While reading about creative spirituality, I first thought about what it really meant to me and how I saw it in my life. At what times am I the most creative, and is there anything that sparks my creativity? I thought about this for a while, and came up with some thoughts. For the most part I become creative when I see something else that inspires me. This could range from a TED talk, or a professor talking in class, to something I see while I’m walking around. Most often while I am just in my room or sitting at a desk I am by far the least creative. When I am constantly looking at new things or hearing ideas, my mind starts to race, and my creative side is unleashed. In the piece by Grey, I found a passage that was very similar to my way of creative thinking, “When an artists encounters an artistic subject, love opens all of his or her eyes. There is a rush of aesthetic pleasure, and something clicks simultaneously on every level. The artist’s spiritual eye recognizes the subject as a special aspect of the absolute. The holy presence of the subject’s unique beauty is its claritas, or radiance”(Grey, 73). To me this means there is something that sparks our creativity and passion in art, and it is what we see as beautiful. By experiencing something with our eyes and being stimulated we are better able to understand and feel the special qualities art can contain, and because of this I feel like the fact that I am more creative when I am stimulated by outside topics makes a lot of sense.

I’m curious how many other people’s creative sides are peaked from outside stimulation, or if many people can just sit in blank room, and become creatively stimulated? For me this feat is near impossible, except for the moments before I fall asleep. The only other time that my mind really starts racing is right before bed when I can just relax and do thinking and this sparks some of the creativity. I will often forget my trains of thought while doing this because I don’t remember what I was thinking about when I fell asleep, but it is interesting to think what in my mind allows me to do this and start up this creative thinking process. In the future I hope to better be able to spark my creative abilities, as well as notice others around me.

Grey, A. (2001). Art as Spiritual Practice. The Mission of Art (1st ed., pp. 205-233). Boston & London: Shambhala.