Fiery Muse Oriah
When I look back at the women featured in this column I see that one thing they have in common is that they are all “what-you-see-is-what-you-get” kind of women. They are women without pretence. They don’t put on airs. They don’t wear masks. And while they always speak their minds with kindness and deep compassion, they do indeed speak their minds! Oriah has these wonderful qualities in spades. She is one of the most authentic human beings I have ever known – and this aspect of her has been an inspiration in my life. I met Oriah many years ago when I first interviewed her during the beginning stages of research for The Fiery Muse. Later I was able to tell the fascinating story of her spiritual journey – at least up to that point in her life – in the book. Since those days, Oriah has become renowned. Her books – including The Invitation, The Dance, The Call: Discovering Why You Are Here, and What We Ache For: Creativity and the Unfolding of Your Soul – have become bestsellers.
All this means that many aspects of Oriah’s life story have become widely known. (See www.oriah.org) So rather than re-telling them here, I’ll pass on some thoughts she recently shared with me on what she does to receive creative inspiration and how some of these practices might benefit you in both your creative work and your daily life.
When asked what helps her become inspired, Oriah says, “Silence and conversation. These are the two probably most critical for me – deep conversation with other creative and thoughtful people and lots of deep silence in which to mull, pray, and be open to inspiration that comes.”
One of the things I’ve noticed about Oriah is that when she is in deep conversation, she listens with intense focus. She contemplates what you are saying and strives to understand exactly what you mean. Given this, it doesn’t surprise me that hearing what other people have to say is another key to inspiration for her. As she says, “When I hear a good story, it makes me want to tell it!”
For Oriah, absorbing what others have to say extends to reading. “Reading really good writing inspires me.” As, she adds, does reading works by and about “people form different creative genres. Even if what they are saying might not apply exactly to what I’m doing, it stirs the pot in a new direction.” Recently she’s been intrigued by visual artist Michele Cassou and her book Point Zero: Creativity Without Limits. Cassou says she is out to show us how to slay “the three dragons that roam the land of the Creative Quest: the Dragon of Product; the Dragon of Control; the Dragon of Meaning.”
For Oriah, the Dragon of Meaning has particular resonance in terms of writing fiction. She finds that trying to impose meaning – rather than letting what meaning there may be rise up naturally – can be a major block to creativity. “It has to be about the story, and telling a good story!” And then, she says, inspiration can flow. The deep silence that Oriah also finds so necessary for inspiration comes in many forms: “It can be silence in stillness, in meditation, on a walk, washing dishes….”
She adds, however, that you also “have to have empty time – time that is not scheduled for anything. Time to stare at the wall if you want; time to go for a walk – but not a purposeful walk – more like wandering….You need time when absolutely nothing is scheduled or planned….”
For those who want to become more creatively inspired, Oriah also recommends asking yourself these two questions: “Do you have something to say? Are you willing to commit to it?” Oriah cautions that you need to consider these two questions carefully – for If you are indeed willing to commit to what you have to say it will almost certainly mean that you will have to make changes in your life: “As Mary Oliver says, ‘Something is going to have to go, let it go….” Laughing, but still entirely serious, Oriah adds, “For me, this means that I can’t keep house like my mother and still write books!”
The beauty of Oriah’s writing – whether it is in carefully honed words of her books or the more spur-of-the-moment comments made on her heartfelt blog – makes it clear that she continually asks herself these questions and makes sure she is answering them in the affirmative.
On a recent blog she refers to the way aboriginals of Australia are said to dream creation into existence and writes:
I want my writing, my “dreaming”…to include images and metaphors and descriptions that reflect both the struggles and the joy of life….Good writing – like good music, painting, or any other art – evokes the universal by touching the particular that sparks our sensory memory and our heart’s imagination….
I want to find images and metaphors that are equally strong in evoking the experience of joy and contentment. And I want the words to be vivid and real, to contribute to dreaming a world that is vivid and real. I want to avoid spiritual platitudes that reassure me that being is enough but do not reflect the full taste or vibrancy of being. I cannot claim to know how this dreaming works, but it is not a simplistic matter of magical thinking. It is something that happens on a deeper level when we engage the moment completely and let our creative life flow outward in images, songs, stories and movements that hold colour, texture,sound, shape, scent, and taste. There are hundreds of ways to dream the world into being with all of the fire and the beauty of that first moment of creation. The contentment I feel in this moment is not marred by my desire to share it with words. And as I write this, one of the season’s first butterflies appears- wings of brown velvet rimmed with red and gold. Trailing threads of sunlight, it dips and dives on windwaves, a flicker of movement so tenuous and tenacious it takes my breath away. And I think of a quote by Trina Paulus — a guidance for all of us who want to take the risk of participating in dreaming the world into being:
“How does one become a butterfly?” she asked pensively. “You must want to fly so much that you are willing to give up being a caterpillar.”