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A good friend is visiting and during our time in the pitch black darkness and heat of the sweat lodge tonight, we found our way to the topic of creating for the sake of creating - perhaps the topic found us. 

Our friend has spent a lifetime following his heart and finding a way to make a living at it. It hasn’t been easy. It has actually been crazy hard, quite complicated sometimes, and required sacrifice most of the time. Yet, there isn’t an ounce of regret in his voice when he talks about choosing to live life following his creative heart and the rich rewards that he has reaped, not just after the sacrifice and hard work, but during it. 

There is a sense of wonder in his voice as he looks back at his life and the body of creative work that came through him as well as the creative work others felt inspired to lean into because of him.

And yet some (if not a whole lot) of his work and many of the stories of inspiration are lying dormant until just the right person finds them at just the right time.

And this reality - that much creative work goes seemingly unnoticed and unrewarded - can be a hard pill to swallow if you’re only playing the short game. 

The gestation period may not even finish before the end of the lifetime of the creator. 

The life of the work might not come into its fulness until long after the creator is forgotten. 

But there is a sense of trust somewhere deep down that the created work matters even if the creator never gets a chance to “see” it matter.

Does it matter more if more people decide that it matters?

Who decides whether or not the created work is significant?

Who stands in judgment?

Does it matter if no one ever sees it and experiences it?

I imagine that somewhere in the literature of quantum physics there is a scientific way of following some “thing” to observe how it “matters” and affects all other “things” during its life cycle.

Does that life cycle ever actually end?

What is actually created? Any “thing” new? Any “thing” independent in its existence from all else?

Once we bring something into “existence” can it ever cease to exist as part of what is? 

I have my hunches and I also have the strong drive to continue to allow the creative life to flow through me as unrestricted as possible that I might be a conduit for bringing things into our world that reflect the love and peace that seem to be the source and nature of our very existence.

And this has me wondering: “How does what we create mirror and reflect who we are? How do our creations co-construct or, at least, influence who we are and who we are becoming, changing as it were, the face looking back at us in the mirror?”

Perhaps the answers will show up in the dark stillness of the next sweat.

Peace