"Our lives are our mythic journeys"
- Terri Windling
For about the last four years, I have been experiencing my own creative awakening. It is extra intense because I had become as disconnected from my creativity as it's possible to be. I have changed a lot on the inside because of it. But not on the outside. Still waiting on that part.
Until four years ago, I had allowed life and my own thoughts to turn me into a miserable negative adult, so I did not like to try anything creative. It's too easy to come up with something that looks like garbage when attempting creativity, so I stayed away from that. I took low skill levels when trying new things as a sign that I was not meant to do creative things. I hadn't had an idea of my own in a long time. I was too busy focusing on what made me bitter to note the things that made me feel joyful. My most loved one is the most creative, visionary person I know, but of him and of my creative friends, I just thought: "they are just creative and I am not." Even though our dream for a long time had been to create our own cartoons, I didn't believe then that anything "that good" was possible for me to create. I thought creative ideas were something a certain few creative people came up with, and I thought that I was not one of those people.
Then a series of things happened to wake me up and to put me on the spiritual path. Most of these things involved job burnout, psychosomatic physical ailments, living like someone who has lost herself, and all the other results of despair and denial. These things were very hard on me and I realize now it was because my unconsciousness required a harsh wakeup call. Sorry to use the words wakeup call - I don't know a better word for it but I'll try to think of one. But a lot of positive things happened too to introduce me to a better path. One of the really positive things to help me awaken was stepping way out of my comfort zone, learning how to play World of Warcraft with my most loved one, and developing a healthy addiction for fantasy genre video games. Suddenly I was having a lot of fun, I wasn't obsessing as much about my job, and the extensive affirmation I received in the game for performing the smallest tasks was slowly healing my damaged soul.
The world of online gaming opened up to me the gorgeous world of video game art, fantasy art, and fan art. This led to other internet browsing that led to the discovery of mythic art, folk art, and primitive and mixed media art. I became inspired by the websites of artists and creative bloggers who gave encouragement and guidance to my hungry heart. Friends happened to mention authors like Lynn Grabhorn, Wayne Dyer, Martha Beck, Julia Cameron, and others to me as sources of new thinking that changed my life. I had forgotten but was starting to return to an old love for fairytales and high fantasy, which I know every single person has and some of us just lose at times. At the same time, I was being encouraged to take up drawing and cartooning again. This time, I had a whole new belief about "where Ideas come from" and I suspected that it wasn't me.
I started applying myself more seriously to drawing, thinking it could be fun and I might get a little better. I don't get better at things very fast, and this no longer discourages me because of this one thing: the less skill I have at an artistic practice like drawing or writing, the more immediately obvious it is when Something is sent through me to the page. I would usually draw or journal something that was enjoyable but not anything showing any level of mastery. Every so often, however, during a clumsy session on the pressure tablet or during hours of typing daydreams into the journal, something would "come through" that was so shockingly perfect it made me stop completely in awe. It might be a perfect little face at a level far above what I normally draw, just literally materializing through the pixels into life, or it might be the perfect cartoon gag at a level way above what I normally write, or it might be an elegant storyline that I know would not come from my conscious mind in a thousand years.
I was inspired by these wonderful little characters that were coming through somehow. I could see them and hear bits of their stories. I began meditation and visualization practices. For the first time, I wanted to explore where these ideas might have come from. I learned that I was exploring my own inner realm. The fairy tales and fantasy worlds that had inspired me to try art for art's sake had connected me to little faces and little stories and I wanted to know more about them. I realized that I had not been giving any energy to my inner self. That's not quite true. Really I never believed in my inner self so after I realized I had one, I then realized I had completely neglected Her.
I became intensely interested in studying mythic symbolism, divination, and shamanic journeying. I used to think that whole area was too overwhelming so I stayed far away from it most of my life. But I have learned that what I was once most turned off to often ends up being my greatest passion.
Exploring mythic stories and fairytale symbolism inspires me endlessly. Myths and folktales inspire me to explore my inner realm. And creating mythic and folk art is a practice that both keeps me connected to the inner realm and allows these elements expression into the material realm. Fairytale and spiritual symbolism, such as the tarot elements or the mythic archetypes, full of kings and queens and knights and towers, are the road maps to navigating our inner realm. The fairytale symbolism mirrors our inner realm, and that is why it both speaks to us as so familiar and also inspires us to explore within. In turn, when we explore our inner realm, and when we at last glimpse the Queen and her Knights and Pages, we bring these unique parts back through with us as Ideas to the outer realm, as creative expression in story or art or shared insights.
The little messenger archetypes, the little fairytale children, were the first to come through to me and that means they speak to me the most clearly and easily. These random perfect drawings have stories and wit and wisdom all their own, and they share pieces at a time with me and I love them. I follow them back where they came from and back out again, each time with a little more of their story revealed. All creative ideas, insights, and flashes come from a real place. It is a place full of you and for you and everything that lives there loves you more than you can imagine. Exploring mythic journeys and incorporating artistic practices into my life is connecting me to such joy in discovering the world of the Higher Self. When we have not had it for a while, self-love is a captivating theme, and I never tire of it. Mythic art inspiration and creation connects me to this. They connect me to the Beloved. This is my favorite thing to do.
But blogging is still pretty uncomfortable. Like I never meant this post to be in any way autobiographical - I was just going to talk about archetypes and ideas in a very general way. And like the Taoists tell us, and this is very true, anyone who claims to be awakened is not.
