The Evolution of Creativity

Perhaps the evolution of creativity goes hand in hand with the evolution of consciousness? We are living in a time of waking consciousness, but also in a time of expanding creativity. It used to be that an apple pie had a simple crust on top. Now people are creating pie crusts that are a work of art! It seems most creative work has become more beautiful, more intricate and more detailed. Also, it seems people who never really considered themselves creative are finding their creative mojo!

I never achieved higher than a C+ in art class and didn’t consider myself overly creative. I’ve always enjoyed making things and thought I was ‘just crafty’. Over the last few years, however, I have moved from making various craft projects to being a working artist. I have self-published one book, and I have developed a style of painting that is vibrant, mystical, and emanates a certain spiritual voice.

I’ve also rediscovered crochet, which I loved to do when I was young, but now I experience this craft in a deeply creative way. I can never follow a pattern without changing it in some way, and mostly, I just come up with new ways of combining basic stitches to create something completely new.

I actually started this blog as a way to share all my creative ideas, because quite honestly, I have so many ideas, and I wanted some way to be able to bring all this creative energy forth in a way that had some purpose to it.

This intensity of creativity is not by accident, it has coincided with my dedication to spiritual practice. For years, my practice has released layer upon layer of negative self-impressions, limiting beliefs, negative thought patterns, and so forth. In doing so, I am more receptive to this creative energy that is in all of us.

I’ve come to realize that we are all creative souls. Each and every one of us has within, the seed of creativity—because we are the manifestation of Creation itself. Unfortunately, most people (even artists) don’t recognize this truth. I learned by chance that you can’t ‘try’ to be creative because that will only lead to frustration and bad art. What needs to happen is one has to become ‘receptive’ to the Creative Source. How do you do this? Well, it’s simple but not easy.

Connecting to your Creative Self is a spiritual quest. It is a practice of letting go of countless layers of delusions in the forms of negative beliefs, fears, emotional blocks, and conditioned patterns. The layers of delusion act as barriers between what you desire and what you are…Creation itself.

And here is the thing…Creation is always evolving, that is the fundamental purpose of Creation. If this were not true, then we would still be living as hunter-gathers, rather than in the technologically advanced society that we live in now. Some people may believe some of this technology has a negative impact on the planet and our society (like the invention of the internal combustion engine), but we have to see beyond that.

The planet is over four billion years old and humans have only been here for about two hundred thousand years. The first life on earth emerged billions of years ago as simple single-celled organisms. We have evolved from a single cell organism! That is truly amazing! Evolution is a creative process…it’s that simple.

So, how does this apply to our own creative work? Creativity invites us to learn new things, new techniques, and new ways of doing things, and as a result, we evolve and become better at whatever we are working on. This is especially true when we make mistakes. If we don’t give up, and choose instead to work through the mistake, we actually push our creative envelope by trying to find a solution. Problem-solving is one of the most creative processes ever!

Creating the poncho below is a good example of this. I was teaching myself how to do Irish Freeform crochet. I’d never done this before and I wasn’t following a pattern. I had an idea of what I wanted to make but didn’t really know what I was doing. The image below on the left was one side of the first ‘pattern’. I realized after the fact that it would be too big, so I had to figure out how to modify it.

I put everything under the bed for about a month and allowed myself to wait for possible solutions. I didn’t try to force it, I just waited. Various ideas flowed in and out of my awareness and then one day I realized I could fold the two outer sides into the center and create a smaller panel for the other side, as shown in the center image. It was tricky, and I wasn’t even sure if it would work, but I trusted the process. And as you can see in the last picture…it worked out beautifully!

This leads to an important point…creativity is not just doing artwork or making fun projects…creativity weaves itself through every single task we do each day. Everything from sorting the laundry to doing complex mathematical equations is a creative process!

So, if we can find ways to allow this innate creative energy to flow more easily without self-criticism and conditioned limiting beliefs, then we can find ourselves more in alignment with our True and Creative Selves! That my dear friends…is a huge blessing!

This is a big topic and I’ve only touched the surface, but I hoped it’s left you with something to ponder. I also hope it inspires you to explore your own creative nature and to rethink the possible benefits of making mistakes!

Create ♥ Nurture ♥ Heal ♥

Patricia Fentie

The Evolution of Creativity

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