Creatives & Melancholy

Welcoming the Creativity flowering from your Melancholy

Do you experience this my fellow Creative?

The waves of melancholy?

Me too.

Annoyingly they’re unpredictable, these waves don’t tend to have a schedule. We can be sailing blissfully on our yacht, the sun tickling the sea water with crystal rays. Then be capsized by this inconvenient and disruptive wave of melancholy, that can feel so heavy we risk becoming submerged within it.

It’s difficult to understand with the mind this particular state of being I find because sometimes there really is no story attached to the Melancholy.

It’s just there.

So this time, I decide to get curious and feel into this wave. I stop my default of fight and see where it takes me… It takes me to Etymonline.

I know, so sexy! Not what I was expecting neither but I’m letting the wave lead here.

It does eventually take me to the body’s intuitive intelligence through some Human Design Magick too but we start at the etymology of melancholy, bare with my wave here…

The etymology behind melancholy is connected to excess of black bile in both latin, greek, french history and even sanskrit as ‘dirty, stained’. Yet I can’t help but notice the word ‘Holy’ in this seemingly ugly word.

Old medicine believed that the spleen has a secretion which is beneficial for our bodies but in excess becomes problematic, leading to depression. From a basic understanding of Human Design, a system explaining the energetic blueprint of your design, the spleen centre holds the gates connected with fear, instinct, intuition and the immune system (a helpful blog I found on the spleen centre for HD lovers).

Latest science is showing that the spleen is also connected with the vagus nerve which basically pulls the strings of our nervous system, dictating whether we’re in survival mode which is reactive, contracted and closed off to life; or flourishing, receptive and expansive, relaxing into life.

In Human Design, apparently we can only clear the 7 splenic related fears connected with this centre, through taking action. What action you ask? I believe its’ creative action.

Melancholy can have a mysterious heaviness in your heart and on your body; perhaps an irritability and agitation in the mind. I can’t help but wonder if this is stagnant creative energy.

Could this apparent build up of ‘black bile’ connected with melancholy the ancients referred to, really be a build up of creative juices? The blue vulva/blue balls of creative frustration?

A build up of

The words we never write down.

The stories in our heart we never speak.

The images from our inner eye that we never paint.

The dances our bodies never make.

The Soul’s songs our voices never get to sing.

This Holy energy gets trapped and clogged up in this pipe that is our vessel, leading to excessive amounts of this black bile secretion locked in this portal of the 7 fears, found within the spleen centre.

‘In many shamanic societies, if you came to a medicine person complaining of being disheartened, dispirited, or depressed, they would ask one of four questions: “When did you stop dancing? When did you stop singing? When did you stop being enchanted by stories? When did you stop being comforted by the sweet territory of silence?”

― Gabrielle Roth

This melancholic wave leads me to a belief that Creatives are Alchemists.

Creatives, just like Alchemists have the power to turn lead to Gold and to alchemise Shadow energy to Light energy. We have the power to turn ugly moments into beautiful catalysts for others.

But first we have to begin to befriend the ugly melancholic memories. To witness them with our Artistic eye the beautiful story they implant within for us to share in our own unique blueprinted way, with the world. We are the vehicles for this Holy energy, yet it takes a specific somatic, psychological and inner mechanical make up for being able to hold AND convey this energy.

The wave also leads me to a slight clause in this energetic agreement…we don’t get to keep this energy and the converted stories this energy grows into, within us. We can’t hold onto it for too long and we have to be able to address the fears we have connected with each one of those creative babies to be able to let them go free into the world. When we don’t, well we’ve seen that a build up of this Holy energy leads to melanc-holy my friend.

The melancholic wave tells me that the only way to feel lighter is to empty yourself out. Allow yourself to experience Creative Climax regularly and release that potent energy circulating within you.

Don’t allow your body to become a safe harbor for your Art. The gallery is out there, not in here.

Just like the wave itself, this creative energy is not meant to be contained and hidden. Let yourself be witnessed for its’ not just you being seen in your glory but the ultimate Creator, the lifegiver herself who gently blesses you with the creative touches through the energetic kiss on your forehead. She created you intentionally with this unique internal architecture that’s robust enough to temporarily house the message that only you can convey because she designed only You this way.

She let you, her creative baby out into the world, now you must let your creative babies free.

Remember Creative, in your melancholic moments the antidote to the sorrow is to create. I’m not romanticizing emotionally painful moments but it seems to be part and package of the gift of truly seeing and experiencing the world deeply as a Creative.

Our vessel just simply knows how to magically convert these seemingly undigestiable experiences and information into words, images, movements that others not only understand but are touched by.

Maybe others aren’t always able to feel that energetic kiss on the forehead or hear the whispers of our Creator, so she kisses and whispers to them through You and your Melanc-holy Alchemical Creations instead.

Hi, I’m Toni-Anne. A certified Psychologist bridging the gap between Psychology & Spirituality. If you liked this topic, you can listen to my podcast Soul Journeying Whispers HERE as well as sign up for my regular newsletters of psycho-spiritual mystical musings.