Imagining the world whole

Is creativity tied to regenerative culture?

One word immediately springs to mind: Agency.

When we feel a sense of agency in our being, we inevitably make different choices, perhaps less reactive ones. More truthful and genuinely responding ones.

I decided to undertake a permaculture diploma a few years ago to use it to inform and develop a creative habit outwith traditional education frameworks.

Here are a few of my reflections on that process so far.

Growth happens where attention flows when we get a taste for making and creating we become more ourselves, and this also has an impact on other areas of our lives. It could be said to be the cornerstone of culture building.

Being creative, regenerative and reflective extinguishes the need for and tempers many other “pseudo-satisfiers”.

(Pseudo-satisfier: something that claims to satisfy a drive but does not)

Reclaiming our voice and inner authority and carving out our place in a world that encourages us to purchase, ignore or suppress our identity is a revolutionary and influential act.

As Hungarian Psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi explorer of the concept of the profoundly creative state of flow put it: “consuming culture is never as rewarding as producing it.”

American writer and researcher Brene Brown writes a lot about unexpressed creativity being tied to many toxic emotions and behaivours.

When we numb to our pain, we also numb to the suffering of those around us and feel apathetic.

Reclaiming our creative power can nourish us inwardly and therefore awaken us to the realities of our actions, thoughts and emotions enabling real change and choice.

The problems connected to unhealed and blocked creativity is also explored at length by Joanna Macy in the Work that Reconnects — reconnecting with our power and interconnection with the world and each other can be very painful but is the only way to live and experience existence and more considerable empathy sincerely.

Personally I have always drawn, painted, written and made art in one way or another, it is deeply nourishing on many levels. Building a creative practice, or anything worthwhile in fact, means being able to deeply immerse yourself in the work which then has an almost indescribable life of its own. This hasn't always been the case having grappled through the thickets of motherhood with an inability to take any consistent practice seriously for years I then started to start to let the stream trickle in surely and steadily. Even without the immediate place for it to land it nourishes the soil of my life in so many ways.

Here are a few observations about helpful attitudes to factoring in more creative practice to your life.

•Permaculture is about taking the long view, about the process, about the broader implications about culture building and the journey and the whys rather than a result-driven process that skims on the surface and does not allow for proper germination, meaning or transformation.

• The axiom: as above so below, is an apt mantra for personal practice, see it as encompassing a holistic way of being, a reminder to nourish the roots and remain with the more extensive process and live the questions as poet Rainer Maria Rilke put it. Explore from the senses and take many views.

Creativity in its purest sense is a spiritual, transcendent practice that is capable of more than just producing — for it can be an interface or bridge between the tangible and intangible, a birthing point between two worlds. This means that creating space, time and honouring the mystery of the creative energy or muse is paramount.

The cauldron as a metaphor is powerful. In Celtic lore the cauldron signifies the womb, the goddess and the underworld. — Making space and time and commiting to showing up creates a forcefield around what you are doing and allows for a deeper showing up and an unforced unfolding. ( all the unfo’s!!)

So try it if you aren’t already. Use the permaculture principle of small and slow. There are many ways to start and take a process driven approach to creative practice.

Ask yourself : What is creativity, to you ?

Is there something you are drawn to making and exploring but have told yourself its not for you ?

Could starting teach you more than stalling and turning away?

I would love to hear your experiences, make time for yourself and show up !