Catharsis and the Creative Process

Creativity is the most intense path to catharsis. The mind must connect to the emotions and form an idea into a physical shape such as a book or painting. The mind and the emotions must unite into a single line of intention that fills the work of art completely. Similarly, the artist’s body and his equipment must become one in a singular creative purpose.

Whether it’s a new recipe, clothing design, or symphony, the creation must receive and retain the full intention of your concentrated effort. The result of any act of creation should always be the physical form of an aesthetic desire, which is the drive to see something become real that only exists in your imagination.

Every creative idea an artist can conceive of has an energetic center of gravity that pulls similar energies like it towards itself. So as we fill an aesthetic product with our desire to make it real, it forms a vacuum within us that is steadily filled with more ideas similar to the original. The human experience of this creative vacuum is felt as a surge of inspiration or illumination in spiritual circles. Others report it as a spiritual awakening, the seeing of transcendental visions, or catharsis.

As the inspiration fills us, it disturbs our balance of mind by generating wild undercurrents in our consciousness that eventually must find resolution in our work. This experience has many names because no one really knows it’s true source, so each person attributes it to the source they most deeply value. But whatever the source, supernatural, extraterrestrial, or earthly, the human mind is the vehicle or conduit for the creativity that is flowing through them. To channel the complete creative desire into art is the nature of our work as artists.

To tap into this stream of creativity, the artist must treat his work as if it were a ritual or ceremony that deserves his utmost respect. He must enter a state of relaxed concentration and allow the ideas to pour through him and connect to his emotions in order to translate them into artistic products. Sometimes the creative stream is light, heavy, or overwhelming depending on many factors such as the time of day, our mood, the seasons, and our level of skill, but neither resistance nor total acceptance will prevent the eventual burst of catharsis, which restores balance to the mind.

The more expertly and efficient the artist can work, the quicker they can complete each product and prepare it for distribution. In the end, the ultimate goal for most artistic endeavors is to form our creativity into a physical shape. All of the objects that fill our world have been brought to us through the creative process and the work of human beings to make it solid and real.

For musicians, the goal is to shape an idea, message, or emotional experience with sound and solidify it in a recording. For an author, the goal might be to formulate a plot line complex enough to keep the readers guessing, while permitting various clues to surface throughout the story that make the readers believe they know who did it or what’s going to happen next. For the entrepreneur, the goal will be to manufacture the good or develop the service to reach a targeted set of customers or clients. And for a singer, the goal could be to present lyrics with the correct balance between technical delivery, emotional display, and theatrics.

As the facet of our creative energies must be opened and closed for each work of our imagination, you must complete the creative process with the belief that the work you have done has assumed the physical shape of the idea you had been operating towards, and that there’s nothing more inside of you to put into it. With balance of mind restored, the cathartic release subsides, and allows you to review the work you have just completed. The law of catharsis requires that you consider it done and never return to it again.