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Snapshots: Stages of the Creative Process: The Legacy
The creative process is, fundamentally, an organizing force.
The force produces patterns that underlie all physical and nonphysical
things. The creative process can be imagined as an invisible spider,
weaving an endless web throughout all creation. Carl
Jung envisioned our individual unconscious as born stocked with
patterns of shared memory inherited from collective cultures of the
deep past. These patterns are revealed, he noted, through our dream
images, creative expressions and behavior.
The patterns of the creative process
form the supporting structure for all learning, innovation, strategy
and implementation. They generate all personal and collective power,
for good or ill. The creative process calls into being what has yet
to exist.
We are not alone.
All highly creative people experience the universal high-low
patterns of the creative process. Universal themes lend insight
into our unique relationship to these highs and lows. This empowers
us to harness what works and to let go of what doesn't. Whether we're
creating a story, a business, a portfolio, a new cure for disease, a
rocket ship or a film, understanding the common joys and pitfalls of
creating can help tremendously in building momentum and efficiency in
our own personal work habits.
Who is responsible?
Our Greek and Roman ancestors claimed that invisible spirits were responsible
for the resulting brilliance or failure of the project in question,
not the actual person who created it. It was only later, during the
Age of Reason, that creative brilliance was identified with its human
creator. Some believe this conceptual transfer has produced a can of
contemporary worms regarding personal fears of success, failure and
responsibility. Interesting question...
The highs of creating
and the success or failure of projects do carry significant risks. The
troubled genius, high and raging at the moon or hiding under covers,
is often how our creators are still characterized. Though many gifted
writers and others have lived this profile, it seems a tragic and avoidable
scenario in need of change. Even the most gifted creators can avoid
careening off pedestals into pits, if their powers are managed in healthy
ways. I believe that a balanced and fulfilled life hardly destroys brilliance,
but rather empowers it.
There is mystery in this process.
While the entity theories of our Greek and Roman ancestors might seem
bizarre, we must admit that most of us, from time to time, experience
(or witness) the creative process as a transporting and transcendent
phenomenon--as if born to another world. This is one of the most fascinating,
elusive, confounding, and even dangerous aspects of creating.
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*Essay by Barbara Bowen of
GatewaysCoaching.com - the definitive source for the creative process
and creative careers.
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Copyright ©2009 Barbara Bowen and
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