My childhood was filled with enchanting stories from ancient scriptures.
They arrived dressed in symbols, metaphors, gods, goddesses, animals, impossible events, and worlds that seemed far removed from ordinary life.
Yet, somehow, they always felt intimate.
Of all the stories I encountered, I was especially drawn to the goddesses associated with knowledge, creativity, and abundance: Saraswati and Lakshmi.
There was a simple teaching I remembered:
Follow Saraswati, and Lakshmi will follow.
Or, as the story was sometimes told more playfully: follow Saraswati, and Lakshmi will become jealous and shower you with abundance.
For years, I was fascinated by this idea.
What did it mean to follow knowledge?
What did it mean to devote oneself to creativity?
And why would abundance become a consequence?
Perhaps the answer has less to do with acquiring anything and more to do with becoming familiar with the place from which life naturally wants to express itself.
We often speak about creativity as though it belongs primarily to artists.
Painting.
Music.
Writing.
Dance.
Design.
But before there is a painting, there is perception.
Before there is music, there is listening.
Before there is writing, there is attention.
Before there is creation, there is a relationship with existence.
What interests me is not creativity as a product.
It is the place from which creativity is born.
The atmosphere from which something begins to move through us.
A place that feels relaxed.
Effortless.
Pleasurable.
Playful.
Beautiful.
Alive.
This is what I notice when I look at images of Saraswati and Lakshmi.
They are not pictured as exhausted from proving their worth.
They are not chasing.
They are not bracing against life.
They appear available to it.
And perhaps availability is one of the conditions of creativity.
Creativity Begins as an Atmosphere
Before creativity becomes a thing, it may first become an atmosphere.
A way of inhabiting yourself.
A quality of attention.
A relationship with sensation.
An openness to being moved.
Pleasure.
Curiosity.
Ease.
Devotion.
Wonder.
When these qualities become familiar, the mind is no longer required to force everything into existence.
It has somewhere to play.
This is important.
The rational mind is not the enemy of creativity.
But perhaps it was never meant to be the sole architect of it.
The mind can organize.
Refine.
Shape.
Build.
But something else must first give it life.
An experience.
A perception.
An intuition.
A sensation.
A question.
A desire.
An encounter with beauty.
Creativity begins when something touches us deeply enough that it wants to become form.
How do you experience power?
Your experience of life is shaped, in part, by what you repeatedly attend to.
What you notice.
What you recognize.
What you expect.
What you allow yourself to receive.
And the sensations and feelings that accompany those experiences.
What has your attention begins to shape your experience.
What you repeatedly experience becomes familiar.
What becomes familiar can become embodied.
This is why creativity cannot be separated entirely from awareness.
The way you perceive life influences what becomes possible to express through it.
A person who has become intimate with beauty will create differently.
A person who has become intimate with wonder will ask different questions.
A person who has become intimate with belonging will build differently.
A person who has become intimate with their own nature may no longer need to force creativity.
Creativity begins to become the spontaneous expression of what they have learned to inhabit.
Archetypes as Invitations
This is where archetypes can be invited back into our lives.
Not necessarily as identities we must become.
But as invitations.
Saraswati can invite us into a relationship with wisdom, curiosity, refinement, and creative expression.
Lakshmi can invite us into a relationship with beauty, abundance, pleasure, and flourishing.
When we contemplate an archetype deeply, we begin to notice what it evokes within us.
We can ask:
What qualities come alive when I encounter this image?
How does my body respond to it?
What becomes possible when I allow these qualities to become familiar?
Perhaps embodiment begins this way.
Not by becoming someone else.
But by recognizing aspects of ourselves that have been waiting for permission to live.
The archetype becomes a mirror.
And through repeated attention, experience, and practice, what once felt distant can begin to feel familiar.
What becomes familiar can become embodied.
And what becomes embodied can become expression.
This is creative.
The Spontaneity of Knowing Your Nature
Perhaps knowing your true nature is not the same as being able to describe yourself.
It is not simply knowing your personality.
Your profession.
Your talents.
Your purpose.
Perhaps knowing your true nature is recognizing the conditions under which life moves through you with the least resistance.
What fascinates you.
What moves you.
What you naturally notice.
What you love.
What gives you energy.
What you can receive.
What wants to be expressed.
When we become intimate with these movements, creativity stops being something we visit occasionally.
It becomes a way of living.
You don’t have to force every moment into a masterpiece.
You begin to recognize that creation is already happening.
In the way you arrange a room.
In the questions you ask.
In the meals you prepare.
In your relationships.
In the work you choose.
In the atmosphere you create around others.
In the way you meet a moment.
Perhaps creativity is not something reserved for artists.
Perhaps it is the spontaneous expression of a human being who has become intimate with their own nature.
And perhaps this is the deeper invitation behind Saraswati and Lakshmi.
Follow what makes you more alive.
Become devoted to what brings you into relationship with your deepest intelligence.
Learn the texture of your own knowing.
Let the mind play.
Let the body receive.
Let experience become familiar.
And then let life express itself through you.
You may discover that creativity was never something you had to become.
It was what happened when you became available to who you already were.
