Wouldn't you like to know: How does creativity work?

After all of these years of being an artist I am no closer to really understanding how creativity happens or what it is than I was when I started.
What I do know is that I need to do certain things in order to prepare the vessel of my mind in order for it to happen.  And so, tomorrow night, at my Little Red Studio gathering I am going to do one of the more profound and effective activities that I have found which works to spark creativity.
I am going to do an invocation.  I am going to deliberately invite a particular spirit to come into me. It involves a kind of ritual purification of the space and myself and a kind of breaking down of self in order to be empty and ready to receive.    I am doing it at this public gathering because I believe there is a power in being witnessed.

The ritual is by turns embarrassing and powerful.   The embarrassing part is only possible when being witnessed by others.  The "power" is a transfer of energy from something unknown, through me to those gathering to witness.  It is a current that needs polarities...a place to flow to and from and a conduit to flow through.  Again...without observers there is no polarity and hence no current.

I have used mud in the past and will do so again tomorrow night.  The mud is both dirty and clean.  In addition to the obvious slop and filth of  it...the clay actually has a cleansing action on the skin.  When it dries it shrinks and draws out and absorbs all the toxins and loose skin that our skin discharges.  So the application of mud is both an act of humiliation and of purification.

How does all of this foster creativity......I don't really know.  Perhaps it is that spirit has as much difficulty entering our hearts and minds and space as we have of entering its dimension.  No amount of discussion and understanding will actually nourish and replenish any more than all the understanding of a pizza will do as much to fill the belly as simply and effectively as simply eating it.

And so, with a great deal of hocus pocus and fuss n' feathers...I am going to invoke the spirits to come and animate me and plant the seed of creativity within me once again.   And so, I commit myself to labor in the service of those gifts...to be true to them and to not let those seeds rot in the ground of neglect, distraction and  fatigue.