Creativity in Captivity 🐉

Time to defy your limits.

I spotted this beauty with my daughter Wren. Whenever we need a tire change on our cars she hops along for the ride and as we wait, we visit the pet shop.

Wren is 6, homeschooled, and as my Mother would put it “a wild one”.

A wild one in all the good ways, much like this beautiful specimen of a creature.

As I took this photo, I gazed down upon my daughter as she reflected upon what she saw. I could see the wheels turning within her mind and it reminded me of a moment I had, at a similar age - again in a pet shop.

For me, it was the unsettling sight of a Macaw parrot that seemed to be anxiously plucking at its own feathers that inspired my own wheels to turn.

Spotted with bald patches yet still intact with the signatures of its vibrant colours, this image and the feelings attached to it stay with me until this day.

It brings up and stirs deep emotions in me still.

However what I see in the eyes of this Chinese water dragon and indeed in those of my daughters is a healthy level of defiance.

And as I reflect now I think that is what scared me with the parrot. Its circumstances, essentially its imprisonment, had finally turned the tide of its inner world and capacity for defiance, and thus that pain was projected inward.

When a creature starts to believe that freedom is an impossibility, when the cage we are in guilds and forges guidelines for our thoughts and desires, we start to attack the very essence that makes us who we are and the very things that make us beautiful.

I continue to search into the places I fear I might be defeated, deleted & compromised.

This journey, of self-discovery and self-liberation, is not all “love & light”.

Each of us has our own cage. Each of us has our own villains who helped us build it. Each of us holds the keys to set ourselves free.

I could write here about the power of positivity, of mindset, of energy, of other realms, etc…

But my message to you today is to find that part of you that will not be conquered.

That will not be squashed. That will not be imprisoned. That will resist. That will burn.

That will triumph.

Look into the eyes again of this creature. See the undefeated nature of its spirit.

See how it transcends the confines of its box - from this life into the next.

For me, this is creativity in a nutshell. You are this spirit. You are unreplicable.

You are Life itself.

Let your actions show this. Take up space, take up room.

And begin to break the walls you may have assumed to exist.

In a world where everything has to have an answer perhaps the most rebellious act is to embrace the mystery.

And as always - the first mystery to start with - is you.

Take this message as one from my unconquerable heart straight to yours.

Tread meekly no more. Especially when you start to see the box you are in.

That is when your essence is needed more than ever.

Your creativity is waiting. Your creativity is calling you.

Be bold. Be Beautiful. Be You.

Oliver.