Seven Steps to Untap Our Creativity

As we often say in these Meditations, tapping into creativity is especially important in times of crises such as ours. In Chapter 8 of Creativity: Where the Divine and the Human Meet, Matthew Fox offers an exercise in Deep Ecumenism, which is itself an act of creativity. He weaves, in fact, Taoist wisdom into his reflections on how to connect practically with the divine creativity.

The elegant spiritual tradition of Taoism — he writes — has honored the exquisite spirituality intrinsic to all nature for centuries. Fox makes it abundantly clear in this chapter that tapping into creativity means first and foremost connecting with creatures other than the human. Learning to study the Tao may be as simple and as at hand as bending down and picking up a handful of earth. At the root of all creativity, we find the ability to praise the Earth, with all its variety, generativity, and abundance. Thus, the Taoist masters say: If you want to follow Tao, first understand the perfection of heaven and earth.

After praising the earth, we also need to look at the sky and praise the sky. For Matthew, “Mother Earth” and “Father Sky” are two complementary archetypes, both very much alive and generative in the lives of pre-modern people. The Sky is busy creating: it is our origin, even more ancient than the Earth. We are made of atoms once created in stars, and the sky reminds us of our expansiveness and greatness. This is why Taoism teaches: The Sky is always greater than humanity.

Next, water must be praised. Water is itself a metaphor for the Tao, which is flowing, powerful, profound, unafraid, balanced, nourishing, still, and pure. Each of these adjectives for water is indeed worthy of meditation. Water teaches humility and strength at the same time.

At this point, and not earlier, we are ready to trust the human mind. I say that Westerners should be careful in praising their minds, because usually they end up praising their delusions. But for the Taoist masters, praising the mind means acknowledging that we are able to observe correctly how things are, if we stop our delusions and apply ourselves to simple observation. We only open our eyes and trust what we see.

This apparently innocent and simple attitude of praising the earth, the sky, the water, and the human mind — which is able to observe all these realities — is followed by learning to praise the rocks, the trees, and the animals. These are then the seven necessary steps to untap our creativity, in contrast to the modern understanding of art, which is all wrapped up into the human mind.

Taoists honor the immobile rocks just as well as the flowing waters. In meditation, we can be as rocks. We need to choose when to imitate the rocks and when to imitate the waters. Trees are obviously sacred to all traditional cultures. Taoism, in particular, teaches that a tree uses what comes its way to nurture itself. Also, humans can learn a lot from the behavior of different animals. For example, from the vigilance of the crane waiting for the fish or the extraordinary energy, force, and coordination of the tiger.

All of these seven steps are the simple yet difficult prelude to the flow of creativity in us humans. Simple because they do not require special learning. Difficult because there are many blocks in the human mind to the acquisition of such simplicity. And if the Taoist masters of old found out such blocks to be important, how much worse are we now, besieged as we are by all sorts of distractions and deluded by the dogmas of modernity? The universe and our bodies are mechanisms in the first place.

A close reading of Chapter 8 of Creativity shows that the four paths of Creation Spirituality are all predicated upon the correct attitude toward what we call “nature,” which is at the basis of Taoist teachings. The seven steps briefly described in this meditation could all be included in the first path, the Via Positiva. In the rest of the chapter, Matthew talks about how major aspects of human spirituality flow from these initial seven steps: Joy, Sorrow, the Playfulness of the Inner Child, and Studying as a Spiritual and Transformative Practice. Essentially, the four paths.

Banner Image: Nature teaches creativity: use imagination to see the Yin/Yang in the heron in water. Photo by Rolf Dietrich Brecher on Flickr.

Queries for Contemplation

How do you untap your own creativity? How helpful do you find the seven steps described in this meditation?

Related Readings by Matthew Fox

Creativity: Where the Divine and Human Meet

Original Blessing: A Primer in Creation Spirituality

Order of the Sacred Earth: An Intergenerational Vision of Love and Action

WHEE! We, wee All the Way Home: A Guide to Sensual Prophetic Spirituality

The A.W.E. Project: Reinventing Education, Reinventing the Human