Finding Your Divine Creativity

Cracks are how the light gets in. 

Ring the bells that still can ring,
Forget your perfect offering,
There is a crack,
a crack in everything,
That’s how the light gets in.

—“Anthem” by Leonard Cohen

He walked into the office. It was late, but he didn’t stop to turn on the light. His favorite music usually helped, but it was not soothing tonight. He had failed. For the first time in his life, he had humiliated himself. In public, in front of a courtroom packed with people. This did not happen to him.  

From a young age, he had been taught to be organized and structured. His room was neat; his homework always prepared. He had been taught to set goals and follow the rules. Swimming and track were his sports. There were awards for scholarships and athletics. A serious demeanor did not prevent him from being well-liked. He fit in. A good university followed high school, and a good law school followed university. Then, the right law firm. Interesting cases. He always believed that success through the law was his destiny. Until this last case. What had happened? He still was not quite sure. He had overlooked a small piece that did not quite fit but seemed so insignificant. This appeared to be a cut-and-dried case. The usual.

That small piece blew up in his face during the trial. He looked like a fool for missing something so obvious. With this one error, he had become a joke, a laughing stock behind his back. What had happened? What was going on? People make mistakes. No one is perfect. There are always winners and losers in a trial. Life itself is like that. You deal. You accept. You move on. Or the shortfalls stay with you, creating shadows within. Uncomfortable. Unresolved. None of these thoughts helped because the crack in his armor was beginning to reveal a piece of him not recognized before. It was a fragile piece, not worthy of his lifelong training. This piece of him longed to create music. He could hear his music in his head now. The world of law bored him. How could this be? Law was his life.

He sat with his shame, head in his hands, feeling that his world was crumbling around him. It left him unprotected and uncertain. The energy of a lifetime of training, structure and goals was disintegrating slowly.

Our hero had been born into a family where structure provided emotional safety and a program for one style of success in the world. The ego forms to keep us safe as we face a lifetime of people and events that challenge what we have learned from our early environment. We develop ways to mitigate these challenges: arrogance or hiding and not speaking up, perhaps arguing or fighting or the opposite, being pleasant to avoid conflict, and more. We can protect our illusions of reality in various ways. The ego allows no challenges to that safety, but no real growth happens if we don’t take chances and step out of our bubble of illusion. We usually start with small steps outside of our comfort zones. Small mistakes. We take a breath and go on. Small wins. We feel good. We have learned from both. This is how we begin to enlarge our comfort zone. This is how we open to other perspectives.  

The mind operates in conjunction with the ego. It organizes emotion, cognition, and input from the world around us. This input has to pass through the filters of the ego and then the mind, so the validity of new input should be open to reevaluation over time.  

Imagine that you are the hero. Think about your life. What would you be willing to risk? Even as the Light is opening tantalizing insights about your unique soul path? Freedom is calling you, but so is the familiar. There is no right answer. There are choices. Risks. Opportunities for deep growth, either way. When we can align in trust with the Light, we are choosing risk, but also coming into alignment with our true nature. What is the Light? All possibility.