Creativity as Healer for the Soul

Could it be something we need individually and collectively?

Prelude: Before we get to this issue’s focus, I must confess writing or even thinking about writing has been hard these past few weeks. The aftermath of the recent US elections and the implications for our lives going forward have caused me no shortage of consternation, concern, and contempt. Yet, something calls me forward: the spirit of creativity. Before diving into that subject, I'll refer readers to an essay I recently wrote, How I Plan to Navigate the Next Four Years. Click on the title if you are interested. I believe it explains a way forward, or at least, my way forward. Now onto this week’s column.

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Creativity is one of the most remarkable medicines during times of crisis.

Why do people delight in making a new recipe, designing a building, painting a landscape, or starting a new company or project?

The creative impulse is central to being human.

In a time of crisis, perhaps we need to turn to creativity.

Steven Pressfield describes The Artist's Journey as a parallel to the Hero/Heroine's Journey of time immemorial. The initial call is to create something, be it a painting, a new company, or even the decision to have children. The journey can be about any new act of creation.

Photographer and form Pastor Sean Tucker, describes this as a human impulse to resist the chaos and entropy of life by creating something new and injecting order into the universe. Whatever the motivation, we respond to a call to make. As we embark on the journey to write the novel, paint the portrait, or mold the clay into a beautiful vase, we inevitably encounter obstacles, challenges, and roadblocks. Unavoididly, many metaphorical sea monsters arise from the depths to derail our journey. These challenges tempt us to surrender. But keep in mind that these obstacles are signs of your progress. They wouldn't need to appear if you hadn't started this journey. "Embrace them as teachers rather than enemies," the Jungian Analyst Paul Sanderson once told me.

Along the journey, we experience an almost death-like moment. Why did I even begin this project? What a waste of time! This new venture is killing me? I wish I'd never started. But the call to create continues to be the voice in our heads and hearts. That new thing, work of art, or person still resonates inside, yearning to be born. Soon, there is a breakthrough. Maybe at that very moment, you are about to give up. Something changes; a companion comes with fresh eyes or a sense of humor, and suddenly, you hear the voice calling clearer than ever. You learn something new, finish your work of art, and deliver it to the world.

"Good art wounds as well as delights. It must be because our defenses against the truth are wound so tightly around us. But as art chips away at our defenses, it also opens us to healing potentialities that transcend intellectual games and ego-preserving strategies." Rollo May in My Quest for Beauty

As I approached retirement this past summer, I was captivated by the idea of resurrecting my photography practice. In 1975, I convinced my father to drive me to Frank's Highland Park Camera in nearby Pasadena, California, to purchase a 35mm Canon camera. For over 40 years, I've tact back and forth between professional and amateur photography. But in June, it had been 12 years since I made photographs consistently and with intentionality. I knew I wanted to return to my love of the game. One evening, an idea came to me for a Photo a Day project. In brief, I would capture an image and post one picture daily. In the end, I settled on a slightly less demanding schedule. Instead of Photo a Day 365 days a year, I dialed the expectation back to 350 days in a year, thus giving me room for an occasional day off. Afterall, even the original creation process had a sabbath.

Since June, I've posted a new photograph almost every day. As I write this column, there are 126 images in total. Some are unique and creative, others somewhat bland and uninteresting. The expectation of creating an image daily can be somewhat demanding, but it's forcing me to work on my craft and, most importantly, stay on the creative journey.

An apocryphal story told in the art education world reveals a worthwhile lesson. The tale involves a challenge in two different pottery classes to create the perfect vase. One teacher instructed her students to make the perfect vase. They would work on that single vase the whole semester with a singular goal of making it perfect. The other class took a different approach. Their instructor invited them to "make as many vases as possible daily. Just keep making vases every day, don't worry about making it perfect, keep making vases." The second class produced hundreds of clay vases of all manner of shapes and sizes. The fist class labored to make their one vase. At the end of the semester, both classes brought forth a single vase to present. It was the second group that produced a perfect vase.

The moral of the story could be “practice makes perfect.”

For me, the Photo a Day project, writing these Substack “Notebooks” essays, and regularly getting on a bicycle are all part of a creative process—a kind of everyday spirituality. We are creatures endowed by some mysterious source of creation with the call to create. Embracing the creative call is healing for the soul, and I believe, holds the potential for healing society.

Why do we need art?

David H. Rosen, author of Transforming Depression: Healing the Soul through Creativity, wrote about his work with patients. I read his words wondering if nurturing the creative might be healing for not only individuals in pain but also our collective societal anxiety, grief, and depression.

I worked with patients suffering from depression. I encouraged, supported, and cheered on their use of drawing, writing, and painting images, dreams, and concepts as a way to help bridge a healthy connection with an inner life, in what Ann Ulanov once called "a conversation with the Self/Soul."

Indeed, depression can take a creative form, shifting a person's attention from the mundane but potentially overwhelming activities of daily life toward a sense of meaning and purpose - a relation with the infinite." Esther Harding.

Albert Camus's Myth of Sisyphus, the moment, lets go and turns around to watch his rock roll. This is the creative moment when he can see all of hades, the moment when he is restored sufficiently to go on living. Albert Camus found in this moment, this image meaning in life – meaning that draws new vistas to draw the individual forth with energy to continue his or her life task.

One more thought before I let you go. Rick Rubin has produced some of the leading musicians of our time including Johnny Cash, LL Cool J and Aerosmith. That’s quite a range. The man looks like a cross between the guru Ram Daas and a lead guitarist for the band ZZ Top. He speaks and writes like one as well. A musician friend recommended his book, The Creative Act: A Way of Being. I thought I'd blast through it, but it's more of a devotional book, especially for those suspicious of traditional religious language—two quotes to send you on your way this week. It sits next to my bed and serves as my creative devotional each day. Two quotes for you.

"The ability to look deeply

Is the root of creativity.

To see past the ordinary and mundane

And get to what might otherwise be invisible."

This next one sets a theme for me; perhaps you'll find it helpful.

"We tend to think of the artist's work as the output.

The real work of the artist

is a way of being in the world."

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More to Come,

James Hazelwood is an author, photographer, and storyteller. He speaks, writes, and creates toward the healing of our world – one small creative act at a time. His website is www.jameshazelwood.net