Creation and Creativity

We thought of this cello and spoken word reflection on creation and creativity almost as three interlocking sets, a sort of Venn diagram.

First there was the big question - as addressed by Genesis and Big Bang Theory and creation mythsof other cultures, of why anything 'is'. Why is there anything rather than not? And how did this 'is-ness' come about?

And then there is another creativity - that of our own adult sexuality, where two beings become remolded into one being, and from which new life can become. An act of becoming. However, as in the case of art and God, our other two big themes, by directly referring to sex and placing it under too direct a scrutiny, meaning can all but evaporate; metaphor, allegory and allusion are often better travelling companions when exploring this territory.

The third set of this Venn diagram is our own creativity. Many of us paint or write poetry or knit or garden or cook creatively. But there is a more subliminal involuntary kind of creativity that we are engaged in every moment of our waking life and more vividly still in our dreams.

We cannot know but the slightest morsel of the lived experience of another person and so we create narratives of one another, constantly amended, through which we can interpret and understand and interact and connect with one another. And we, in turn, are created by others. 'What do other people MAKE of us?' is a question we often ask ourselves. So we are all engaged in a joint enterprise of one another's creation. We 'create' one another.

And it doesn't end there. The images on this screen have no colour intrinsic to them. Nothing does. Instead light from the Sun or from an artificial source strikes a surface which, in turn, has the capacity to absorb some of the rays from the light spectrum. But some it cannot absorb and they will be reflected off the surface, through your lens, via your retina through your optic nerve and your central nervous and cognitive systems which will create colour. The colour is created in your head. The images are all in your imagination. The viewer and the painter, the composer the musician and the listener are all engaged in a joint enterprise, a coming together to create what is.

As individuals and as a society we are in great danger if we ever lose interest in the question 'how did I, how did we, get to where we are now?' 'Where did it all begin?' 'Why IS anything?'

(Performed by David Harries and Mayda Narvey at St Barnabas Church, SW18, 19/12/15