Artifact 6: Creative Spirituality Reflection
Learning Unit Objectives
- Become familiar with ways in which spirituality influences artists
- Discuss the differences between spirituality and religion
- Examine spirituality as a generative force and a well spring for creativity
Original Post
In my opinion, spirituality is an appearance of true self. My grandmother always talked about spirituality as a free state of meditation. As far as I concerned, spirituality is a conscious cluster of people’s experience and values. It is another higher level of our own disclosure. The noun for spirituality is spirit, which can be a good proof. Spirit is something close to cognitive power. I think humans consist of three different parts: body, mind, and spirit. We use body to make actions and reactions in everyday life; we use mind to connect the different things in our life; and finally we have spirit to make conclusions.
I personally do not make spirituality and religion equivalent, even if Merriam Webster gives spirituality such a definition: “something that in ecclesiastical law belongs to the church or to a cleric as such, or sensitivity or attachment to religious values”. First of all, religion is far more than spirituality. In some sense we cannot deny the connections and relevance between them, however, religion is a big collection of beliefs and views, which will influence people’s life by its huge social impact. In other words, religion is always a system of faith built for a group of people. On the contrary, spirituality is supposed to be form based on individual’s personal values and experience. For me, I think it is a sublime form of our own individuality. And this thing can extend to every aspect of our life. It will impact our normal behaviors, but this effect is from our own mind.
Creativity means originality. It is the result of innovative and novel brainstorming. Of course the brainstorm is not a completely freethinking. Instead it comes from the observations in daily life. Many details in observations link to one another and stimulate the inspiration or idea. Creativity provides a new and easier approach to do a thing. It improves efficiency and effectiveness. In my mind, creativity is the successful transformation from spirituality. Based on our sublime spirituality, we construct creative works to show our values.
As I write above, I believe that creativity comes from spirituality. Grey talks a lot about “seeing” or observations in the article, and I agree that seeing plays a significant part of building up creativity. But in my opinion, the observation is just part of spirituality or we can say it is eventually absorbed within. In addition, when Grey discusses the difference between looking and seeing, he dismisses looking as a source of creativity. I would think looking is just a body action without the involvement of spirituality. But seeing involves spirituality.
Reflection
The reason I choose this artifact is that it helped me truly understand what spirituality is based on my own experience and the information provided in the assigned reading material. As the author said, “artists need to be able to see on each level in order to bring technical beauty, archetypal beauty, and spiritual beauty to their work” (Grey, 73). This just led me to realize the importance of spiritually in artistic creation. Artists are almost influenced by spirituality. It is a sublime appearance of personal experience, and it produce the inspiration artists need for creation.
What I really appreciate is that this topic tells me the difference between religion and spirituality. I used to make it a equation. However, the study corrects my perception. Religion is about a belief supported by a group of people. However, the spirituality can live independently. Grey talks a lot about “seeing” or observations in the article, and I agree that seeing plays a significant part of building up creativity. And I think “seeing” he talks about relies on spirituality.
Future Intention
I would like to reach and understand my own spirituality. I want myself to be spiritual when it comes to how to deal with and surmount the hardship in my life. Moreover, I hope the experience of learning this unit could be a great help for me to discover more valuable and interesting things in my daily life. I absolutely love the idea of “seeing”. Hopefully, some day I can have that good observation of every detail in my life.
I want myself to be eventually creative by doing this. The creation or any innovative things I will creative in near future would be the best manifesto of me. And I think people would see more of me through my creations.
Bibliography
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