What is a Creative Practice?
Muse Messages Newsletter
by Catherine White-Gardner
What is a Creative Practice?
A creative practice is how you intentionally approach your work, goals, or ideas.
For now, this reference is for those whose passion, calling, or cause, is supported by a body of work, or development of a goal. Many times, a creative practice of small daily steps accumulate into big results.
Many people have other names for it. Practitioners of healing arts as well as artists, craftsmen, scholars, philosophers, world leaders, and spiritual leaders (the list goes on) have their practice.
Here are some alternate names heard along the road of my travels,
Act of Beauty
Daily Practice
Being the noun, not just a verb
Creative Mindfulness
Creative Life
Artistic Work
Inner Journey
Paying Attention
Routine
Think, Explore, Repeat
Small Steps
Life Work
Ritual
It takes on various forms like journaling, observing, the first brush stroke on a canvas, taking the first few steps in a series for a choreographed dance, a group of notes that guide a new song.
The list goes on.
Many times, a creative practice begins without knowing the final outcome.
Without completely knowing the larger picture.
It’s the process of showing up and starting the act of creating on a regular basis.
Where it leads is where the miracle happens.
Or not, maybe it means to keep going knowing your subconscious will find it’s way.
It can become a dialogue with your self, a higher power, or around aspects of your project.
When speaking about Creative Practice, and the process it calls for, something came to mind that I know for sure. The act of choosing to live by tapping into the deeper mind is part of a Creative Practice.
A good place to start is
finding time alone.
This is not to say that life should be lived in solitude. There is still the importance of community and engagement with the world and others. With this, solitude is also a separate and designated part of the creative life. Solitude accompanies a creative practice with boundaries carved out for time and space.
Twyla Tharp refers to it as:
“Quietness without loneliness.”
“Note that this activity is the exact opposite of meditation. You are not trying to empty your mind, not trying to sit restfully, without conscious thoughts. You’re seeking thoughts from the (subconscious), and trying to tease them forward until you can latch onto them. An idea will sneak into your brain. Get engaged with that idea, play with it, push it around – you’ve acquired a goal to underpin this solitary activity. You’re not alone anymore; your goal, your idea, is your companion.”
This is what happens in Image Hypnotherapy as well.
It’s using your awareness of the deeper mind as a sort of butterfly net to catch hidden knowledge and ideas that guide creative prowess as well as inner guidance.
With a creative practice some find healing, personal growth, self actualization, courage, strength, or maybe even a bit of happiness. After the solitude of a creative practice, the artist may re-enter the world refreshed and rejuvenated knowing a simple message that entered consciousness.
Many readers of this newsletter already have a creative practice. And I acknowledge this is very basic discussion. It’s the beginning. Deeper complexities around the Creative Practice will come in future newsletters.
How do you define it for yourself?
Is there a specific time of day and a particular place that best lend themselves to your creative practice?
Do tell!
May the light of the Moon illuminate your life.
May the light of the Moon illuminate the wisdom within you.
And remember, if things don’t work out as expected,
there is information on the side we don’t see yet.
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