Category: Unit 07

Creative Spirituality Reflection Essay

1.How do you define “spirituality”?

I believes that spirituality is a condition that balance of our heart and body or a  transcendental willpower that is not belong to human beings. This word always connected to heart, soul and spirit and it also connected to the inspiration because inspiration is also a unseen and mysterious thing in the world. According to Gray. A (2001), he mentioned in his article “Deeply seeing”:” The word inspire refers to the breath, which has always been associated with life and spirit.”(Page 82)

2. Does spirituality differ from religion?

Yes, it does. I think that spirituality have some similarities with religion, but they are represent totally different realm. For me, spirituality can be anything about your willpower and attitude. However, when I think about religion, it it more like a system of faith. For example, Christian,  Buddhism, and Islam. They are all examples of religion. Most of the religion have their doctrine or rules while spirituality can be only created by individual’s need. For instance, the Olympic  athletes might not need to have a religion, but they really need to have a strong spirituality.

3.How do you define “creativity”?

As far as I am concerned, “Creativity” is  a power to create a certain thing that can provide some value for society.  According to the Gray. A (2001), the creative process including six steps, there are “formulation, saturation, incubation, inspiration, translation and integration”.(Page 75) I also think that creativity is extremely important for artist because they always need to create “new” things for people to appreciate. Gray. A also said that “Finding that energetic and idiosyncratic fountain of creation, an art spirit, is the artists’s task.” In another word, if a person have enough creativity to produce something, he/she can be a artist as well.

4.What is the source of creativity?

I think that the source of creativity is from our life.  Gray. A(2001) states that:”Seeing occurs when our attention is arrested by a person, object, or scene. Seeing determines every aesthetic decision.” When we see the aesthetic  things in the world, we will try to find a way to keep those things, it is why people wants to create. For instance, a artist wants to keep his emotion of happy about a beautiful scene, he might draw it and keep it as a picture. He can also write a novel or a small blog to keep it by words. Yes, people love to keep things, so they like to create, especially for them selves. However, not only artist, but also scientist wants to keep things which make them feel possible to keep. For instance, they will create a bike because it is convenient and they want to keep this convenient for everyone.

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

Discussion Post 1: Creative Spirituality

This week I find the reading of creative spirituality is very interesting and give me many inspiration.  According to the author Gray. A(2001), he discuss about what is deeply seeing and how can artist use deeply seeing to produce their art works. At first, he mentioned that “seeing occurs when our attention is arrested by a person, object, or scene” which means seeing can probably happen in everybody’s life. He also points out that look and seeing is very different. he cited Ernest W. Watson’s word about seeing and looking which is :”There is a vast difference between looking and seeing–a difference which is fundamental to the artist”s experience.” After that he discuss about how artist looking for archetypal beauty and create their own artworks. Finally, he states that inspiration is also a unique process for every artist which is a “most mysterious step in the creative process.”

As far as I am concerned, I believes that everybody have potentiality to become an artist because they all have eyes which can found luminous points in their life. I also extremely interested by the inspiration because it a kind of thing that only given by god. The author Gray. A like to provide example from his life experience, for me, I would also like to raise my own experience to be an example. As a student, I always need to write something I don’t like or familiar with. If I don’t have inspiration, even if I think the topic is very attractive, I can not write a good article without inspiration. The author also talks about spirit and art. He said that “Spirit brings vision to the artist via the imagination, the multidimensional media center of our minds.” (Page 82)It is why artist always can bring us some sensitive emotional touch. They actually use their heart and soul to create. I think that the word “soul” and “spirit” is connected to the word “inspiration” because those things are very abstract but meaningful for artists. The also also mentioned that inspiration is like an unseen lover, a muse, an angel or demon, or perhaps and entire committee of discarnate entities, who creep up to your imagination and give it the most sumptuous gifts.” (Page 82)

Citation:

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