You as an unfolding creative are invited to keep the window open so that the singing bird might come. You keep the window open by way of allowing and surrender. The singing bird is the way in which Creation expresses through you, but you have to be open to allowing this vibration to resonate through you.
Mystic poet Rumi says it this way: -
Birdsong
Birdsong brings relief
to my longing
I'm just as ecstatic as they are,
but with nothing to say!
Please universal soul, practice
some song or something through me!
Excerpts from the translation of Rumi by Coleman Barks. © by owner. provided at no charge for educational purposes
In this poem, there is a longing to have a unique song be sung through you. Don't take this idea of a song literally. It doesn't mean that you are to become a singer. It means that you become a flow and an outpouring of creative expression. You are here to be sung through from the flow of the Infinite.
The open window is your open mind. It represents the clear blue sky, out of which comes the experience of the singing bird. Your mind tends to be full of cloud. You try to think your way into being creative, and it is your thinking that keeps the window closed.
The open window is a state of prayerful allowing. You don't dictate how the song is to be sung through you although here will be intimations as regards how such allowing will be made manifest through you. It is your work in learning to allow this expression. It is learning how to be in tune with the Infinite (Ralph Waldo Thrine)
The bird doesn’t sing because it has an answer, it sings because it has a song.— Maya Angelou (1928–2014), Poet and Civil Rights Activist
An Inspirational Longing: The Ecstasy of Silence
In this Unfolding Creativity newsletter, the core way in which you keep the window open is through cultivating deep inner silence. This inner silence is like the sky. It is spacious. It does not cage the singing bird in thought. There is freedom for the singing bird to come and go.
In my journey as an unfolding creative, I've never been to workshop or training day that was focused on the power of silence to unfolds the magic of creativity. This is the magic of No-Thingness out of which everything is made manifest in form. It is the space out of which music happens and the magic out of which creativity happens. To use an old hippie phrase, “You become a happening.”
Silence is the language of God, all else is poor translation.— Jalal al-Din Rumi (1207–1273), Sufi Mystic
When I practice this invitation to deepening silence, I think of the instruction in how to pray where you enter the closet, (metaphorically speaking) you give no thought and you get rewarded in secret. This is keeping the window open without dictating how the reward should arrive.
As an unfolding creative, how do you keep the window open? Have you ever imagined or being invited to realize that this is the core work of being an unfolding creative. As an unfolding creative let this is your form of worship. Don’t let this be something you do as and when you have the time to do it. In that sense, you are lukewarm. There is no longing in the way that Rumi expresses that longing.
I think it comes back to the way in which you view creativity. Creativity is not productivity, which is what tends to get worshipped especially in the West. Creatively, as it is understood and promoted here in this Unfolding Creativity newsletter, is a way of BEING in the world. The focus is on being in tune with the Infinite and being in alignment with the way in which Love’s purpose is to be expressed through you. It is not about becoming famous but about inviting the REAL and the authentic within you to be you.
Will You Let the Universal Song Move Through You?
Everyone at some point in their life is called to keep the window open. This is the window of the heart. Our educational system doesn't train us for that. Religion is supposed to do so, but for the most part has failed miserably.
For this writer, the only people who can show the way to keeping the window open are those who are the mystics from all times and places. A mystic is one who has had a direct experience of that which is pointed to by the word “God” or the word “Infinite.” They have lived as an open window. They have lived as an open sky and have returned to embody that experience and have as their primary focus the intention of inviting this experience to be revealed in the life of others.
I wish that when you are lonely and in darkness that I could show you the magnificence of the light of your own BEING – Hafiz of Shiraz – mystic Sufi poet.
As an unfolding creative, I start my day in embodied silence. I focus on quieting the never-ending stream of thought with passes for thinking. I practice inner body awareness because it is through the body the experience of the singing bird is made manifest. I get empty so that I might be fulfilled.
Then I sit in that emptiness before a blank page and the words simply flow onto the page. Sometimes the hand stops. That's OK, but more often than not here is the experience of being like a river amazed by its own unfolding. (John O’Donohue). The singing bird by way of words on a page has arrived. While I am not ecstatic, I feel delighted. I am set up for another day of loving as a fulfilled unfolding, creative. How is it that you start your day?
I’d like to leave you with a song called Songbird. When you listen, imagine this song is about your creative life that you have fallen in love with. Would that not be a radical invitation?
Are you prepared to be in love with who you are created to be and declare, “When I'm with you, I feel all right and I love you, I love you like never before.” Why not invite yourself to be that magnificent?