Creativity, Concealment, Revelation & the Lonesome Creative Time.
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By Stefanie Honeder
Keep on dancing.
We dance together worldwide.
My biggest fear is to do all the work alone.
Does this mean that I fear dancing alone too?
Yes. For it is more fun to dance together on a dance floor.
To invite creativity in, we have to embrace that lonesome quiet and see it as a nourishing force of our practice. There is a creativity that keeps us and our projects evolving. From time to time we may feel alone in the process, but in taking one step at a time, we will be led to a new part of our path.
One movement is a dance into the next.
The symbolism of Shiva Nataraja, the ongoing dance in our life, includes the continual creativity in all fields of our lives. Shakti, the creative force, is flowing through us with the dancing Shiva.
Everything keeps changing throughout time and space, a symbol of the blissful dance of Shiva. Shakti also flows through our set-up concepts, plans, proposals and ideas that come up in our creative work.
Ananda Tandava, the dance of Shiva, refers to the cycles of creation, destruction and manifestation in this work.
On one foot, Shiva dances, and with one hand, reveals the parts we need for the next step. The other hand conceals, while the lifted foot rises, gesturing the graceful and inspiring moments that happen while we are dancing.
This dance is an allegory of five principal manifestations of our creative energy: creation/evolution, preservation/support, destruction/evolution, illusion and release/revelation/grace. These manifestations call us to question:
What is concealed in my creative practice right now?
What is revealed, what is destroyed, what is sustained?
What am I creating right now, tomorrow, this week…?
We catch an idea for a project and have that A-ha feeling in unexpected moments. But suddenly this feeling of the A-ha moment can be lost again. If it is truly of importance and will add to the project, it will find its way back.
Maybe a little different than before, but the broader concept will return.
These are the unexpected outcomes and surprises in our creative process.
We cannot plan completely a song, a painting, or a heart-art project from the start to the end. But we can honor the process, which can be learned through our Yoga practice.
The online course Writing your Practice, taught by Susanna Harwood Rubin, offers helpful connections between Yoga and writing, and in turn, our whole creative practice.
The essential mission behind our creative practice is to add one step and one part to the whole puzzle, rather than striving to know how all the tiny parts of our ideas add up in the end.
No matter what you want to bring to life, honor each step on the road. Writing one sentence a day will add up to a page. Stay a compassionate and patient parent of your creative babies. This is the art of having a creative practice.
One idea will connect to another, and suddenly you will find yourself having a new part of the path revealed to you. Keep practicing consistency, patience and self-trust as the importance of your creative work.
Your creative endeavors are important because they shift and transform our world while healing, transforming and inspiring others.
We need to reconfigure each part of our creative practice by staying committed to honor and allow reorganization as part of raising those creative babies. One is revealed, another is concealed. As one part falls away, a new one suddenly appears. It is unpredictable.
That is why it is called creativity.
Whatever is concealed in your ideas, concepts, projects or books, simply trust that the next important step will come. The creative forces will continue their dance and something new will be revealed in front of your mind’s eye.
We are not here to do the work alone.
Trust that just as spring arises, new ideas will surface. This is the natural cycle of all life. It is pretty likely that our creative practice will fall into new places and add up to something you could not have imagined before.
“You lose your grip — and then you fall into the masterpiece.” ~ Leonard Cohen, A Thousand Kisses Deep
When we joke about our creative work, in those times of doubt and feeling lost about the next step, trust that this is merely a moment of concealment. If you feel unseen or alone and concealed in your creative practice, do not give up. You are dancing it already.
Keep on dancing and others will join you in support.
The Ananda Tandava is the dance of our creative rebellion and one that we do not dance alone, as we need to meet the right people who support our unfolding projects.
No matter what we conceive, birth is easier if we take part together. We are connected through our endeavors and no creative dream or vision is excluded from the party.
We may dance alone or dance together. Just as we may choose to dance alone at home or with others at show.
But ultimately when we loosen our grips, we fall into the masterpieces.
Ursula Rucker, a spoken word artist, often concentrates on one single word over a period of years until messages unfold into a whole text. If a word touches her, she writes it down and allows the creative process to unfold.
After months or years, that one special word starts to reveal new words and she sees a whole text unravel. She then begins to write, even lose herself in the process, and then arrives.
During a Yoga training, fellow students and I were invited to share our fears. I shared my fear of returning home to do all the honey-work alone. Through the network created by Rebelle Society, I see that no one is dancing alone as we all do some kind of honey-work.
This creates a supportive community for the worldwide creative dancers to partake in. I see the unfolding of a new Yoga community that wholeheartedly embraces the creativity unraveling in all of us. The world needs the merging of these creative forces for new paths to be forged.
Trust that the concealed creativity will be revealed in time to support the creative projects we embark on.
We dance together.
Keep on dancing.
We dance together worldwide.
Om Namah Shivaya.
Gratitude:
Susanna Harwood Rubin for offering Writing Your Practice.
Sianna Sherman, Theodore Kyriakos, Dr. Ronald Alexander and Ashley Turner for setting up the Yoga Psychology Training. My hips are finally free now and I can root down my Shakti from my hips to all points of my feet.
To all founders and transformative honey-workers on and behind the scenes at Rebelle Society.
*****
Stefanie has moved from photography to writing since starting her Yoga practice. While being fascinated about the power of words and going on with her writing, she is teaching Yoga and committing her life to explore and study Yoga, creativity and art in all forms, so she can support others to grow and live their (creative) potential. She is based in Vienna meanwhile.
{Create Away}
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