Creativity roots us in what is alive

At no point in her life did my mother ever ask me about my work, nor, to my knowledge, did she ever read any of my three books. But in her final hours, something changed.

It was the height of the pandemic and I was teaching an online course at Pacifica Graduate Institute. Sitting next to my mother at her bedside, we quietly looked into each other’s eyes. I told her I was in the middle of teaching a course and needed to step away occasionally to respond to student posts.

It was a profound moment I will never forget, because she asked me what I was teaching and what the students were writing about. I told her the course was “The Healing Power of Creativity” and I took that moment to acknowledge her own creativity. She spent a lifetime creating magnificent gardens; she loved music, was the organist at her church, and made sure all of her three children could play instruments. Her life was about beauty.

I also said that my Dad wasn’t creative and she immediately corrected me. “Oh no, your dad was very creative.”

Her words shifted me and shifted how I saw my late father. All of a sudden I had a larger view of him… and much more appreciation for what he brought me.

We all have times of barrenness in life—-when the kids go off to college, we get a divorce, the new business venture doesn’t work out.

But creativity roots us in something far greater than the external events of the day. To regain a sense of rootedness and meaning, all we have to do is pause… and create something. 

It’s a pause for what is alive. To engage with what is real.

Our creative work is the personal legacy that we each leave to this planet.

In their lives, my parents never embraced their creativity.

But I got my creativity from them.