When I was in primary school I saved up all my birthday monies and in the school holidays, without telling anyone, went and bought a couple of very expensive oil paint tubes and a canvas. My intention was to paint the things that appeared normal to everyone else but me – or so I imagined.
I had this innate respect for, and curiosity about, the tiniest ant to the oldest rock. This gave me an incredible desire to want to communicate my feelings about the natural beauty and mystique of existence with the rest of the world.
I tried expressing my wonder of the world in words (I still have some of my youthful poetic attempts), but I was too young for clarity. How, then, to share what I saw and felt? As a 10 year old, I reasoned that perhaps paints would be the medium to successfully bring me into communion with life’s sentience. After all, when we dream we create entire, detailed realities, so I assumed that I would also be able to replicate this imaginative skill onto canvas.
I remember that first (and last) oil painting: a large close-up of three vibrant blue and yellow pansies. Disappointingly, the intricacy of nature’s magical evolution could not be captured by this first time artist.
I went on to study acting, trying to make all that unending intangible, tangible through performance. My desire was to stir just one heart to beat with the rhythm of my own.
I wrote books, Reiki books, trying to wrestle words into a form that could make sense of all that unseeable.
Looking back, I realise this is what we call the creative drive or impulse. It is a desire to communicate something, and the hopeful finding of that something powers the creative process.
Although each creative process is unique to the individual, it is not a new thing. We are creative in every moment, as we make choices, fix “mistakes” or just speak. In the newness of each moment of existence creativity reigns. This, as always, brings me home to the Reiki Precepts; those insightful guidelines that provide the answers to all questions.
As herd animals, we are helpless at the feet of our epiphanies – they must be shared. Sharing is the deepest form of compassion where the self and others both give and receive in the one instance. Perhaps, in this moment – for today only – our communication, our sharing, validates existence and opens a space for us to be in peace, without anger, worry or fear. When we are inspired to work with the system of Reiki we share that peace, whether we are actually treating ourselves or someone else or simply walking down the street in our own peaceful open space.
Based in Australia, Bronwen Logan (Stiene) teaches the system of Reiki is co-founder of the International House of Reiki and Shibumi International Reiki Association as well as co-author of the critically acclaimed books The Reiki Sourcebook, The Japanese Art of Reiki, A-Z of Reiki Pocketbook, Reiki Techniques Card Deck and Your Reiki Treatment. Bronwen is also the voice of their audiobooks and of the Reiki meditations available in the shop.