To Be At Home Is To Be Creative

I come from a place that no longer exists.

This is a phrase that has accompanied me for a long time. I chose it to keep myself creatively focused throughout my dark night of the soul. For, I have always known that, when I am creative, despite difficulties, I am nurturing a sanctuary of wellness and beauty within.

At first, the phrase held a sense of yearning and nostalgia for me. Having traumatically lost through war and illness what I called home in the first part of my life, like a candle’s flame in meditation, the phrase internally kept returning me there by keeping me in the search for its meaning. Although I would mostly find home in the dark void, the no-thingness which through longing in the embodied reality led me to a sense of impermanence, in the void and through impermanence I still paradoxically found an invisible ground that kept me going. That ground is what we call spirit.

With the help of spirit, despite and also because of the pain my soul was experiencing, I thus realised that home is a living process which keeps changing – a dance. And because it is changing, it needs our presence. As I stepped into more presence while moving through time, home therefore became where I made it. The sanctuary became the nostalgic tango music and the joy I found through tango dance.

However, having had so much within me cleansed, clarified, and liberated, this phrase has begun to mean something entirely different as well. When I read it, I don’t only gaze backwards but forwards, too. I feel a sense of new direction and a kind of incandescence in me – a rekindled passion for the whole of life.

The phrase now doesn’t only encapsulate a knowing for me that time, like a landscape, continually erodes, and like ephemeral dance, its meaning can only be caught in moments when magically all stars align and we find ourselves in sync with each other. But the phrase also embodies a sense of choice through my willingness to see how inherent in each capsule of time is always a new beginning, as well as an inevitable ending.

Now, the phrase points me towards trust, but not in the way of my youthful self, who had to bypass the thought of the past and the darkness to survive. Now, the phrase serves as a kind of True North and a wakeful reminder of life’s impermanence. For, it is precisely because of life’s nature that I know its beauty, and I can nurture my presence.

My creative flow, these days, is taking me to writing, especially writing for film. In the world of moving cinematic stories, just like in the world of tango, I have discovered a sense of sanctuary. As John Yorke points out, stories help us resolve life’s opposites. Using my creativity to resolve the opposites, through stories, like through tango, I thus continue to find peace and courage to step ‘into the woods’!

Stepping into the woods, besides stepping into the mystery of the unknown, for me means stepping into my creation. Important to add too, is that my creation is always and also a co-creation! For, whatever our experience, I believe that we create together, by holding and guiding each other along the way.

Valerie Andrews and her guests at the Book Passage event below 👇 are truly inspiring guides for anyone interested and in need of re-membering what home is and how to find a sanctuary by re-imagining it. In times of so much unrest in our world, they offer us glimpses and plant new seeds in our hearts. I recommend listening to their enlightening conversation 👇