Using Art Supplies to Build a Container for Your Soul

What stories have you been told about making art?

What do you tell yourself about art-making?

• Maybe you’ve been taught that it's selfish to spend time or money, or both, on something unproductive like playing around with art supplies.

• Maybe you feel like art-making is something you let yourself do only after all your chores are done.

• Maybe some misguided art teacher told a younger version of you that you’re not “talented,” so creating art is a waste of time.

Would you consider releasing those old stories if I told you…

-- that creative expression is the path to greater awareness of your inner wisdom?

-- that art is a way to turn up the volume on your intuition and turn down the volume on all that external noise?

-- that art-making can be a sacred container for your soul to connect with your Creative Source?

First though, I need to quickly declare that there’s no containing the Creative Source!

A favorite cartoon by the Naked Pastor offers a great visual of the vastness of God by showing a guy trying to stuff a very large God-figure into a very small box labeled “theology.”

I also want to acknowledge that your personal context strongly influences what your container looks like, for better or worse. And it looks way worse if you idolize the container you’ve built, and insist that your container is the only true god-ordained version! But that’s a topic that leads down a dark alley I don't go into anymore.

One of my containers:

All that said though, humans need containers for God.* You need containers to understand and make meaning of your experience of that which is larger than you. You need something tangible to help you connect to that which is intangible. A God ‘with no skin on’ is hard to get your head around.

In our limited human capacity, we are not able to take in the vastness or vagueness of God.

That’s why we need containers.

The good news is that you have the power, indeed the responsibility, to create your own container to help you communicate and understand your relationship with your Creative Source.

When you start using art as a container for your soul, you’ll start feeling safe enough to ask difficult questions, to express challenging emotions, and to receive clarity that comes from a deep place within you.

When you use art as a container for your soul, you are free to be in relation with what is alive for you in the present moment, in a way that resonates and feels true to you.

When you use art as a container for your soul, the size and shape of that container will change and shift so that you can better respond to the ever present invitation to draw closer to your Creative Source.

But how does art become a container for your soul?

You may already be aware of the human need for rituals that engage the senses. This need persists even if you’ve left behind the religious containers of your childhood. While you may still crave those ‘bells and smells,’ you are free to create them anew, using whatever feels good to your soul.

Rituals help awaken your awareness to the presence of the Creative Source that is right here with you. All that is lacking is your awareness, which is always ebbing and flowing.

First, create a ritual

To create a ritual around your creative practice, consider these points:

• What can you use to drop into the creative mindset?

• How can you signal to your body that you are entering a “sacred” time and space? “Sacred” means set apart. How can you signal that this time and space is set apart from the ordinary?

• Engage your senses, using

  • visual reminders, like a garland of prayer flags, or a giant welcome sign at the door of your art space,

  • fragrant wafts from a scented candle, a sage bundle, or a mug of spicy hot tea,

  • pleasing sounds, like water trickling through a fountain, hang drums playing on youtube, or music that makes you want to sway your hips,

  • simple acts like putting on a paint apron can sift your mindset and prepare you for what’s to come.

Next, build the container

Beyond engaging the senses, there’s more depth to explore as you build your container.

Consider how you show up to create. Think about your creative space as a “sacred place” where you are held and supported. You are standing on sacred ground!

Your creative practice, even if it’s not carried out in an official “studio,” needs to give you the room to explore and take creative risks. We live in a culture that rewards success and penalizes failure. But risk-taking is an essential component of art-making. You have to try stuff out, answer the “what ifs…?” You have to feel free to make a lot of bad art in order to get to the good stuff, your most authentic art.

Regardless of where you make your art, know that it is a sacred place to tell the truth, your truth. First to yourself, and then maybe, eventually, to the world.

Do you tell the truth? I like to think of myself as truthful but far too often, I stop myself from speaking my mind lest it offend someone. That shows up in my creative practice when I make my art “pretty” because that’s what I think people will like or expect from me.

When you treat your art-making as a sacred container, you will find the freedom to turn away from the loud critics, both external and internal, so that you can listen to the voice of your soul.

Treat the container of your creative practice like a small room in a monastery, where in solitude, through prayerful inquiry, you can be fully open to your Creative Source.

Listen deeply.

What does your soul want you to know today?

In the ebb and in the flow, you are held,

Mary

*I used all kinds of words to refer to the ground on which we live and move and have our being. Currently, I’m leaning toward “Creative Source, though I do like to mix it up.