Meditations on Creativity

Hi there!

I recently came across the article I had written back in 2015 for Fulfillment Daily, that was later republished by the Washington Post.* I had forgotten all about it and was somewhat surprised. At first, a bit taken aback with the style that feels a bit foreign — bullet-like points abiding to a specific format, pleading the case for art-making and its soulful benefits — only to realize I had been quoted here and there. Alas, the internet is a world unto itself and my short piece had gained a small momentum.

What also surprised me was how constant I have been in my train of thought. It’s been almost ten years and I still wholeheartedly believe and stand by what I wrote about art (the process of) — about creative practice, really — as a form of meditation, a vehicle for exploration. This has been my practice.

I’m an artist and clinical psychologist. As an artist I work in the studio and in the field, primarily using nature, the cloud forests of Ecuador, as an outdoor canvas. As a psychologist, I have a private practice, I work with families and young children, I teach, I write. Where both worlds converge is on the question of creativity as it extends beyond producing art.

Indeed, through experience and a somewhat mysterious tapping of source, it has become increasingly manifest that creativity pertains to an inclusive life force, inherent to being, that infuses doing.

Hence, “creativity as potential” — pointing to origin, accessible to all (just out of reach of words) — will be my starting point as I pick up years later where I left off with my public piece. My intention is to continue to chisel at it through writing as experimentation (food for thought); further hone my voice, attune it to my ongoing research across different turfs. I consider it a series of “meditations on creativity”.

*"Why Art is the New Meditation" was originally published on Fulfillment Daily: Daily Science-Backed News for a Happier Life, founded by Stanford University psychologist Emma Seppälä, who is also Associate Director of the Center for Compassion and Altruism Research and Education at Stanford’s School of Medicine.