Creativity And The Heart

The ancient Chinese call our creative faculty “Tao”, the way of life. With our heart, our waters become the flow of our energy in the world, all emotions being welcomed into the field of life. Those who articulate the waters often lend words to the feelings of all people, like John Newton who wrote amazing grace after his heart conversion, and having once been a slave trader, became a dedicated abolitionist. His words, “amazing grace, how sweat the sound that save a wrench like me, for I was lost and now I am found, was blind but now I see.” Are words that lift us all.

Our heart is our source of our deepest insights.

What is it that your heart tells you? Let your heart speak, find your voice, and help others find theirs. This determination, according to Stephen Covey, is the greatest of all skills, what he calls “the 8^th habit.”

Emily, my youngest daughter, is a water child. She feels deeply, and is a keen observer of life. At age four she made her first poem, when I answer one of her questions that had to do with the movement of the moon and the stars. This is what Emily had to say:

“The sky is blue, the clouds are red, and the moon and the stars are asleep in their bed.”

At age eight, as we were driving in our road of French Gulch, she spontaneously said, “sometimes, the clouds in the sky become the way to heaven.”

And when her beloved cat died at age three, Emily made poems for her, and honored her memory with a photo of her in our living room. “Pumpkin” was her name, because she had some orange fur, and had come to us during the season of Halloween. And there was sadness and joy in Emily’s heart, her tender heart big enough for both of them, what the Brazilians refer to as “saudachi”, sad-joy.

Water people also develop through their journey of life. When they are children, they tend to live in the reality of their emotions: what they feel is their criteria for reality. They easily take things to heart, and are often hurt by behaviors that others either ignore or let go by. We will do well in helping them articulate what is going through their heart. They often bring a higher sensitivity to their social environment. For them, nothing is far away. An ordinary photo in the newspaper can stay with them. Like a child who learned of the need of water in Africa, and got involved in raising funds for a well. That became his task, the photo that we let seat on our table, with nothing but a passing feeling. Not for this little guy. And the well was dig, and the people of the village wanted to know the name of this child, and they named their well after him. Water child. He stayed with the feeling until he found resolution. The water is the solution: his action, the resolution. The child lives was made whole. But feeling without action can become a source of suffering. That is why wise teachers tell us that suffering is a call to action, not just for us to afflict ourselves with emotions of hurt or pain. Feel, do. That is the nature of the flow of water. That is why the lady of the lake appears to King Arthur, and gives him the sword, Excalibur, to bring justice to the world. Of this water calling, Jesus said, “and bless are those who cry for justice, for they claim will be fulfilled.”

Thomas Aquinas said that there was something wrong with those who were unperturbed by the injustices of the world. He said that there was something such as “rightful anger”. There was indeed, the extreme of negative anger, rage, “ira-cundia” and it’s opposite, being a wimp. But in the middle between these two extremes, in the area of “manas inominata” (in the unnamed field) lives the virtuous anger, the rightful indignation against abuse and injustice, that place from where a Gandhi rises, or a Mandela, or a Helen Caldecott, the Pediatrician who gave up her practice to denounced nuclear weapon proliferation all over the world.

Water people are often called for tasks that seem insurmountable. Such was the case of the first female student to ever be admitted into the school of Medicine, in Italy, at the turn of the 20^th century. Maria was welcomed by her teachers and colleagues, to undertake a trial by fire. She was given the mentally retarded children, the poorest of the poor in the central hospital of Rome. Surrounded by these children, Maria felt her heart break, the waters too abundant for her heart. It was then that she heard these powerful words that often come to the aid of water people: “when you reach the end of the road, the journey begins!”

And her journey began then and there. She got back on her feet, saw the children, and saw them as children. What is it that they needed? They needed to learn, to study, to grow. They needed their childhood back. That is what her heart told her. It did not say how: just what needed to be done, what was needed, what was fair. And the sword appeared. Her will became unbreakable, her love, unlimited. And she made the way by walking. She focused on each one of those children, and allowed them to guide her in her efforts to teach them. And teach them she did, and in the process brought forth a method that still illuminates the lives of countless children around the world. I am so glad she did not give up. I am so glad that she endured, and went the distance, and listened to her heart. Her last name? Montessori.