Over this last weekend, I held an all-day workshop. During this workshop, near the end of our time together, one of my students asked me, “I see you posting late at night often. Usually with what you’ve been writing. How does your significant other deal with this? Does he have a problem with you being up late?”
To this question I said, “No. Mostly because he is a night owl himself, but also because we have reached an agreement. I have made it clear when and how I would like to have my writing space, and I have recruited him in helping me to honor this creative space.” My student then explained that it was difficult for her to find time and space to write, given that her husband schedule often fluctuates.
To this I responded, “Well, you can’t make time for something you don’t make space for.”
And so we began talking about how to create a sacred space. How to carve out a space and the time for writing. For communing with yourself and your creative energy. This is a very specific act, and a very intimate one. So from my experience, it is not something that most people can do in just an ordinary space in the house. Most writers (myself included) have to retreat to the seclusion and the sanctuary of a given spot, and most often in a given hour.
I have found this is because creation itself is outside of our normal reality. Our normal experience. It is the moment when we interact with something immaterial, and that if we truly hope to engage with it in a meaningful, consistent and honest way, we cannot hope to encounter it during our day to day activities. We cannot expect that we can create something of value to us or our soul, if we are trying to write in between making a grilled cheese sandwich, and answering phones.
We cannot greet our muses, if there is no space for us to greet them. If the house belongs to everyone and everything, and we do not set aside a portion of that house for our creative self – our artistic dreams – then it should be no surprise that they have no place in our lives. That they have yet to make an appearance.
In this, I am reminded of The Law of Attraction. In that if we do not make a conscious effort to prepare ourselves for what we want, it can never come to be. The same is true with finding time and space to create. Actually, it is not a matter of finding it at all, but making it. Committing time and space to your muses, as if they are welcome in your home.
They may come to you. They may have a story they wish to share with you, but if you never open the door for them – if you are too busy to even notice they have come for a visit – then you are out of sync with your creative energy. You have not made time for yourself. I talked a few weeks ago about what I learned from writing on a daily basis. About that being an act of self-love.
And in this idea of creating a room of your own – a sacred space – I have come around to that conclusion once more. That if we have yet to make the time in the space, and are still looking to find it somewhere, we have not truly understand how valuable this time is. How important it is to our spiritual and personal growth.
Virginia Woolf was known to encourage writers – specifically female writers – to create a room of one’s own. A space outside of the rules and laws of normal life, where creativity could intervene. Where imagination could take hold, if only for a little while, and without judgment or interference from the outside world. She was known to advocate this more than anything else. That having a room of one’s own made the difference between creating art, and not.
So create a room of your own. A space of your own, one that can exist outside of the different parts you play, and the different masks you wear. Create a space that is even outside of your own everyday thoughts. As it is these everyday thoughts – these lists of things to do – that often get in the way of us making the effort to make the time and the space to write.
If you hope to get anywhere on your creative journey, you have to first decide that your creative journey has a place in your life.
The Write Alignment: Your Daily Creative Attunment 