The soul is simple in what it wants, needs and desires - it is placid and generally confident most naturally. The soul knows the mysteries of life in their concentrated form - compacted into feelings rather than measurements, impressions rather than increments, the overall, rather than their detail, happy with the wonder of the profound, rather than the particular.
And this of course comes directly from the attenuating hierarchies, and the most subtle, yet strongest conduit of all - the funiculus umbilicalis to God.
And with all of this there is no disharmony or distress, no illness or grievance. The being is content. This is what peace feels like: to rest in the mind of the soul.
Creativity is reckless, for its nature wants license to depart the usual cogs and wheels of structure and to surprise oneself or others with the unexpected. Not all creativity is beautiful or productive, yet nor is it necessarily destructive. It can be either the artist or the undoer ... and is self evident, self-revealing, almost from the outset.
Children are naturally creative - they strive to explore, usually to de-construct much of what is around them.
As adults it is a dangerous impulse for an inartistic person to become overly creative. Creativity requires a strong measure of virtue - or, at the very least, an instinct as to what true virtue is. Without the sense of virtue the actions and behaviours become reckless.
Creativity of itself can be a stimulant.
When a man or woman applies themselves with repetitive work, it requires a measure of will to do so; and this effort and application literally can save the mind from the madness of creativity.
And yet, conversely, to work and give no time to creativity in life can lower the liveliness of the consciousness into stupefaction.
And so, the most perfect balance of all is to give oneself to both effort and imagination every day in equal endeavours.
Lastly, prayer wonderfully requires this mix. Praying entails the effort of concerted thought being coupled with that of our reaching beyond ourselves. The focus and application requires intention, concentration, perseverance, and generally selflessness; tempering the very freedom that the holy hopes provoke the imagination to realise. And with this combination of effort and insight, we are fundamentally restored for a time - being protected from the wild winds of our own creativity and the binding routines compelling us within and without - whilst returning us back through to the inner door into the mind of our soul.
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