This weekend I will have the honor of facilitating a women’s retreat for Columbine Unity Church called “Nourishing the Feminine Spirit.” In preparing for the weekend, many ideas have been floating around. As is always the case in every women’s retreat I facilitate, creative expression plays a central role.
For many years I co-facilitated retreats with the gifted art therapist Abbe Miller. She offered the genius of art visioning in the retreat, and I contributed the transformational work of intuitive voice, SpiritSong, and chant. Together we integrated the world of inspiration and imagination with community sharing and poetic namings.
Leading retreats, facilitating women’s circles like MoonSong, and many other personal explorations have deepened my understanding of how the seeds of creativity emerge. I know that with voice and SpiritSong, the gift a free-flowing song only happens when ‘proper conditions’ are established. And the same holds true for the visioning process in art and poetry.
To let spirit flow through, however it flows, one must make room for it.
In my mind, “making room” is another way of saying making sacred space. “Room’ or ‘space’ can occur naturally and spontaneously in every day life. I was reading the newspaper this morning and I glanced out the window only to witness a father oriole teaching his young one to fly. In that moment, time stopped, and my awareness opened: it felt like nothing else existed in the world. It was all there, and all then.
If we do nothing and remain aware, we will be blessed with many moments like this in our lifetimes. And at the same time, we can create conditions for moments such as these with consciousness and dedication.
I am pretty equally left-brained (organizational) and right-brained (creative), so of course I had to make a list of steps for making creative sacred space. These ‘steps’ are not original, and have been named by many wonderful teachers of spirit and soul. I merely tweaked them a bit.
I offer these ten steps here for you to ponder. Each step is probably an essay (or book) of its own. And perhaps I will blog about them individually. But for now, let them sit in your in your brain (both halves) and body… and see where they land.
The order of these steps is flexible, and also recyclable.
TEN STEPS FOR MAKING CREATIVE SACRED SPACE.
- Set your intention.
- Make a clearing: release and transform negativity.
- Ground your body: connect with Mother Earth.
- Call in spirit: God, Goddess, Universal life-force, or any conception that works for you.
- Listen deeply.
- Enter meditative awareness and/or ritual.
- Creatively express your spirit as it flows through you: voice, music, art, dance, poetry, etc. etc.
- Share and receive your offerings in community (even if it’s a community of one).
- Offer gratitude and blessings.
- Release the ‘space’, and return.
Blessings to you on your creative path!
