In the Beginning, We Created: On Spirituality, the Muse, and the Paradox of Creation
Creativity is inherently a spiritual act. Historically, we cannot disentangle our human relationship to the sacred from our relationship to human works. Linguistically, we can tie “creativity” to “creation” quite obviously, and any numinous tradition has a creation myth to either metaphorically or literally (depending on your personal interpretation) ground the belief system into application.
If you were to begin researching the history of religion, your studies would start with the creation myth, as the creation myth is also the start of all religions. Across the vast number of creation myths we now have, we can also find some very similar principles and requirements. In Thomas King’s The Truth About Stories, we read, “The truth about stories is that that’s all we are… So you have to be careful with the stories you tell. And you have to watch out for the stories that you are told. But if I ever get to Pluto, that’s how I would like to begin. With a story… But which story? That's the question. Personally, I’d want to hear a creation story, a story that recounts how the world was formed, how things came to be, for contained within creation stories are the relationships that help to define the nature of the universe and how cultures understand the world in which they exist.” (10). King’s beautiful description of creation stories offers, not only an explanation of what is found across nearly every creation myth we have access to, but also why we find these themes.
From the very beginning of time, our relationship to the divine has relied upon the human being’s capacity to create through storytelling. And through our creation of the creation myth, we create g-ds¹ who have the divine ability to create universes. In the beginning, you can already sense the paradoxical nature built into creation. Human beings have always, and likely always will, strive to understand, “Why?” What’s the meaning of life? Why am I here? Why is there something rather than nothing?
And in order to answer our own question of “Why was I created?” our answer was to create. In the absence of knowledge of creation, we were compelled to create. And so, human beings created our own creation. In the very act of beginning to explain creation, we rely upon it. And it is within this paradox that creativity rests. This is the dialogue we enter into when we set off on a creative path. We are communing with a history of existentialism, oral history, tribe-specific g-ds, and the inexplicable but inexorable human capacity for curiosity.
To create is to mimic the g-d we created.
Before we discuss communing with this vast and rich history as present creators, it’s important to ground that discussion in my current conception of our shared metaphysics. If we are communing across time (perhaps in Dreamtime, a concept that comes out of Aboriginal Australian myth) with our ancestors and descendants, with our ranging conceptions of creation, and with g-d through our relationship to creation, we should discuss how I am using the term g-d.
Firstly, I think it’s obvious that I find human beings and humanity to be on the same plane as g-d in terms of power (not dimension). Western thought tends to lock us into linear and hierarchical thinking that is largely inaccurate in material reality and unhelpful in philosophical thinking. Placing any being, g-d or not, above the human being already begins to frog the sweater of religions and belief systems that rely upon an omni-g-d². If g-d was created by us to both create and save us, are we not creating and saving ourselves?
It is paradoxical thinking like this that has led me to develop what I call a radically inclusive spiritual worldview. Many thinkers come to these realizations and deconstruct the possibility of any spiritual tradition being remotely true. Other thinkers will then develop an opposite pluralistic approach that holds all religious traditions to be true, in their own flawed ways. I certainly fall more in the camp of the latter, but I like to take it even further. What if not only all traditions are true in the sense that each of our experiences are true, but what if every individual’s relationship to g-d must be true because we are the original creators of g-d, so the way any of us creates g-d speaks that precise incarnation of the divine into being?
Bring in the idea of the great I Am or imago dei; some of the most hierarchical and self-imploding religions actually build their foundations on this very paradox. It’s right there in their own texts, but the human mind can’t conceptualize the cyclical and expansive notion that g-d creates us because we created g-d. But stepping into the role of the observer, and taking in the foundation of the paradox that exists all around us and within us, we can see how that spark of divinity is the deeply sacred part of each of us that is g-d in our own way, and that in combination, creates g-d as well. G-d is, in a sense, fractal images of our creation stories. And what is us living life if not all of us writing the creation story of the self every day?
My goal in this essay is to discuss the Muse and spirituality and how that connects us to Coherence, so I am going to leave my discussion of the numinous foundational metaphysic of life here, but if you want to learn more or dive deeper into these concepts, check out my video on the nature of paradox here.
Turning to what this understanding of creation implies about our relationship to the Muse, let’s go back to the foundation here too.
Etymologically, both “creativity” and “creation” use the root word “create.”
Create /krēˈāt/ (v.)
To bring into being.
From Etymonline.com, create comes from Latin creatus, past participle of creare "to make, bring forth, produce, procreate, beget, cause," related to Ceres and to crescere “arise, be born, increase, grow.”³
When I step into creativity, I deeply feel like I am communing with the divine. Relying on my worldview, this is both a communion with g-d and with myself, which are one and the same in the mirrored nature of creation. When we contemplate the Muse, and as I have been reflecting on last week’s prompt of the relationship between the Muse and the Self, I have come to understand that the energy of the Muse is the liminal space in the mirroring between myself and g-d. The Muse is the mirror of the great I Am. How powerful that when we step into true ownership of self-sovereignty, claiming I Am, we are also claiming the powerful identity of the Abrahamic Yahweh, and claiming the presence of our humanity. Eckhart Tolle writes, “You are the Universe expressing itself as a human for a little while,” and when we step into an act of creativity, we walk the tightrope of hubris, acknowledging the infinite that exists within our finite experience, seeking to birth something that can outlive this physical incarnation of individuality.
In the etymology, we also see the language,“arise” and “grow,” two words that new-age communities like to ascribe to spiritual awakening and ascension. Again, while I think this understanding is incorrect from a cyclical and non-hierarchical perspective, I still think that the linguistic connection between creation and spiritual experiences is notable. Further, the language around “procreation” and “producing” calls forth an idea of partnering with the divine as a human. Mirroring the very act of sexual procreation, there is a metaphorical (a)sexual procreation in the act of creativity. As an individual, you partner with your psychology, experiences, embodied states, and emotions as well as with the divine and g-dly Muse to create something external to yourself. It is a powerfully internal and individual experience, and deeply reliant upon the externalities of the Muse, whether that be memories and personal psychology, or divine and g-dly energies. But within my worldview, these two states of externality aren’t separate.
To attempt to wrap up this conversation, I want to offer a suggestion that may help connect some of the dots I have sketched. Consider the Muse in a Jungian archetypal sense. Perhaps the Muse is an energy that exists as a part within all of us, as well as a part that exists on some universal, Platonic level. When we partner with the Muse, we are partnering with the deep cycles of the universe and human nature. Whatever you believe about the causation of these cycles, their existence is deeply felt by all of us, and they are deeply correlated with an array of practices across worldviews. These cycles are found in spiritual practices such as tarot, astrology, the I Ching, reiki, shamanic practices, and historic and Indigenous healing and medicine practices. They’re found in religious traditions and sacred texts such as archangels, saints, daily devotionals, church rituals, and prayer. They’re found in academic traditions such as literature, physics and quantum physics, the movement of the planets, and the rotation of atoms. They’re found in nature, ingrained in oceanic patterns, sacred geometry in sunflowers and honeycomb, the moon and the tides. But most importantly, these cycles are found in you.
The body’s natural cycles, the shape of your eyes, a woman’s relationship to monthly cycles and her sacred ability to create life. The movement of the atoms at your very core, the cells that hold and construct worlds within you, the microorganisms we can’t even begin to count. Every heartbeat, every breath is an invitation into this divine cycle. And you are the crux, the epicenter, the creator and created, of this reality. And every act of creation is in relationship to these patterns, to humanity, to you.
So, the connection between Source and the Muse? It’s you.
Footnotes:
When writing, I use g-d in place of “God” simply as a nod to my personal belief system around language, divinity, and the sacred.
The omni-g-d is a philosophical concept that speaks to the traditional conception of g-d being one that is omnipotent, omniscient, and omnipresent, as well as omni-benevolent, omnisapient, and omnificent. The omni-g-d is required in many popular religious traditions, such as Christianity.
There is a vast and expansive tradition in mythology and creation stories specifically around Ceres that also relates to Tarot. If you’re curious, I would look into creation myths around Inanna, Lilith, and the connection / morphing nature of g-ddesses across time. I have not created anything about this specifically, but let me know if you would be interested in this!
Citations:
“Create - Etymology, Origin & Meaning.” Etymonline, www.etymonline.com/word/create. Accessed 16 Oct. 2025.
King, Thomas. The Truth about Stories: A Native Narrative. House of Anansi Press, 2011.
Learn More:
My Video on Worldview and Paradox, “Don’t Solve the Paradox – Live It.” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J8eEHx7kDLg
Learn More About Aboriginal Australian Dreamtime from Rune Soup: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6X_lc8ClheA&t=2s
Learn More About Yahweh from Esoterica on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mdKst8zeh-U
