There’s a myth I constructed around myself. It’s personal and it’s isolating, but I don’t think I’m the only one who has inhabited a narrative like this.
In this story, untold creative, magical, sovereign potential is trapped within me. Like a maiden in a tower. Like a sword in a stone. Like a beauty in a beast.
If only, the story goes, if only I could scrabble together the time, the space, the strength, and the faith, then I could get free. Everything I am meant to conceive, craft, and share would burst forth for all to see.
Someday, the myth declares, some blessed, sapphire sky day when all that art and alchemy would flow forth like droplets of goddess-spawn, pieces of art fully and perfectly formed. Finally, I would finally emerge as the mystical source I’d always known myself to be. I could thrive like I did before the curse was cast and the fabled inner spring was dammed.
But how?
Perhaps, I dreamed, I could learn some arcane emancipation spell or receive the blessing of a passing godmother on her way back to the enchanted wood. Freed like a springtime river after a long freeze, an unnameable magical force would enable me finally to express the pent up stories, power, and divine inspiration that’s been caught like a salmon trapped in a druid’s pool.
Once I possessed those magic words, I prayed, then I’d become at once creatrix and conduit.
The myth I wove had me believing that if only I had the time, space, strength, fortune, and faith THEN I could effortlessly create something that could be held, loved, and learned from, here in our three dimensional world.
Here’s the thing about myths…
If a myth is not empowering and inspiring, then you get to smash it and use the pieces to create something totally new.
We can rewrite that myth of creative if onlys and somedays every time we close our eyes to dream or pick up a pen to write. You can cast a new, life-affirming myth every time you open your mouth to share what you know, what you’re learning, or what great wisdom you’ve just now channeled through.
Too often, our creativity, magic, and sovereign potential get wrapped up in gossamer wishes that get hung on lucky stars, maybes, and the light of a certain phase of the moon. There’s so much limitation wrapped up in these stories of imprisonment, of waiting, of recovering some power that’s been too long buried away.
It doesn’t have to be this way…
Myths are tricky magic, of course.
Myths have a way of reflecting our most troubling, complex needs. They also have a way of inspiring us to undertake the quests we’re most afraid to accept.
As Karen Armstrong says in A Short History of Myth, “Myths are universal and timeless stories that reflect and shape our lives—they explore our desires, our fears, our longings, and provide narratives that remind us what it means to be human.”
Myth is part of our DNA, but these days we also use myth to connote the opposite of “fact.” In modern parlance, myth is often synonymous with “bullshit.”
So, let’s play with this story of limited creative power and possibility. What’s a timeless myth, an enduring truth out of time that reveals ancient wisdom and deepest universal desires, and what’s a modern myth, a made-up tale of personal limitation?
Someday mystical day, I’ll awake having the requisite time, space, strength, and faith to achieve my dreams…
Oh look! A modern made-up myth concocted of a splash of “not enoughness,” a heaping dose of self pity, and a huge dash of inadequacy. There’s never going to be a particularly destined day when it all aligns and we have every super power in the cabinet, ready to be employed against the forces of evil and lack.
Where, then, is the timeless myth, the myth to live by? Simply snip away that “someday” and step into the divine reality:
At any moment, we can wake up to the truth that everything we ever need to create that next wonderful thing could all come together right… now.
If only I were one of those lucky mortal beings chosen to be conduits of divine creativity. Then, I could tap into “the good stuff” any time I want.
Ah, another modern, made up myth of limitation crafted from a belief that we’re all part of a predestined plot contrived by an off-planet narrator.
Is there a timeless myth, here? Something that might guide us through the next project and this momentous, evolutionary age? Of course. All of us have access to and are available to divine source.
The privileges of comfort and security can give us easier access to a creative life, but then the most awesome creations can arise from lack and adversity. The story is written breath by breath and moment by moment, and we are all invited to play and write and live our part, no matter our circumstances.
Freed from the somedays and the if onlys, there is just one myth that longs to be understood as enduring and true:
There’s a divine creative force within you,
within me,
within all of us.
It’s always within our power to
let it flow forth, freely expressed.
Here, then, is the new myth that is older than fairytale, pantheons, and rhyme
We are at once princess, tower, and the knight who stages a rescue. We are at once sword, stone, and the warrior who will wield it with righteous courage. We are at once beautiful, beastly, and the spark that transforms one into another.
We are made of the entire spectrum of generative magic that includes the growth of daffodil bulbs, the flight patterns of migrating geese, the swell of the tides, and warmth in a newborn’s fist.
So, as I look back on that myth of creativity that I used to tell, I commit to rewriting it every day and in every way that I can.
I will not wait, and neither will I force the moment. I will not get tangled up in the blue of longing, and neither will give up hope.
I will trust in divine timing. And that’s not about hanging it all on the next phase of the moon or holding on the line for the sybil’s next speech. It’s about recognizing that divinity and time are all part of the same sacred rhyme.
What if you could truly believe it, too?
All timing is divine. In divinity, there is time.
All of us are chosen. Within all of us, there is the divine.
All of us are creative souls. Within all of us, there are the seeds of creation.
Can I help guide you as you rewrite your own creative myths? The Story Illumination Sessions are for creatives, entrepreneurs, and writers who want to clear the blocks, transform imagination into reality, and make something magnificent.
