Creative Process

The utterly fabulous Caroline has posted here about how great moments of art (be it music, literature, whatever), can offer us glimpse of the divine. She writes:

"I harbour a bizarre image in my head where all the music, all the phrases, the melodies, the lyrics, the novels and the poems are actually floating around in the ether, already written and composed by God and the 'composers', 'musician's', 'lyricists' 'poets' gently run around with finely tuned butterfly nets and are gifted with ability to faithfully reproduce what they catch."

I know what she means about those songs, novels, poems, paintings etc that just seem to open up views of something 'other' to us.

I suppose my theory as to how the process happens is a bit different though, less butterfly nets and more about getting truly in touch with the part of "being in the image of the divine" that is about being a creator.

Just as when you are on the receiving end of love and compassion you can catch in those acts echoes of aspects of God, so it is for me with great moments of art. A reminder of the shared image, a reflecting bowl on a heavenly ancestor...

So I suppose the difference is that I tend to see the creative skill as being more contained in the artist, a characteristic that reflects our heritage; rather than the skill being that of a capturer of something external.

Hmmmm food for thought...