Naturally Creative

What do we—women—have in common? What makes us women? Anatomically, it’s the structure of the body. Although some do not function as they were designed, we were (except a few) all born with ovaries. And all of us know that having ovaries makes having a child a possibility. We also know that these days there are many factors that take away that opportunity but for arguments’ sake, we have ovaries, and are therefore women. Ovaries release eggs. And yes, some ovaries do not function correctly but that is not the point, ovaries—the egg releasing part of our womanhood—allows for the possibility of life. It is a natural creative impulse on the part of the woman from puberty to menopause to create life.

Each month, almost like clockwork, an egg or so is released. It’s pretty amazing stuff. We cannot ask for the release or the lack of. We cannot stimulate ourselves to provoke the release, it just happens, each month for about thirty-plus years. This always makes me proud to be a woman. It’s simply a beautiful concept.

I am not trying to say that men do not have a big part in creating life; we all know that isn’t possible except in a couple of species. I am simply saying they create life at will. We create naturally; just as naturally as anything else in the animal and plant kingdom: without provocation.

Without going into a philosophy, tradition, or religion, let’s just say that whatever a person calls whatever it is they believe is divine, is alive and well in all of us and is the reason for our consistent egg-releasing creativity. Just go with me on this. Let’s say that the same energy that makes the egg factory predictable and consistent is the same energy that causes us to say, “Hey, I have an idea.” And let’s just say that the same energy that nudges us to follow an idea is the same energy that urges us to write, to paint, to scrapbook, to make something that just moments before did not exist. Are you with me so far?

Now let’s just say that the same energy (and fill in the name of your favorite deity here) that exists within you exists within me and within everything else on this earth from menial fungus to the most celebrated creative genius. The creative impulse is alive and well within every single thing that lives.

Women are naturally more of a creative conduit. Can we agree on that? Because it is within our very being, the anatomical structure of what makes us women, to create. We can stop it with birth control, but it is unnatural to NOT ovulate during those thirty or so years. To ovulate is to produce the potential for life. So we are naturally creative beings.

Because we cannot truly embrace this creative nature about ourselves as both women and men, we get confused when the stir comes from within to create. Natural responses to the urge to create vary from the urge to engage in sex to longing for a child to restlessness within a career or relationship. But because we don’t teach it and it wasn’t taught to us, we cannot recognize this impulse.

The creative impulse is shared by everyone. If you call it God, call it God. That same energy, the life force, wants to create. Men have the same creative urges, but they more or less have an ability to control the urge. Men choose, or allow themselves, to become excited sexually, in order to create the possibility for sperm release.

The very same call to create is alive within each of us; sometime by will, and sometimes by nature. Whether we are talking about creating a recipe for supper based on the ingredients we have or we are talking about creating a Fortune 500 company based on a simple concept matters not, the creative impulse is part of who we are.

We snuff out things about ourselves that we believe “shouldn’t” be there, because we think they will not fit into our schedules, our societal roles, or what we believe to be right. We choose birth control to stop the potential creation of life. We choose to ignore the desire to be a musician because society tells us we could never make a living that way. We choose to drop out of the pottery class because something in our brains says it’s a silly waste of time. We choose to let an idea go because we cannot afford to go pursue such a far-fetched dream of creating a new company out of nothing. Creativity is natural and we go against nature to ignore the creative impulse.

What if we allowed ourselves to create more? What if, just as the egg is released each month, we allowed creativity to flow more freely through us whenever it was sparked to do so? And what if, within that allowing of the creative flow, we found out that we weren’t meant for this particular job or that particular relationship? And as a result, what if we truly listened to that energy, that life force that is deep within? And what if, because we listened to that whisper and made changes that would then allow for the flow of creativity to become undammed, and then we began living fuller lives? Would that really be so bad?

The creative impulse is what is alive and well within each of us, and it is what will allow us to move forward on this evolutionary track toward greater consciousness. Our job now, as women and creators, as nurturers and as sisters, is to recognize our creativity within and honor it, thereby exemplifying to our daughters and granddaughters that we must follow the nudge that comes from the deepest part of ourselves.