The Fires of Creation

Greetings all,

It's the first weekend in October and that means one thing for me every year. The St. James art fair has been something I've been going to ever since I was a teenager.  I've gone when it has been raining (like today), when it has been over a hundred degrees and people were melting in their booths, and I've been when snow flurries have been coming down.  I walked the whole thing when I was half dead one year.  It is something I don't miss.  I look forward to it every year.  It is held in an old part of town with victorian style homes and little city gardens.  Tall oaks shade the city blocks in the area and gas lamps light the sidewalks at night.

This time of the year the leaves can just be at the edge of green or they can be in full fall splendor.  After a season of growth I start to turn inwards.  With all the creativity of hundreds of artists packed together in a few blocks, something magical happens.  Summer has a kind of magic, but mostly it is filled with activity and getting out and about.  The intensity of the sun can make it hard to focus on the mysteries.  Here at the edge of the waning year, there is a sense of magic in the air.  At the fair, I feel that if I stepped around the corner at the right time I'd find myself in another world cross wise to our own.

People who know me personally are aware that I make art as well as do healing work.  It was something I came to late, almost by accident.  However, years ago on another fair day in October I met a most peculiar artist.  She made really interesting paintings done mostly in tones of blue (blue is my favorite color).  She immediately started talking to me when I came into her booth.  She told me all about her work and how she started making it after a near death experience.  All her paintings were recounting her journey into the beyond.  She had never been a painter before, but she had been told to paint what she saw.  When she looked at me she said, "You're an artist too."  I told her sorry but although I liked art I wasn't any good at it, but she persisted in her conviction that I was an artist.  I did end up buying a small print from her that I liked.  It was three or four years later that I took my first pottery class.  I ended up going back to school for a second degree in art.  Now people know me as either an artist or a wizard.  I'm happy with either title they're almost the same thing in my head.  I never saw that painter again after first year she never came back to the fair, but I still remember that spark of magic that passed between us.

I mention all of this because today as I was walking amongst the different booths someone started asking me questions about some of the work.  They assumed I was the artist.  Apparently there is something that I radiate that makes people think artist.  One of the artists I'm friends with told me I practically ooze creativity. I haven't really felt like much of an artist lately. I've hardly done anything visual in months.  I've been too busy working and writing.  However I've decided to take a break from editing my book for its print version and delve back into the visual arts.  The spirit of creativity and magic go hand in hand.  Imagination, visions, dreams, and shaping are all ingredients in both media.

"Blah blah blah Mooneagle self aggrandizement," I'm sure you're thinking.  There is a point that is relevant to you I promise.  You see creativity is something that we are taught out of in our culture.  We are all creative and then at some point most of us stop expressing ourselves visually, musically, or theatrically (I mean real theatre not personal drama). As we get older, most of us are passive consumers of the so called "elite" creatives.  There isn't anything wrong with that.  I mean we're not all meant to be sculptors, but we are convinced we have no creativity or talent.  This is a problem.  If we go along with the principle that we create our life then we are not living up to our potential.  We need to flex our creative muscles to help us manifest and shape our lives.  You don't have to be a great painter, musician, actor, poet, or author to add to the beauty of your world.  You need to shape your vision of your life and the more you exercise your creativity the easier it will be to mold your life.  If you can't picture it then it will be a lot harder to bring it into being.  There is nothing as empowering as creating something.  The first time I realized I could bring something out of the picture in my head into this world it was an epiphany.  I felt powerful like I could create anything.

So how about you?  Do you deny your own creative impulses?  Are you a good cook and claim you aren't creative?  Do you tell great stories to your friends and coworkers and think you have no muse? Are you a gardener who brings forth many fruits and flowers? Is your home a haven of beauty and warmth, but you think of yourself as without talent?  Well STOP IT! You are a human being and that means you are inherently creative.  As we move into the colder months, start tending the hearth fires of creation within yourself and see what you bring forth.

Peace and Blessings,
Thomas Mooneagle