Over the many years I’ve kept journals, diaries and idea notebooks, I’ve noticed that standard stages of the writing process (pre-writing, drafting, rewriting and publishing) don’t come close to describing my own process.
The traditional four-stage creativity process of preparation, incubation, illumination and implementation doesn’t fit the writing I do for my eyes alone either, even when I wind up eventually publishing it.
This week as I reread Dance of the Spirit by Maria Harris (Bantam, 1989) I was moved by her take on the creative process. Harris, who discusses spiritual development, divides the process of creating our spiritual expression into five steps: Contemplation, Engagement, Formgiving, Emergence, and Release.
Contemplation calls us to look and to see. It is a quiet process, requiring, not effort, but stillness and receptivity instead.
Engagement pulls us further into the work. Harris writes that at this stage “…the movement is shaped by diving in, wrestling with, sinking into and meeting” what we are creating. We get inside it and allow it to get inside of us.
Formgiving, says Harris, is the time when we mold, brood and hover,in order to shelter and encourage the new form.
Emergence occurs when we achieve clarity from this struggle. Writes Harris, “We stand at a new place, and yet it seems as if we are returning to a familiar one, but with a greater wholeness.”
Release is the letting go time, when we intuitively know the creation is complete and we rest.
I like Harris’s labels and I like the way she talks about moving through these phases from rest to action to rest again. According to her , as we complete one step, sometimes we “lean” into the next one. Sometimes the next step “claims” us.
After I’d finished the book, I wondered at the fact that a book on spiritual development seemed to get so much closer to the heart of the writing process than the dozens of books I’ve read by experts and theorists. And then I knew. For me, writing is a pathway of spiritual development. If I re-vision the way I think about the process and what it means to put words on paper, I just may find myself writing my way home.
What imagery do each of these words evoke for you: contemplation, engagement, formgiving, emergence and release? Write about these images. If other creation words come to mind, write them down as well as the images they evoke. When you are finished, continue writing – this time about how these images relate to one another and to what happens inside of you when you write. How do you stop yourself from leaning into the next step? What could you do to allow the next step to more easily claim you?