Creative Energy and Eroticism and Spirituality

Holy moly, Tedtalks are everywhere I go. One friend recommends Amanda Palmer's talk on how she gave her music away and then asked her fans to support her.  Another friend recommends a talk on tying your shoe laces the "correct way."  All of them were just so fascinating and helpful. 


However, it's this one here on the "creative genius" that I've liked most of all.  Gilbert - of Eat, Pray, Love - asserts that historically, we didn't say one was a creative genius, but that, rather, one had a creative genius.  This genius was/is a daemon (I instantly thought of the His Dark Materials series that I LOVED and recommend!), a spirit figure that was in a relationship with the individual who would listen and cultivate that connection.  I really really really like Gilbert's argument, and this historical way of relating to our creativity.   Although I have some issues with how "transcendent" this makes creative energy appear, I can also see the "immanent" possibilities.   Creative genius without and within, yes?  There's something very comforting about this, and in her video, she talks (prays?) to this spirit, saying things like "I showed up; where are you?" 



The immanent possibilities of creative energy, I believe, is that something Audre Lorde speaks directly to in her "Uses of the Erotic."  This is another live talk, before Ted, and I listen to it often.  What I love about Lorde's work is her encouragement for women, for me, to embrace my creative power, my erotic energy, to build that strong relationship with my creative genius really, and to lay down at Her/her feet gifts of my time and passion. 




I can't believe that at 33 years of age I am just now diving into Lorde.  Synergistically, AnaLouise Keating, of Teaching Transformation, also explores Lorde's powerful voice (which speaks from "I am" to "we are" to "we can").  I was surprised to find my studies come so full circle as I read Keating's Women Reading Women Writing and within it, a discussion on "Uses of the Erotic" and more.  Keating describes how "Lorde redefines the erotic without denying its sensual embodiedness, and so simultaneously subverts and transforms this oppressive image."  Yes! Thank you, Lorde!