Howling at the Moon

In our book 7 Secrets of Synchronicity, the fourth secret is The Creative: that creativity lies at the heart of synchronicity.

Creativity is like a wolf, howling at the moon. It surges up from somewhere deep within, you throw your head back, and this incredible sound rushes out into the world, transforming everything in its path.

It’s usually defined by four words that begin with “i:” imagination, inventiveness, inspiration, ingenuity. Synchronicity is rarely mentioned. And yet, creativity and synchronicity are like twins conjoined at the hip. They share organs, skin, blood, the life force. They complement and nurture each other. In fact, without meaningful coincidence, our creative endeavors often fall flat. We’re able to take an idea just so far and can’t make that final leap into something larger than ourselves that speaks to the human collective.

Creativity is the way your consciousness interacts with your physical environment to usher something new into the world. It’s a way of being, a lifestyle, a state of mind. It’s at work in every facet of your waking, conscious life and hums along while you sleep and dream. It’s your companion when you travel, when you undertake something new, when you fall in love. It’s the force behind everything you do.

Synchronicity is a jolt of energy that springs from a source underlying our daily world of cause and effect. When we’re in the midst of creative endeavors, startling and unlikely coincidences can occur with such frequency that our lives shift into a higher vibrational level where creative breakthroughs occur. When creativity and synchronicity are combined, your life becomes a journey toward greater happiness and profound emotional and spiritual fulfillment.

But what does it mean, really, to be creative? It’s not just writing or painting or taking photos or inventing a new way to power cars.  Creativity is also expressed by the small child when she discovers that her legs actually have a function and eagerly crawls around exploring the boundaries of her world.

It finds expression in a grandmother who creates elaborate collages from photos in the family album, or in the computer programmer who designs new software or a new app. The teacher who triggers excitement and curiosity in his students is just as creative as the shaman who makes it rain, the parent who finds a new way to communicate with a child, or as the adventurer who climbs Kilimanjaro just for the experience of doing so.

In Western society, we tend to believe that creativity is the exclusive domain of the Lennons, Spielbergs, Rowlings, Kings, Picassos, Streeps, Oprahs, and Harrison Fords of the world. We forget that we are all born creative, that if it weren’t for creativity, we would still be living in caves. At every step in our creative expression, synchronicity is there to guide us, inform us, and remind us that we are here to create and to do so joyfully.

Sure, there have been and are plenty of dysfunctional creative people – Nicola Tesla, despite his brilliance and creativity, battled constantly against poverty and emotional pain. Van Gogh chopped off his own ear and never made a penny from his art. F. Scott Fitzgerald drank himself into an early grave, Hemingway shot himself, and Sylvia Plath put her head in an oven and turned on the gas.

But for every creative misfit, there are countless other individuals who have the creative equivalent of the Midas touch, a magical something that transforms the mundane, the utterly ordinary, into something unique. When we enter their homes or workplaces, that magic is evident everywhere, an ineffable quality that’s hard to pin down. It touches something in that deeper part of ourselves, speaks to us at an intuitive level. We immediately sense they are connected to something larger than themselves, that that have tapped into a creative flow that spills over into every area of their lives.

Creativity is our birthright regardless of our culture, skin color, religious or political beliefs, the stuff that so often divides us. It is endemic to our humanity. It’s the grease in the cogs, the driving force of life, the very thing that makes us what we are. And synchronicity is its voice.

How do creativity and synchronicity work together in your life?