The Creative Spark

As a musician and writer the search for the creative spark is a lifelong quest. Understanding how we reach that place of illumination has always fascinated me especially after connecting with Chrissy Philp and her beautiful study of the brain as a map of the cosmos in her book ‘The Golden City’. My interest in balancing the worlds of science and spirituality are colliding with great force at the moment and Jill Bolte Taylor’s Ted talk about having a stroke in the left hemisphere of her brain and the gifts that brought her, together with the article in the Guardian recently which was an extract from Jonah Lehrer’s ‘Imagine: How Creativity Works’ (pub. Canongate Books) have greatly enriched my journey. In Lehrer’s piece he discusses the idea that before the insight, the left hemisphere has to have given up all hope of finding what it has been looking for. In that moment of dispair it stops ‘trying’ and quietens so that the right hemisphere can be kicked into action. I feel this will resonate with anyone who has had any moments of insight of creative inspiration.