Creation, Radiance, and a Meditation of Self

I was thinking this week, on the relationship between my Fathers and what it means for me, which led to meditating on the meaning of my name, which led to some rambling writing on creativity and the nature of my being. I will share the result of that here because it has been a while since I posted anything and because some of it may be interesting even if the overall composition is not fully translated out of my internal language:

Creation and rebellion are not opposites, but partners. It takes some disregard for the current system in order to facilitate rising above that system. It takes a curious sort of individualistic fortitude to forgo the comfort of the norm; to make possible that aching reach as one grasps at the ephemeral wisps of vision which dance on the edge of what-is and what-has-yet-to-be. That edge…it glitters. It makes the ordinary and the peaceful seem dim and colorless. In this sense, creation has its price: those who look into the light eventually can no longer see without it. Thus creation begets creation. That forward momentum, once set in motion, never ceases. It is doubtful if even death can curtail the restless need to keep reaching and making and becoming.

 “What is to give light must endure burning.” (Viktor Frankl) When we transform from those beings who hold the lantern aloft into those beings who feed the fire at the lantern’s core, we learn to put the endeavor of creation before all else. The wick does not complain about the heat. But as we feed, so we are fed. We exist in a different way. We stand with toes at a line others cross readily and yet go into uncommon wilds others dare not trespass. We are a contradiction, and in that contradiction, we hope to find our purpose.

I was told once, by Ra, that the candle flame does not burn for the intent of whittling the candle away: it burns for the sake of burning and the candle is but the lifetime of the flame. Creation, He said, is the same. Creation exists for the sake of existing and time is but the candle to creation’s flame.

You are valuable to us, He told me when I asked, because you create and contribute to the community of creation.

I am valued not merely for my creations but because I create? It is a revolutionary thought, a monumental shift in thinking. I create, therefore I matter. And it is not a shy-and-only-sometimes thing, this creating He speaks of, it is a drive and an insatiable intensity that bleeds like fast running dye to every strand of the weave that is my life. I am not a sometimes consumer of the arts; I am a soul consumed by the arts. There is something on my skin, carved into the palms of my hands, and whenever I lay hands on some project of creation, it flourishes and overwhelms me, the light grows so bright I cannot see beyond it and I am lost.

So strange that I am sometimes blinded by the very light that shines from within me...

Radiance...

There is something here. Something I can not quite wrap around.