You are a channel of creative energy. The nature of the universe is creative. The earth pulses with generative power. The cyclicality of nature, the potency of plants, the buzzing of insects, the eros in the natural world, the imagination in the consciousness of humans, our animal nature, the ability to make things – it all spins into a thread that weaves the world together. The fabric of the cosmos is woven with the thread of creativity. The creator archetype is a living presence, pulsing within every breath.
The creator archetype is alive in us humans as one of the very core pieces that make us what we are. We are beings who have the ability to imagine something that isn’t there. And not only can we imagine, but we have the ability to bring our vision into form.
We can make beautiful things. We can cause havoc. Our imagination can lead us on mythic quests, on underworld journeys, on roads bedecked in gems, on rides on the back of dragons. It can spiral us into demonization of others. It can make us place people on pedestals. Our imagination can act as glue, and help gather a lot of people around a shared idea. It can also tear people apart, fuel distrust, and spin tales that stir storms of hatred. The archetype of creativity is problem solving, and it’s not excluded from the process of causing problems.
Creativity is at the core of existence, and what we create can also become the very thing that destroys us.
Why We Need The Creator Archetype In These Times Of Uncertainty
We may feel so overwhelmed with the state of the world, anxious about where this is going, worried about basic survival needs, and the poetic heart is not exactly where we think to turn. What inspires us doesn’t fit into the model we’ve built in our minds around times of crisis and upheaval. Our creativity, our soulful, artistic nature is not top priority when we’re not sure we’ll be able to put food on the table.
In times like now, many people feel shut down. Not only discouraged and depressed, but closed off, collapsing with the collapse of the world. We’re bombarded with bad news, overwhelmed with the rat race modernity has us in whether we like it or not, and worried about the future, because between fascism, the looming environmental catastrophe, and global economic uncertainty that fuels anxiety, it’s hard to stay open. People feel vulnerable and exhausted. The struggle is real.
But even anxiety itself is the result of our imagination. We’re anxious because we imagine everything that’s gonna go wrong. Our worry feeds into what we build our lives around.
Without creativity and the ability to imagine, we wouldn’t be able to make progress in scientific discoveries and inventions. Creativity is not only the flow of poetic expression, or the artistic vision that permeates our soul, or the inner music that we dance to while nothing is playing but our own beating heart. Creativity grows as the skeleton around which all of our systems wrap – from language to numbers to our ability to understand biology and chemistry, through how we process what’s happening, how we think about things, where we direct our feelings, how we express what’s on our minds and in our hearts. Without creativity there is no breath.
Between Social Media and AI – Where is Our Creativity?
There are so many concerns and problems we can name right now. And interestingly, while all of them are created by humans and born out of minds that imagine them into being, several of those deeply problematic issues build walls around the imagination, and block the flow of creativity.
From Social Media that sells us the idea of “creator economy” to AI that promises to do the busy work that creators don’t want to do. All while Social Media’s superficiality cuts the cord of innovation and has everyone follow trends, lacking originality, and embodying mediocrity minus. All while AI engines harvest the creative life force of people, leading humans into an era defined by lifeless, robotic, repetitive content, an era defined by not thinking, not processing, not generating anything ourselves.
The archetype of creativity weaves itself through our intelligence, our discernment, our awareness. It comes from and moves through the unconscious, and becomes an expression of possibility, potency, and power. Social Media has made us dumb. AI has made us dumber.
Creator Economy is Not the Creator Archetype
The idea of a creator economy has been so appealing to so many. But where is the creativity in the process of creating content, if all that people “create” replicates what someone else has already done? Where is the creativity if all you do is follow trends? Where is the creativity if all you do is try to make something you think people are into? And where is the economy if only few people at the top actually make a living doing it, and the rest scramble to find other jobs so that they can follow their passion for… influencing?
A creator is someone with passion for art. It’s the poet with her head in the roots and her feet on the clouds. It’s the actor who channels the character, receiving a being into their body, and collaborating with its energy to create a living, breathing entity who fills the words in a script with real life force. It’s the musician who hears a melody, and the dancer who feels rhythm in her bones, a power greater than her moving her body in space.
The creator archetype is obsessed with originality. They follow the core desire to make something that didn’t exist before. They listen to the Muse, they develop skills, they nurture their talents, and they give birth to vision. The greatest fear of the creator archetype is to be mediocre.
Calling the Creator Archetype: The World Needs You!
Who can focus on creativity when politics are so fucked up? How would thinking poetically help us through the falling apart of democracy, decency, the pillars that hold society? How could creativity pull together the scattered energy of forces that work to cultivate equality, equity, and fairness, and help stir the culture in a direction of care and nourishment for all? When we’re facing a continuous shitstorm, our mind doesn’t necessarily go into our deepest, most resourceful core. It jumps and bounces and shoots all over the place.
The wildness of the imagination forms conspiracy theories. The wildness of the imagination can also be our guide out of the harm of conspiracy theories. We need wildness, and we need some structure. Boundaries. Consideration of many parts and pieces.
Our imagination created a world steeped in greed and harm, and formed a reality saturated in unrealistic expectations, unmanageable schedules, and a distorted view on the meaning of life. It’s our imagination and our creativity that can pull us toward processes that generate more nurturing and nourishing ways. We must engage the imagination, and follow the inspiration toward a healthier path.
What if what we need right now, more than anything, is the visionary, the dreamer, and the bard to come from within us and form an artistic alliance that radiates into the culture, and forms a collective of creative care?
To call on the creator archetype is to embody it.
What is the Creator Archetype?
The creator archetype is the energy in us that shapes our lives. It’s the artist, the visionary and the poet, sure, and it’s also the power of words and thoughts that form the reality that we experience. It’s the innovative spirit. It’s the person who is ready to break the patterns of consensus. It’s the energy that bubbles within, ready to erupt and create a new landscape.
It’s the thing that changes reality, breaks the routine, and brings something new to the world. And it’s also the way that creation comes through repetition and effort, consistency and commitment.
In stories, the creator archetype shows up as the inventor, the mad scientist, or the artist; so devoted to their work, so immersed in their invention, so possessed by their vision, that they can’t see the impact it might have on others.
The inventor is the energy that pulls us from the old to the new. It’s the power of the imagination becoming reality. Ingenuity flows in the arteries and veins of the Creator. She pushes the boundaries of the known, and floods reality with renewal. In real life we can think of technological advancements as the creator archetype. The Inventor is Steve Jobs. It’s also Oppenheimer.
Progress is made with creativity. And progress is not without shadow.
Sometimes this archetype is portrayed as selfish. But I think that the beauty of the archetype is that it’s made of creativity. And creativity is a river. It flows. It’s more powerful than our ability to have control. The archetype surrounds us. It’s the air we breathe. It’s the power of Muse that takes possession of the artist. And we are not just the river, we are also the earth itself. And the earth is a generative power. The earth is creativity embodied. You are the soil that is changed by the waters. And you are the strength of the ground and its ability to form banks to the river.
Where Would You Like to Direct Your Creativity?
To embody the creative archetype is not only to be possessed by the Muse, it’s also to give her a container, to build a temple for her power, to let her guide us in the ways that we shape the vision and bring it into form.
We create ourselves within a creative universe that creates us. We create society within a society that creates us. We are the makers of a world that makes us. It’s tangled. It’s complex. It’s a “both and” reality.
So while the creator archetype might be thought of as so wildly possessed by their vision, self centered because they think that what they are inventing is more important than anything else, we also have the capacity within the archetype to push the boundaries of the archetype and revolutionize it.
Our creativity can be directed toward collective care, toward healthier ways of living, toward family and friends and community, toward care of the land.
The work of the earth can become the innovation that’s at the heart of the vision. If we see soil as sacred, we can re-envision how we show up, and reorganize our actions around this reorientation.
The work of the hearth, in the home, in the garden, caring for children and the elderly, growing and making food that nourishes ourselves and others – that can also become a creative pursuit.
The work of weaving vision and everyday life, the poetic and the domestic, the animalistic and the considerate, the magical and the mundane, the intellectual and the earthy, the embodied and the vastness of the unknown. How we collect and interact, interpret and interweave all the different parts of who we are – that’s creative!
Recreating the Vision of Creativity
We have been accustomed to thinking of creativity in a way that is not so creative. We can change that. We can reignite the fire of creativity in areas we have forgotten about. We can spark inspiration that carries the artist in the direction of change – not changing the art world, but changing the way we see the world. And by doing that, we can make changes in the world itself.
I’m not talking grand changes, because I think this heroic vision is not sustainable. I’m talking small changes in the way that we talk to ourselves. Small shifts in how we show up for each other. Small moments when we’re willing to change the lens through which we’ve looked at the world so far, and incorporate a greater perspective.
How to Break Free From Patterns That Keep Us Stuck: The Artist Block Removed
Every artist, visionary, writer, poet, and inventor has moments or periods of stagnation. Sometimes it’s actual stuckness. Sometimes it’s a matter of reorientation. Sometimes what we think of as stuckness is incubation.
Deep in the ground that feels stuck, lives the sacred spark of inspiration. Inspiration is at the core of creativity, and it’s not always a big shift that will make a difference. Sometimes it’s the gentle blowing on the embers of the imagination. It’s a simple act of kindness. It’s a gentle movement of the body to wake up the Muse. It’s a slow and tender reorganization and reinterpretation of our stories that is the energy with which we call upon the Creator Archetype, and bring it to life.
You can do it through song, through dance, through yoga. You can do it through writing, through conversation, through reimagining. You can do it through reading and cooking and listening to music and moving your body while stirring onions in olive oil on the stove.
If you want to tend to the process of reorientation through a structured process that will help you unleash your creativity by tending to the muse within the places that feel stuck, the journey From Stillness To Spark will support you and guide you ever so gently into the soulfulness of your artist heart. To learn more and to ignite that spark, go here.
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If you wish to create a ritual to call in the creator archetype, download my free ritual guide. It is full of ideas and wisdom to support you in the art of ritual, to stir the unconscious in conscious ways, and create a sacred relationship with life.
Thank you so much for reading and exploring with me.
Much love,
Hagar