what goes up must come down — homeostasis in the creative process

feed the muse week 2 | your relationship with rest

I have a confession to make. Sometimes, I absolutely positively s u c k at listening to my body. Especially when it’s telling me, “hey, lady, why do you forsake me? I need some rest over here!!!!” What can I say, it feels good to be full of bright, creative energy. I'm only human. I have my preferences, and lounging around “doing nothing” is not number one on the list. 

But alas. Having been through this cycle many times over, I did eventually learn to heed the call to power down for a bit. And actually, I had something else entirely planned for this week, but when the wave of utter exhaustion hit me, you know, the kind that goes deep into your bones, I thought I better honor the lesson being presented. The muse implored me, and when that happens, I know I better listen.. or else? She gets a bit resentful. How dare her channel disrespect the gift that is her presence? 

Okay.. okay. We get it. 

Now. The thing about “doing nothing,” as I'm sure you well know, is that it’s not “nothing” in the regular sense of the word.  This precious time — the time when we are not taking in or putting out new information — is when we are able to most effectively rest, digest, absorb, and integrate what we’ve been working with. It is when our unconscious mind can unwind tension, release old patterns, create new pathways for us to see and feel the power we’ve been cultivating through our creative work. Makes sense, right? It is easier for the unconscious, which is dense with richly pigmented information, to unwind and surface when we are not engaged with what is already conscious. It is easier for the pigments to flow when we aren’t holding so much tension in our body/mind/spirit integrated power network. It is easier to bring what’s new into being when we are not working to direct our attention in a particular direction, but rather, allowing our consciousness to take new shapes. Phewwwew. So nothing is actually very something. Rest is actually deep, often undiscernible movement. Even in the stillest moments, movement is happening. Fancy that. 

One of the most wonderful experiences of the creative process, in my opinion, is the feeling of total immersion in the moment. When you’re bursting with creative energy, when the movement is so obvious, the feeling of it so present, it’s a high like no other. 

But what about the middle, the comedown, the bottom?

I had a lovely exchange recently about the idea of order in the creative process. My friend Wes said, “creativity is, by its very nature, altering the status quo and needs to bust shit up. Everybody has their own method, especially if it works and if it doesn't, we keep trying new shit.” 

“Order” in the creative process seems to come from the innate balance of chaos AND order. destruction AND building. highs AND lows. Waves upon waves upon waves. We are always working with a spectrum through our creative processes. But often we avoid one end or the other. When we allow ourselves to work through the whole spectrum consciously — the light to the dark, the high to the low — things can really start moving. 

It made me think, what if we viewed the movement of creative energy itself, as we understand of all nature, as an organism's natural process of continually leaving and returning to homeostasis. And what if  we can become more consciously attuned to this process with a practice of listening to our bodies?

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