Previously Hidden

When we become immersed in any creative activity, we bring on ourselves a sense of rapt attention, of rapture, of departure from ego, from time and from place.We see in to the heart of things and get a glimpse of something that was previously hidden. In this way the creative act is a mystical experience.

Soul is closer to movement than it is to fixity, said Socrates, and loss of soul is the condition of being stuck - fixated on something, as the psychologists would say - and overcome by the downward - pushing forces that govern all bodies: gravity and inertia.

The arts, being about creativity and therefore change, are ideal for leading us toward movement, whether we do a dance with life on the line or oscillate between stepping up to a canvas and stepping back or go in hot pursuit of a calling.