is part of my service, too, to my Mother Bast and all the Gods. Whether it be songs or poetry, fiction or blog posts, plays or rituals, it’s one of the gifts that I have to offer. I always hope that some reader finds pleasure in it, or insight, or fellowship, or even a moment’s distraction. But even if no one ever read me at all, I think I would still have to dance with the words. For the sake of connecting with and telling the story of whatever it is that inspires me. For the sake of the worlds that want to be born.
A glowing ball of pulsating light
that fills up the space before the dark night,
the thing that shines on the world below
and on me and you, wherever we go.
— my first poem, written at age seven
All You Creator Gods, may You bless the work of our hands and hearts! Dua Netjer!