1. The Soul of Our Time

2. Energy, Creativity, and Imagination

My little mountain town showed up for democracy in a big way on Saturday and it felt great.

Having so much experience attending giant marches in big cities, I was tempted to trot down to the much larger community of Santa Fe to make sure I’d see a big turnout and feel the expansion of the resistance first-hand. I guess wanted to somehow guarantee I would feel…I don’t know…an energetic bigness of some sort.

But I needn’t have worried. Taos is already more than meeting the criterion of 3.5% of its population demonstrating—so I’ve assigned us an A+ on that score. And by staying close to home, I was immersed in a feeling of joyful community that the more anonymous big city protesting I used to do never quite provided me.

It was palpable how that sense of community nourished everyone who was there—fortifying all our spirits after a horrific news week. We humans are fed by collective agreement and shared values—both for good and for ill. And Saturday was a great reminder for me about how it feels when it’s for good.

I also love how standing together in protest helps create an energetic momentum that extends to the apolitical or less engaged in our communities as well—because that’s simply how energy works. And when protests are organized nationwide like they were this past weekend, this positive energy literally reverberated across the entire country.

We aren’t taught to attune to that, but it is there nonetheless.

Energetic Imaginations

As an artist and a creative, perhaps what I loved most about five million people turning out to protest this past weekend is how it positively impacted our five million imaginations—and, therefore, the imaginations of others in our lives who can’t help but feel the shift in our own buoyed perceptions.

Because like our feelings, our imaginations are powerful energetic vehicles as well—for both good and ill.

For instance, last week I felt quite rattled when the president deployed the National Guard and Marines to Los Angeles to suppress a supposed “immigrant insurrection.” That fearful feeling became amplified when I watched the footage of Senator Alex Padilla from California get thrown to ground and handcuffed by federal agents simply for attempting to engage with the Homeland Security Secretary—who brooks, apparently, no disagreement.

These fascistic actions started me imagining greater political violence, how these authoritarian excesses would metastasize, and the various ways this country might fracture. A LOT.

Basically, I let the administration’s efforts to build itself a police state hijack my imagination.

But the vibes at my local protest—and the two thousand other protests happening simultaneously nationwide—gave my imagination right back to me. My particular self was reminded that I am a part of something much bigger and that many others share my values and desire for a democratic, free, and inclusive future.

I could once again imagine more hopeful political possibilities because I was not alone and could feel the momentum of our resistance rising. I could once again imagine our collective ability to turn this ship around, to treat the planet herself as a holy place, to make mutual well-being the underlying starting assumption that informs every project, every venture, every creative solution for every knotty problem.

My anxiety about a dystopian future shifted instead to excitement about what is possible.

The Soul of Our Time

This weekend reminded me that community and imagination actually weave together energetically to create our collective path forward much more than we realize.

And that brought me back to that beautiful quote from Albert Camus I shared in a November post about becoming an Imagination Samurai.

In the immediate aftermath of WWII, Camus wrote

“. . . the earth remains our first and our last love. Our brothers are breathing under the same sky as we; justice is a living thing. Now is born that strange joy which helps one live and die… With this joy, through long struggle, we shall remake the soul of our time. . .

Remake the soul of our time. Swoon.

Poetic writing like that inspires and stirs the imagination into action.

Because, as I said in that earlier post, I believe that this is also our collective creative mission right now—to remake the soul of our time.

All billions of us.

I believe it’s our job, as the innately creative agents you and I both are, to embrace that epic mission statement as the “why” behind all our individual creativity action.

And sure, we don’t know exactly how we might do that. We certainly won’t all agree on what that might look like or know how long it will take—Years? Generations?

But really, it’s not our place to determine any of that.

As Martha Graham famously 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 be lost. The world will not have it. 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 open and aware directly to the urges that motivate you. Keep the channel open.”

When Graham says, “Keep the channel open” in order to make your unique contribution to the world, she’s really saying that it’s your creative duty (yes, duty) to connect your unique expression to the source of all expression.

Because creativity is nothing less than the originating impulse of the universe itself and your personal creativity echoes and expresses that original impulse.

Whenever we reduce our creativity and art-making to being about individual expression alone, we accidentally cheapen it and make it smaller.

But really, it’s all much grander than that. When you create, you’re actually holding up your end of a precious partnership with life itself.

Placing our individual expressions and imaginal explorations into this bigger framework gives our unique creativity a sacred context, and therefore, a relevance beyond our particular personalities and lives. It reminds us that our natural creativity is always a pathway of connection—to others and to our own hearts.

And of course I’m not just talking about art-making here.

I’m also talking about cooking dinner, or rewiring an old car, or growing flowers, or making someone laugh. Expand your definition of creativity to include yourself and your interests and then test the waters to see how creative you can be.

The Romance

Personally, I love the idea of my life and creativity being a part of a massive multi-generational group project to evolve the human species. What’s more romantic than being a part of an epic heroic mission?

It’s both large and urgent, and that’s what makes it a noble task.

And if you’re wondering if you’re up to that task, I emphatically answer, “Yes. Yes, you are.”

Because it’s not up to just you or me to “fix” it. It’s up to all of us together to take this human experiment into the unknown. And as we step forward, we have to understand in our hearts that all that is required is a willingness to do our best.

That is all, and it’s enough.

Leave a Comment

Thoughts? Feelings? Did you go to a protest or see images in social media that affected you? Whatever it is, please leave a comment. I’d love to hear. Or throw me a heart—I like those too.

P.S.

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