Why Art? What’s it got to do with you? (everything!)

How often do you think about why you are here… why humans are here on the most creative planet imaginable – capable of generating life… and transforming it? It doesn’t get much more meaningful than that, right?! One of the ways humans become ‘expressers’ of that creative energy, help reveal it, is through art. And we have discovered two things: a) That art transforms – literally changes us – and b) That, in turn, we  – through art and creativity – can change life.

Now, the thing of it is, is do we realize it… do we realize that we are both alive, and creative? Adaptable and inventive? Innovative and Cosmological? Did I lose you on that last one? It sounds highbrow, yes, but it really just reminds us that we are not ordinary, nothing about this planet, or that which is on – or of – this planet, is ordinary. I mean, seriously, just look up at the sky, we have a moon!

When you have an idea, do you ever ask it where it’s from? Do you make it a guest in your psyche, your day, your pondering, your process? Do you drink tea together,  wine, or whiskey? Do you use the artistic impulse to take you to numinous space… to the place where the sacred profundity of life and it’s massive ability to create and transform make both of themselves available to you, to play with, to dance with, to merge with, to wrestle with, to generate with… to evolve with?

The creative impulse is generous and unbiased – it is also communicative. It is the Cosmos telling you something that only you will interpret and share with others the way you are best equipped to. There is nothing ordinary about life. There is nothing ordinary about you. And art is the bridge of many languages that takes us across the divide between the magical, the possible, the apparent, and the forgotten. I should add that, even if you do not identify as someone who ‘does’ or ‘makes’ art – in your aliveness you have an option, an option to be an interior artist, i.e. creative, curious, and open.

Because it took me a long time to realize I was an artist, I redefined it as someone who dances with reality, because I do – I ask questions all the time and drive people mad with examining things for other ways to think about them. That means you don’t have to pick up a paintbrush to be an artist, you don’t have to choreograph a dance or design buildings – you simply have to be willing and curious enough to dance with reality – that’s it! It’s not about the form, it’s about the way you let things in, let them affect you and how you then move through the world. No qualifications needed, just qualities; curiosity and courage – courage because when you let life in, it will change you in subtle and profound ways. In the words of Rollo May.

Courage is not a virtue or value among other personal values like love or fidelity. It is the foundations that underlies and gives reality to all other virtue and personal values.

Those changes, those unpredictable incremental changes within ourselves, become the nexus point of our unplannable future. And there is a certain possible teleology at play here – our future might be calling us to change our self-perception, to reignite our sense of passion for life, our sense of connection to life, in order to protect itself, to protect life and the future. It might need us to become artists, creative in the broadest and most profound sense.

So… how to access all this creativity? Well, what questions do you spend your time asking? Do they open you up or make you anxious? What sensations do you experience when you go for a walk? Do you feel closer to nature or unmoved by it? Do you feel closer to yourself? When did you last actually go for a walk among the wildflowers and just breathe their beauty in? What brings you alive? What moves you? Well… go there first.

If we can learn to use our imaginations, and reignite our feelings of aliveness, that is where the sovereignty of who we are becomes collective, constructive, and creative. It’s what gives our lives both meaning and value – it’s why we are here and it’s how we transform. So, let’s do it! We are alive now, and we can do something about what happens next – with every single choice we make. The paradigm is shifting as we discover who we really are. We are co-creating our future, and we have gifts. Our creativity is our aliveness, and our aliveness is our future. Thank you.

Clare Hedin is a multi-disciplinary artist of many years, a performer, a social healer and the developer of Dynamic Emergence. She resides in UK and San Francisco/Bay Area teaching, performing, recording and demonstrating how the arts help us to become better people and better citizens for our home, Planet Earth. [More]

*UPCOMING CLASSES IN CREATIVITY AS AN INTERNAL AND EXTERNAL TRANSFORMATIVE PRACTICE – UNDERSTANDING OUR CREATIVE EVOLUTION: Clare teaches us how to access numinous space, our imaginations and our deep creativity through Dynamic Emergence. Next course (6 weekly ONLINE sessions) July 10, 8pm BST.

*The Courage To Create (pg 13) Rollo May