A Spell to Encourage Creative Expression

When I say “encourage,” I’m really thinking about the “courage” part.

Real, vital creativity, that comes from the heart, requires us to be brave.

This spell will help you identify and open up the unique channel to the universe

that ONLY you have, and ONLY you can nurture for the good of us all.

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Mentioned:

Martha Graham on creativity and the life of an artist: https://www.themarginalian.org/2015/10/02/martha-graham-creativity-divine-dissatisfaction/

timewitchery.com/planner, where you can get a Time Witchery anti-planner to help you access your creative channel

Make Magic:

With a little help from Martha Graham,

we’re going to remember that

each of us has a unique channel to a magical creative force,

and when we strengthen and nurture it,

we’re not just doing it for ourselves,

we’re doing it for everyone.

Transcript: A Spell to Encourage Creative Expression

Natalie Miller: Welcome to Mind Witchery. I’m your host, Natalie Miller, and I’m so glad you’re here.

Hello, my love. I'm so glad you're here. Today's episode, I'm calling a spell for encouraging creative expression. And when I use the word "encourage," I really am thinking about the courage part. I'm thinking about the coming from the heart, the coming from bravery, and a sense of purpose, right, the core, the heart part.

And as I'm recording this, it is August 8th. It's 8/8 the Lion's Gate. If you are into that sort of thing, you're like, oh, makes sense. [laugh] But basically, we're right in the heart of Leo season, which is all about heart. So encouraging creative expression to me means allowing creative expression to come from a heart-centered place, and to come through with vitality, with life force, yeah?

I'm not sure why this is up for me right now. I have just been thinking about it a lot and, you know, I try to practice what I preach, so if I am thinking about it a lot, I'm thinking, well, I guess I'm meant to pull this through. So that's the first piece of encouraging creative expression for me. It's this idea that really more than anything, when we are expressing, we are channeling. We are pulling through.

So I am in full agreement with choreographer Martha Graham in this. Oh my gosh, if you are a Mind Witchery fan, you have definitely heard me mention this particular quotation from Martha Graham. But it is central to my being, so I'm going to [laugh] mention it again.

So Martha Graham was an American choreographer. She was innovative, she was cutting edge, extraordinary. And this is what she said. She said, "There is a vitality, a life force, an energy, a quickening that is translated through you into action. And because there is only one of you in all of time, this expression is unique. And if you block it, it will never exist through any other medium, and it will be lost. The world will not have it."

I'm going to pause right there. I'll continue the quotation in a moment. I believe this. I believe that each of us is here in our individuality. We each have our own unique way of seeing things, of understanding things. We each have our own channel, our own frequency, right? If you think about it like a radio station, maybe, when you're turning the dial, it's like each of us have our own by which and through which we both, I think, understand and express the truths of this life.

Like, we all have different backgrounds. We all have different formative experiences. For each of us, there are different things that catch our eyes, our ears. Our spidey senses pick up on different aspects of this world. Like, each of us is here to pull life force through in a unique way.

And I believe when we look at the most resonant artists of our day, they are the ones who own their unique channels. Like Tina Turner, she dialed into her particular frequency. Or Greta Gerwig dialed into her particular frequency. Barack Obama dialed into his particular frequency. These are people who have found their channel, and have allowed the life force, the vitality, the quickening to move through, and this to the benefit of all of us. Yeah?

It's interesting. I coach a lot of coaches, and I coach a lot of entrepreneurs, and something that people will say sometimes, it's like, well, I mean, but there's so many coaches already out there. Ugh. But so many people already have podcasts. But there are so many people writing newsletters. Like, do I really need to add my newsletter to the pile of newsletters?

And this worry, this concern, I think, always comes from a place of forgetting that there is only one of you in all of time. Yeah? Imagine if novelists said, "You know, there's enough novels," or if pop song writers said, "Hmm, there are enough songs of the summer, there are enough pop songs," or if directors and producers said, "You know, there's already just so many movies or TV shows."

Oh my god, like, what a nightmare. What a nightmare to think that there could be a world where creators say, "Hmm, you know what, it feels done." Like, what would life be like with no more novels or songs or movies coming? I don't want to live in that world. In fact, I want to create a world that has even more creative expression, that has even more voices and perspectives for us to understand and resonate with because, I believe, each of these expressions is actually communicating something of the wholeness of us. Yeah?

So I love to think of the self as this multifaceted jewel. It's got all these different parts. Each of us are multiplex. And I also love to think of the whole of humanity like that also, right, this glittering jewel. So many different sides, different parts, different aspects. We thrive. We shine. We catch the light when more of these sides are clearly available. That's what I say.

So there is only one of you in all of time, so your channel, your expression is unique. If you block it, it will never exist through any other medium, and it will be lost. The world will not have it.

What I love about this idea most [laugh] is that it turns out it's not actually about you, and this has been so enormously helpful to me. You know what? It's not about me. When I write or when I record or when I coach or when I create experiences for people, it's not about me. It's not about proving anything about myself. It is not about reaching my potential. It is not about me really at all.

Even as I do get pleasure—I don't know. Pleasure is not really the right word, and satisfaction isn't the word either. But it does for me feel good to create, sometimes. But it's not even about that. Like, what it is about is my channel. It is about making sure that I am broadcasting through my channel, that I am pulling the energy through.

And I think this is so counter to, like, the broader cultural logic, which has prizes, and bestseller lists, and has top 10 charts, and Oscars, and Emmys, and Tonys. Right? Like, our kind of cultural setup looks to make an artist's expression about them. And I don't think that's completely bad or wrong. I just think that when we are trying to express creatively in order to achieve something, we are missing the point.

If I'm trying really hard to write a hit song or a bestselling novel, or I'm trying to create an offer that sells like hotcakes [laugh], if my intention is to achieve something for myself, I've now become focused on me, my ego, rather than focused on the vitality, the life force, the quickening that is wanting to move through me in some sort of way.

I hope that I am articulating this distinction clearly here. Maybe it will help if I continue with the Martha Graham quote, because I think this sort of expresses—well, here you go, this is Martha Graham expressing through her channel what I'm trying to express.

Right after she says "the world will not have it," right, she says, "It is not your business to determine how good it is nor how valuable nor how it compares with other expressions. It is your business to keep it yours, clearly and directly, to keep the channel open. You do not even have to believe in yourself or your work. You have to keep yourself open and aware to the urges that motivate you. Keep the channel open."

So, to me, here Martha Graham is saying this is not about winning or proving anything. This is about responding to your creative impulse. So if you want to podcast, pull it through, not thinking about how many other podcasts are out there or how you don't have any experience podcasting, whatever. If you want to, if it's calling you, pull it through. If you want to write, pull it through. If you want to speak, pull it through. Open the channel.

So, interestingly, in the spring this year, my attention kept getting drawn to Van Gogh. Like, an exhibit of his work would come through, or I would read an article about him, or even once—I mean [laugh], this is how amazing it got—even once I was at a random coffee shop in a tiny town in the mountains in Western Maryland, and what is the little book propped up next to the coffee table I'm sitting at? It's a book of Van Gogh paintings, really.

So I took from that, again and again and again, a reminder of an artist whose expressions have such vitality, such life force, a person who did not achieve a claim in his lifetime, and/but was fully open to the vitality, the life force, the energy, the quickening. I mean, in fact, he was so open to it that it ravaged him. Yeah?

So that actually brings me to a third point about creative expression. So let me review the first two. You know my teacher self loves to do a little recap. [laugh]

So for encouraging creative expression, number one, think of it as you having a channel through which you pull life force. That's actually what creative expression is. It's not pulling something up and out of you; it's pulling something through you, right?

And then, number two, holding the paradox that even as there is only one of you in all of time, this is actually not about you. It's not about proving anything or achieving anything. It's about the channel. It's about the life force. It's about your particular frequency. But it's not about your worthiness.

OK. Now, number three, I do think it is important to fortify and strengthen our channel, our creative channel, so that we aren't ravaged by it, right. And so how do we fortify our channel? Well, it's going to be different for everyone because each of us is different. But I would begin by saying, think about your layers. [laugh] So think about having your embodied layer, your emotional layer, your intellectual layer, your spiritual layer. These different aspects of yourself, each of them benefits from your fortifying efforts, yeah?

So I'll just explain for me because I know me. Here's what fortifies my channels. For my body, I need sleep, like, good, deep, plentiful sleep. I need movement. I need to move my body, and I really benefit from my body being in an unfamiliar place. I love travel. I love to be in new and different places. And when my body is immersed in an environment with which I am unfamiliar, my creative channel opens so wide, it's wonderful. So that's on the body layer.

On the emotional layer, I purposefully cultivate the ability to feel my feelings. I do this through therapy. I do this through journaling. I do this by listening to music that evokes emotions, reading fiction that evokes emotions. It's like I have my own little emotional workout regimen. [laugh]

On the intellectual layer, I fortify with ideas, with philosophies, with perspectives. So it's no accident that I'm sharing with you this Martha Graham quote. This Martha Graham quote is like the best vitamin for me, intellectually. I love to read Elizabeth Gilbert's Big Magic. I do love that book. I love to read writers who talk about their craft, like Zadie Smith. I love to read what she writes about writing.

And then spiritually, I fortify with solitude. I find that I need plentiful alone time also, time where I get to be with—hmm, it's myself but, more than that, it's time where I get to be with life, where I get to be with my experience and my environment. I am a person who is very, very sensitive to other people. I'm very sensitive to other people's energy. I'm deeply intuitive, and I pick up on all kinds of signals, and I'm grateful for that. Listen, I make my living doing that. And at the same time, if I want to tune into my own channel, I benefit greatly from being by myself.

Now, what I do in that alone time, it's varied a lot over time. Once upon a time, I practiced yoga, and I chanted a lot. In other eras, I played music. So playing piano or marimba was the way I experienced aliveness in a more intense way.

These days, it's walking in the woods in the early morning on my own, no headphones, just being as I walk. Oh, and listening to hypnotic tracks, that is another way that I experience this sort of inspirited, this inspired version of myself. I think I think of the spiritual as the place where I'm more porous, infused with spirit, so I do that.

And, oh, I will say that I try also to integrate lots of these different elements into a morning ritual, and my morning ritual is not at all set in stone. And at the same time, I endeavor in the mornings to fortify each of these parts of myself, or at least most of these parts of myself. In fact, I mean, that's really why I created Time Witchery [laugh], because Time Witchery, my little anti-planner for me is a grounding resource where I think about myself in these various ways, and I make sure that my day is beginning with and including a lot of fortification of my channel.

OK. So this is your spell, [laugh] almost a potion really, for encouraging creative expression, this idea that there's only one of you in all of time, and also that this isn't really about you, and also that your channel, your unique channel, benefits greatly from fortification.

I hope so much, so deeply that this episode helps you to respond to whatever urge, whatever nudge, whatever idea keeps calling your attention. I hope that you do that, not just for you but for all of us, because what it is that you have to show or to say is essential to the collective. I know it in my bones.

All right, my love, as always, thank you so much for listening, and bye for now.

Thank you for listening to this episode of Mind Witchery. To catch all the magic I’m offering, please subscribe to the show, or if you want a little bit of weekly witchiness in your inbox, sign up for my Sunday Letter at mindwitchery.com. If today’s episode made you think of a friend or loved one, your sister, your neighbor, please tell them about it. We need more magic-makers in this troubled world.

Like all good things, this podcast is co-created by stellar people. Our music is by fabulous DJ, artist, and producer, Shammy Dee. Our gorgeous art is by the sorcerers at New Moon Creative. Mind Witchery is produced in conjunction with Particulate Media, K.O. Myers, executive producer. And I am Natalie Miller. Till next time.

End of recording