Discovering aesthetic space: Awakening to beauty and creative potential

I’ve always been drawn to the idea of creating space. For years, a note on my computer reminded me, “Create Space for Spirit to Speak.” Without space, it’s impossible to bring anything new or creative into being because our lives are already too full.

Take writing, for example—you have to create physical, mental, and emotional space to allow new words and ideas to emerge. This is true for creativity in all forms. In graduate school, I was fascinated by the book Free Spaces: The Source of Democratic Change in America by Sara Evans and Harry Boyte. They describe how political movements often begin in “free spaces,” such as churches, social clubs, and civic groups, where people gather to connect and share ideas. These spaces of openness and dialogue are what allow something new to take root.

Over the years, my interest in how creativity unfolds has evolved. While teaching a metaphor course last spring, I had an epiphany that took this idea even deeper. My research introduced me to the concept of aesthetic space. Unlike physical space, aesthetic space is a parallel world of profound beauty and connection. It’s always present, but most of us only tap into it during rare moments of heightened clarity.

What Is Aesthetic Space?

Aesthetic space isn’t bound by geography or linear time—it exists alongside our everyday lives, waiting for us to shift our focus and step into it. I’ve come to believe that this space is central to our evolution as humans. Beauty, not intellect alone, is the key to moving us forward.

As St. Thomas Aquinas said, “Beauty is the perfection of a thing.” When we enter aesthetic space, we connect with the heart, where deeper wisdom resides. Social change and solutions to complex problems like global warming won’t come from the same level of thinking that created them (Einstein reminded us of this). Instead, beauty—rooted in the heart—has the power to guide us toward a higher evolution.

Metaphor and Connection

Metaphors naturally emerge in aesthetic space. By linking two unlike things, metaphors open up new perspectives and deeper understanding. This ability to see relationships and connections is central to creativity. The mystery of aesthetic space is that it’s always there, waiting for us to engage with it.

A Transformative Dream

A few months after my metaphor class ended, I had a dream that illuminated the nature of aesthetic space. In the dream, I stepped out of the basement of my childhood home into the backyard. Suddenly, everything came alive—trees, plants, even mundane objects like the clothesline were pulsing with magnificent, dancing energy. I became lucid in the dream, overwhelmed by the beauty and aliveness of everything around me.

Then, my body was pulled toward a distant forest, only to realize the forest was a cardboard façade, like a photograph on a billboard. I panicked as I hurtled toward it, certain I’d crash, but at the last moment, I was zipped into a train tunnel running through the cardboard. Looking out the train windows, I saw that the vibrant, pulsing energy was still there, behind the cardboard.

The dream’s lesson was clear: what we usually see in the world is only a surface image, like a photograph on cardboard. Beneath that surface lies the true, vibrant energy of life. We’re often blind to this deeper reality, but it’s always there, waiting for us to wake up and see it.

Explore Aesthetic Space

If you’re curious about tapping into this world of beauty and connection, I invite you to explore it further in my Creative Space and Metaphor class at Book Passage in Corte Madera on Saturday, December 13th, from 10 am to 4 pm. Call Book Passage to sign up.

Let’s create space to see the beauty that’s been there all along.