In the begin­ning God cre­ated the heav­ens and the earth.  Now the earth was form­less and empty, darkness was over the sur­face of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hov­er­ing over the waters.And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light.  God saw that the light was good,and he sep­a­rated the light from the dark­ness.  God called the light “day,” and the dark­ness he called “night.” And there was evening, and there was morn­ing — the first day.

We are cre­ative beings, no doubt. When we cre­ate, whether it be art, poetry, a new inven­tion or a home­cooked meal, we are par­tic­i­pat­ing in the cre­ative process of cre­ation itself. Kind of like what Carl Sagan said, “You are the uni­verse expe­ri­enc­ing itself.” 

Women are incred­i­bly cre­ative beings. We pro­cre­ate, we makes nests of our homes and sew quilts. We paint the kitchen and ago­nize over which wall­pa­per is just right for the din­ing room. We learn to sten­cil and cro­chet. We cre­ate scrap­books as mem­ory hold­ers for the fam­ily. We play music and sing lul­la­bies. Women cre­ate ways to make com­mu­nity and explore the bound­aries of friend­ship and heal­ing. Women are ever shift­ing with our art­ful expres­sions. Have you been to Etsy lately? Women have unlim­ited depths of cre­ative power.
For cre­ative power to flow, the artist must be unin­hib­ited, free from the harsh cen­sors within and with­out who tell her, “You have no busi­ness play­ing with paint.”  What is really being said here is, “You have noth­ing worth express­ing.” To shut down the artist is to shut down a part of the uni­verse, of God’s glo­ri­ous cre­ation, from emerg­ing from dark­ness to light. It is to quiet the voice of God with a scold.

There are many forces at work in a woman’s life to quench her artistry. She will face these drag­ons of doubt from the crib to the grave.  This is why we need one another. We need to enter the arena of self-​​doubt and help our sis­ters slay the mon­sters.  When fear keeps a woman uncre­ative it is like a poet who has lost her voice or  a blog­ger her blog.   But here’s the rub : when drag­ons come upon us to block our way, we must then not set­tle for defend­ing our space, but find new ways of cre­at­ing as we stare into those red glow­ing eyes that would kill us. Make the dragon a friend to the art. Slay the dragon with courage and dis­cover that under the roar is fear want­ing to be free. A slayed dragon is courage born.

Do not under­es­ti­mate the power of your cre­ativ­ity. What you make, what you cre­ate, is only pos­si­ble by You. No one else can make it like you. I can’t sew like Ari­anna, or paint like Deb­o­rah. I col­lage much dif­fer­ent than Kelli Rae and I sure as hell can’t cook like Paula, or dec­o­rate like Martha. But with the drag­ons befriended I can col­lage like Pam, I can write and blog in the unique voice that is mine alone, I can sto­ry­tell like no other. Art helps me recover my lost cre­ative soul. Art helps me recover my buried self. The artis­tic process is then an act of spir­i­tual heal­ing that rejoins the frac­tured soul with the uni­verse.  We are meant to Cre­ate the Uni­verse with God. 

So what about you? How are you express­ing the uni­verse through cre­ativ­ity? Feel free to add links to pho­tos, blog posts, etc… that show your cre­ativ­ity in action. Let’s inspire one another!