http://www.mariedtiger.com is where you find me these days :)

Creativity - the most important, the least important of all things

Today I was watching Mad Men, a tv-show about an advertising agency and so much more. Their firm, Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce is going under due to a series of unfortunate events and money is scarce. Donald Draper, the head creative, puts a whole page ad in the New York Times as a clarion call of sovereignty.

This episode went deep deep inside me, because on a feeling level, I got what the show was about.

In 2004 I started my company, Crealife. I had been doing an Internet workshop by Sonia Choquette, Heart's Desire, working at a creative workshop for unemployed youth. We had just gotten a new boss, who had very definite opinions of how things should be run. She wanted me to work full time, or not at all. I was working for my grand vision of being a Multidimensional Artist some day, so that was a big ultimatum for me. Writing comes first place for me, I told her. I have to write. Well, you'll just write your own time, then, my boss told me.

It became more and more clear that having my own company was the way to go. The Heart's Desire workshop by Sonia just clarified this next step that I had been fearing and avoiding. This prickly strong woman who was my boss is someone whom I still remember with affection. When she noticed my hesitation, she suddenly said: "You can take all the products you've developed during your time here with you if you start your own company. I'll give you a leave of absence and you're welcome back if you don't make it."

Well okay then!

During the last seven years I've become a life coach, worked with creative people all around Finland, busted through my art blocks, stepped away from drama in my personal life, given birth to two beautiful crystal kids, and let go of everything that doesn't work for me. Sounds so neat and packaged when listed off like this, right? In reality it has been a grand and sometimes scary as hell adventure with lots of six a.m. writing mornings.

Despite all the work, all the visualizing, all the marketing and my use of all of my tools, this summer I found myself in the situation of being desperately broke. Very embarrassing for a conscious creator. Sitting here, in front of my computer, with my grand creativity and nothing on my bank account, I felt so ashamed of myself and I definitely thought I had failed both my business and family.

During this summer I've walked around Töölönlahti, listening to Nickelback, Bon Jovi, Deep Purple, Pink Floyd and just let go of everything. I let go of myself, my art, my company, my marriage, my children, my friends, my identity, my goals, my visions, my control. Getting back to absolute basics, what is left?

Creativity. The ability and inevitable fact of creating my reality each and every moment I live. The uniqueness everyone's view on life. Knowing creation happens in the moment, where I am, with what I have. The realization that I'm done censoring who I am, what I really think about life. Recent familiarity with the dread and humiliation of not having enough money to pay my bills or provide for my family has shown me how little I can live on, when needed. How insignificant material things, image, status or how things look to the outside really are.

Letting go of everything, all my mental ties to how I think my life should look, even my desperation and questioning has shown me what is left after all. This moment. Creating this moment, from the power in me right now. Knowing I can handle anything thrown at me. Feeling centered in what I feel, think, sense. Letting it all flow through me, not getting snagged up in the rush.

Creativity is the least important thing, because it is invisible and people around you don't understand it. There is no proof that creativity works, until it does, which is in the last stretch of a long process. Creativity is the most important thing. It is what decides whether we live a life of default, according to a template given to us by our parents, circumstances, biological facts, or a life of sovereign adventure. Something built by essence. Who we really are.

No matter where you are right now, no matter what happens around you, inside of you, the power to create your life is yours.

Morning latte in Merihaka

Someone once said "Sell your certainty and buy bewilderment". I first read that when I was thirteen or something like that. I wondered who in the world would want to buy bewilderment. Why? Spending my days in utter inner confusion, seeing lots of what I didn't want around me, my urgent need was to find some way to create meaning, to express the dreams that were burning me to tinders and seeming out of reach on top of the burns.

This morning I was making my espresso in this Italian small espresso pan that I bought to remind me of my year in Switzerland. The moments spent in my host family, drinking espresso and eating Lindt chocolate, were filled with warmth. Often we talked and talked through the coffee session with Monica, my hostmother. She was one of the first adults I ever found who seemed to really live what she believed. But back here in Merihaka, when I took my hot milk out of the microwave and poured the Pirkka espresso into my cup with the town landscape, I suddenly understood what might be the interesting thing about bewilderment.

These days I live my Dream, although it is often uncertain and scary, I actually do all the things that I dreamed of when I was sixteen, oh and a few surprises as well. So the question is "What next?" And it seems to me all the fun things are happening when I relax into the unknown these days. My mind has taken me to its limits. All the dreams I can think up now are in the range of Bigger and Better of something that I already have in essence. So I stand face to face with the Unknown.

Don't get me wrong. I think the Unknown is really crummy. It makes my tummy cringe and my mind screech and rattles me in every way I can imagine. At least at this moment. But then, fun things start to happen.