On mature creativity & serenity

Last night I had a very exciting, energizing and revealing dream. Somewhere a working theatre was in action. While following the acts I met several people who had played some role in my past: a former student, a daughter of old friends in our small village and alike. To our surprise we told each other about serious faults, failures and crises in our lives. Which we had - with much trial and error - finally learned to transform into some form of creative activity. And we all were deeply grateful and happy about this. We were so glad to recognize these different individual creative experiences in their basic structure. And on top of that the theatre performance we attended turned around a similar cathartic drama. In spite of all our tears and suffering we were all feeling in touch with each other in a very enthusiastic way. I remember the energetic feeling of deep satisfaction and mutual recognition waking up in the middle of the night. What a wonderful dream!

Transforming failure and crisis into creative activity. What a blessing when growing older and wiser, you discover that your old sadness comes out to find a new role: that of the firewood which burns into flickering flames: as a Phoenix we can rise again from our ashes. If we have the courage to prepare our deep selves for the leap into the abyss of such a radical transformation, this Blissful Yearning of which Goethe wrote:

Tell this to no one but the wise,
for the masses will just ridicule it:
I would praise the living thing
that yearns for death in the flames.
…..
And so long as you have not attained it,
this, "Die and become!",
you will only be a gloomy guest
on this dark earth.

This is core matter of discovering mature creativity together with all the solitary and shared pleasures of playing spontaneously, finding your serenity far from the madding crowd, like that dressed woman sitting on a quiet part of the beach, I saw cycling back over the dunes on this sunny monday afternoon.