Creativity is strongly linked to meditation and relaxation.

In particular, there is a strong link between poetry and spiritualiy.

Poetry works through metaphor, analogy, allusion, and rhythm to transcend the limits of ordinary language.

To experience spiritual states also means connecting to the muse.

In addition to being a psychologist, I am a poet. I never consciously intend to write poems; the impulse just comes to me from time to time. Sometimes a line or a phrase of a poem comes into my head, or sometimes an idea or a framework for a whole poem. Then I sit down and start writing. It’s partly a process of crafting the raw material into a finished, structured whole and partly a process of remaining open, to allow other material to flow through and become part of the whole.

If from anywhere, I would say that my poems come from "spiritual" states, moments of heightened awareness in which I feel connected to a deeper self, to nature, and to other people. I have noticed that I'm more likely to feel the impulse to write poems after a good meditation, after a quiet walk in the countryside, or just after a period of rest.

This fits with research showing that meditation and other relaxed states of mind can enhance creativity. Many of the greatest ideas and inventions in human history emerged from daydreams, dreams or other relaxed states.

Poetry and Spirituality

Particularly in poetry, there is a strong link between creativity and spirituality. For many poets, spiritual experiences—that is, moments of heightened awareness, of inner peace, of harmony and unity—are a powerful source of inspiration. Poetry seems to be the outbreath of spiritual experience, the natural expression of higher states of awareness—moments of intense perception, deep compassion, or of oneness and gratitude. They are moments in which we transcend our normal identity, our normal sense of separation, and experience unity and harmony.

Of course, there are many different types of poetry that emerge in many different ways. Not all poets are mystics. But spiritual experiences are often expressed in a poetic form. This is why so many poets have been mystics, whose main poetic aim was to convey the insights and visions from their spiritual experiences.

In English literature, this tradition began in the 17th century, with poets such as Henry Vaughan and Thomas Traherne, and continued through the Romantic movement of the late 18th and early 19th centuries, with figures such as William Blake and William Wordsworth. The United States has produced many fine spiritual poets, such as Walt Whitman (perhaps the greatest of all!), Mary Oliver, and Wendell Berry. Around the world, the Sufi poets Rumi and Hafiz, the Japanese poet Basho, and Indian poets such as Kabir and Tagore can be counted among the greats of spiritual poetry.

Beyond Normal Language

Many of the world’s great spiritual texts are written in a poetic form, too, such as the Upanishads and the Dao de Jing. It’s almost as if spiritual insights and experiences command a poetic form, beyond the constraints of ordinary language with its tenses and terms dividing future and past, subject and object. Describing spiritual experiences in ordinary language is like trying to catch water with a net.

Poetry is suited to convey spiritual experiences through metaphor, analogy, allusion, and rhythm, transcending the limits of normal language. There’s a Zen saying that "the finger that points at the moon is not the moon." But poetry can be the moon.

Using Meditation as a Creative Tool

In my work on creativity and spirituality, I encourage people to think of the two as facets of the same deep state of being. To become spiritual is to be creative, and to be creative is to be spiritual.

From this perspective, connecting to your muse—or overcoming writer's block—is actually quite simple. It's a matter of cultivating a spiritual state, by relaxing and meditating. Spiritual states are by no means unusual; in fact, as I have found in the creativity sessions that I lead, they can be fairly easily induced by guided meditations and visualisations.

Creativity, then, involves calming the turbulence on the surface of the mind and entering deeper levels of being, where inspiration is more likely to flow. Connecting to our deeper spiritual selves also means connecting to the muse.

Ding, X., Tang, Y. Y., Tang, R., & Posner, M. I. (2014). Improving creativity performance by short-term meditation. Behavioral and brain functions : BBF, 10, 9. https://doi.org/10.1186/1744-9081-10-9

Henriksen, D., Heywood, W., & Gruber, N. (2022). Meditate to create: mindfulness and creativity in an arts and design learning context. Creativity Studies, 15(1), 147–168. https://doi.org/10.3846/cs.2022.13206

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