The gift of creativity

'We begin with what is and make something more of it. A piece of wood becomes a beautifully carved and useful piece of furniture. An old way of organizing activities or people or space yields to new innovations. Observations give birth to ideas; words become a poem; sounds ­­­­­become music, light, and color; pigment and canvas become a painting.’  

Oriah Mountain Dreamer  

One of our deepest callings as human beings is to embrace and nurture our own creativity. The tragedy is that many of us do not recognise or value the river of creativity that flows through us. From time to time, we may dip our toes into its waters, but we have not yet fully plumbed its depths. When we think about creativity, our minds almost always turn first to such traditional arts as painting, composing music or writing. In reality, however, there are a myriad of other creative mediums which are equally as important.

Some of us create with objects, materials, plants or other ingredients. Some of us create with instruments, noises and voices. Some of us create with cameras, computer code or digital tools. Some of us create with our own bodies. And then there are what also what Matthew Fox calls 'the personal arts’. When we offer others our hospitality, when we conceive and parent our children, when we teach, when we offer others our practical caring, when we take the time to be with and listen to those who are hurting or when we found a new community, we are being creative. And most importantly, when we are engaged in the process of bringing forth what is within us, we are being creative. Indeed, giving birth to who we are is the most profound act of creativity of which we are capable.

The truth is that creativity is a fundamental aspect of our essential nature. At the very core of our being, all of us are creators. We are all artists in the broadest sense of the word and we are always engaged in the process of creating in some way or other. Whenever we make something, whenever we bring something into being, whenever we give birth to something, whenever we enable something to grow, we are expressing our creative self. It does not matter whether we are gifted at what we do, whether the outcome of our creativity is judged to be ‘good’, either by ourselves or others. For it is our ongoing engagement in the process of creating that is important. 

In order to be able to access our creativity, we have to learn to tap into our capacity for imagination for this is the force that fuels all of our creativity. We are image-makers. Our minds produce a constant flow of images and symbols. They surface both when we are awake and when we dream. They inhabit our art, our architecture, our literature, our music. And yet paradoxically, we seem to be somewhat ambivalent about the importance and value of the imaginative process. Too often we disparage our imaginative capacity and do little to nurture its development. We criticise people for spending too much time daydreaming or for having their ‘head in the clouds’. We sometimes speak of those who have a fertile imagination in a way that feels dismissive or disapproving. And we often fail to focus sufficiently on developing our children’s capacity for imagination throughout their young lives.

I would argue that one of the most important things we should be nurturing in every child and adult is their imaginative capacity. For imagination does more than build castles in the air. It does more than generate fantasy worlds which allow us for a time to escape the reality of our existence. To imagine is to break through the boundaries of the known to seek the not yet known. It is to look beyond what is to what could be. It is to embrace new possibilities, to create new realities. Indeed it is through enhancing our imagination that we fuel our creativity, and it is through harnessing that creativity that we are enabled to transform not only ourselves, but also the world we live in.

The ultimate source of this creative energy is a mystery. Whatever its original source, however, it is, as Oriah Mountain Dreamer describes it, the 'soul-deep impulse’ in all of us to conceive of and make something new. Our creative energy arises in and flows through the soul. The more deeply connected we are with our innermost self, the more freely our creative energy seems to flow. We are able to draw more readily on the stream of images, symbols, fantasies and dreams which emerge from the depths of our being. And sometimes, as many of us will experience from time to time, the inspiration almost seems to come from outside ourselves.

To live soulfully is to come to recognise, own and honour our capacity for creativity. It is to deepen our awareness of the creative energy that flows through all of us and to learn to express it as freely and fully as we are able and in our own unique way.  As Matthew Fox puts it:

‘There is a river of creativity running through all things, all relationships, all beings, all corners and centers of this universe. We are here to join it, to get wet, to jump in, to ride these rapids, wild and sacred as they may be.'

Bibliography

Oriah Mountain Dreamer (2005) What We Ache For. HarperSanFrancisco Matthew Fox (1988) The Coming of the Cosmic Christ. Harper & Rowe

©Copyright Kaitlyn Steele 2026

Kaitlyn Steele

www.insearchofsoul.co.uk 

kaitlynsteele16@gmail.com