The Co-Creative Muse
Posted by Barry Hesperus on March 7, 2011 at 6:00pm
I find that the best kind of creative inspiration, in any field of endeavor,
comes from communing deeply with other life presences, in heartfelt,
open-minded, empathic attunement with them. The more deeply we invest our heart,
mind, and senses, in communion with other life presences, experiences, and
activities, in the world, the more does the co-creative heart core of our own
being become stirred, and reveal greater gifts of creative inspiration and
meaningful insight, as the source of great artistic expression, heart-full
living, and enhanced performance in any area of endeavor. When individual hearts
resonate in deeply invested attunement with each other, they energize each
other, like magnets, releasing the co-creative process of synergy, like
electricity flowing only when an electrical plug and socket, or positive and
negative electrical poles, are connected to one another.
However, as long
as the heart remains egocentrically, narcissistically, selfishly, self-absorbed,
or self-possessed, we will be able to make only rather shallow contact with
others, with only the superficial levels of our awareness. Without heartfelt
communion, the mind and senses, by themselves alone, can contact, understand,
and appreciate, only rather superficial aspects of reality, and provide only a
relatively shallow, mechanical, level of creative artistic functioning. That is
why I agree with what St. Exupery wrote, in his book, "The Little Prince", "It
is only with the eyes of the heart that one can see what is most essential in
life....Only the heart sees clearly, because what is essential is not visible to
the eyes". I might add, what is essential in life is also not available to the
analytical intellect, functioning independently of the deeper, relational,
insight of the heart, because the analytical mind tends to be self-absorbed in
its own thought, rather than making direct contact with other life presences,
experiences, and activities, in the world.
To make direct, deep,
empathic, contact with anyone or anything, and to tap into the relational source
of co-creative insight and inspiration, one must let go of precommitted mental
presumptions, preconceptions, and abstractions, which function like an opaque
filter, barrier, or distorting mechanism, keeping the mind self absorbed in its
own thought, and blocking direct contact and heartfelt empathic communion with
actual life experience in the world, which the philosopher Martin Buber
describes as the I-Thou relationship, in contrast to the I-It relationship. In
Biblical terms, this is the difference between experiencing reality as though
through a "poor reflection", or "a glass darkly" rather than "face to face" (I
Corinthians 13:12). Communing with the enduring living presence, or living
spirit, that the author of any creative work has invested in that creative
production can empathically reveal the meaningful intention and originating
inspirational experience of that author or producer. The reason why the highest
source level of creative insight, inspiration, and production, comes from
relational communion is because it is a relational reality nature, rather than a
solo, divisive, dualistic, or separate individualistic nature. Therefore,
introspective processes that produce greater self-involvement, and break off
heartfelt communion with others, cannot reveal and release the highest level of
creative functioning.
Caring human relationships can also facilitate
creative transformations of individual people and global society by enabling the
power of love to gradually transform individual hearts, and the collective
spiritual heart of humanity, from selfishness, fear, and brutality to unselfish
caring about others.