CREATIVE
AND PHYSICAL ENERGY IN NATALISM
Wadeson (1980) describes a phenomenon of increased energy
which occurs during the creative process. The energy of creative
activity charges the individual and group into greater alertness
and participation. Brigette noted the energizing qualities
of natalistic art activity:
I was amazed at how the time went
in spite of the statements about how tired I was I was able
to do the art . I don't ever remember being really tired
at the end of the night. Upon arriving at the workshop because
of my schedule I often arrived later, but I didn't feel
tired when I left. I always went away with a sense of it's
too bad we didn't have another half hour or so to interpret
the art work. I was enjoying what I wanted to explore.
The heightened awareness and involvement in the art processes
at hand enhanced the quality of therapeutic interaction. Furth
(1988) contends that, in art activity, "when physical
energy is expended, psychic energy makes itself more easily
apparent" (p. 2). Additionally, there is a particular
healing quality to the energy of creative natalistic activity,
as McNiff (1989) discusses:
The transformative energy of art corresponds
to, and possibly is, the energy of healing. In both art
and healing we transform pain and conflict into affirmations
of life and states of well-being. Healing occurs in the
telling of the story and hearing the response of another
person. (p. 42)
The heightened level of healing energy during natalistic
processes can occur partially in response to qualities associated
with creative activity.
In addition, creative expression in groups or in the presence
of others or a witness often increases the energy of the arts
-- hence the universal appeal of artistic adornments in rituals,
performance and ceremonial gatherings. Historically and cross
culturally, transformation in group settings has been associated
with art, artistic imagery or art activity. The group process
and experience enhances natalistic expression; and the presence
of natalistic content and imagery deepens the group experience.
Creating natalism in the workshop setting Johanna found:
Seeing other people in the group having
similar experiences was really helpful as a validation.
It felt like we were not only making significant connections
to our early the past, but we were experiencing an affinity
with each other. I thought everyone was connected to something
before being born. That I was connecting with those early
experiences would have been pretty hard for me to accept,
had not other people had similar experiences. I was astounded
by the similarities in our art and experiences. In looking
at Michael's sculptures I suspect he has connected with
the experience of being before having a body. I found having
his art around increased the natalistic experience.
I initially developed natalistic art workshops as art experiences
to enhance the creative process with visual arts. To begin
with, the natalistic art process was not developed as a therapy
or adjunct to therapy, it was just meant to be an approach
to creating art which would be influenced by the perinatal
realm of the psyche. Activities were borrowed and adapted
from archaic rebirth rites as adjuncts for enhancing the creative
art process. Creativity was greatly opened up through the
natalism processes.
Rather than simply experiencing enhanced creativity, many
of the participants in the natalistic art workshops experienced
profound changes in a variety of areas of their lives. Professional
artists and lay person participants described experiences
of transformation and healing from connecting with the forces
of birth.
In response to the degree of personal growth and healing
which participant were experiencing I began to explore and
develop natalism as a psychotherapy process approach and method.
I initially began using natalistic art and natalistic processes
in the therapy setting to access and work primarily with birth
issues and material. The exercises were developed to work
with birth content; and yet, people created images reflecting
the earliest prenatal periods of conception and embryonic
development. This often occurred outside my direction or expectation.
The frequency with which natalistic art workshop participants
created early embryonic art challenged my perception of the
relationships between art and early prenatal psychological
material. Johanna shared:
I felt quite unique when I accessed
and reexperienced my birth when I did primal therapy. Now
I feel unique again in going back further even than birth
to the original me. That is what makes me feel special and
unique, but it also scares me because what am I going to
do with it now. I feel like if I've done this, there must
be a reason that I've done it. I feel I've got to go somewhere
with it but I am not sure where to go. But I feel special.
Johanna's comments about going back to creation are reminiscent
of archetypical experiences of creation-transformation which
can be found universally in creation mythology, rites of passage,
and rituals about rites of transformation. Rhyne (1984) sees:
Art is not only a medium for self-expression,
it is also a way of extending the scope of experience that
is available to all of us. The professional artist with
his sincere dedication and developed skill can execute his
art work masterfully. Some of this works speaks of universalities;
some portrays the cultural milieu of the artist; some expresses
the inner perceptions of the artist; some will endure in
time; and some will be ignored and forgotten. (p. 99)
Susan relates her powerful inner experience of one natalistic
work:
The drawing I did in the session was
very good. It was full of light and energetic and connected
with life.... I felt I had sort of an energy flow that I
had not felt much before. I had experienced it briefly a
few times in therapy -- enough to make me realize all my
life I had not had an energy flow. So to do anything I just
have to make myself do it. If you do not have an energy
flow it is tough. I started to feel that energy flow after
the previous natalistic art workshop.... Having that energy
flow over the week made it a lot easier to do things.
Creative activity strengthens and opens up the non-verbal
hemisphere enabling the artist to access and work with non-verbally
contained early material more effectively. The effects of
natalistic activity on long term creativity is an area which
needs further investigation. In controlled studies Feher (1980)
in conjunction with Elizabeth Fehr experimentally tested changes
in depth perception and found, "The group who had undergone
natal therapy had increased depth perception" (p. 18).
Since depth perception is a right-brain activity Feher (1980)
and Fehr hypothesised, "that natal therapy increased
the dominance of the non-verbal hemisphere" (p. 18).
Birth and womb experiences are held and processed in the non-verbal
hemisphere; releasing, freeing up or simply accessing early
material may enhance the quality of right hemisphere activity.
I have observed that artists and non-artists alike make
significant leaps in the quality of artistic expression when
working with natalism. Emerson (personal correspondence, October,
1992) has also noticed that participants in natalistic art
workshops, that he has also worked with in his birth refacilitation
workshops, have seen significant changes in their creative
endeavour and potential emerge over the subsequent six months
to two years. It seems they make important personal life and/or
career changes which reflect an increase in creativity in
their lives. Increased creativity may occur in areas not directly
related to drawing and the visual arts, but can be reflected
in the development of "creative" personal or career
endeavours such as writing or other forms of problem solving.
The increased creativity can be in response to some natalistic
action associated with awakening creative forces of the psyche;
and/or may be the result of working through early core traumas.
The healing process may release and free up energy which was
restricted through holding onto past trauma. Khamsi (1987)
notes:
After experiencing birth feelings,
subjects reported heightened sensation in their bodies.
Frequent were reports of feeling physically freer and looser.
Feelings of a pain vanishing or a load lifting were also
common. Subjects also claimed to be better able to interpret
their "body messages" and to understand their
personal rhythms and character. (p. 50)
Birth and womb experiences are extraordinarily creative
endeavours; and therefore, are likely associated with the
dimension of creativity in the psyche. Deborah relates some
interesting perceptions:
During the workshop series it
was nice to think in terms of a relationship between --
birth work as creativity; and artistic expression as creativity.
I find that doing natalistic art work gives a person something
particular around the creative and expressive which I feel
are related to something about the creative and expressive
experience of birth and the womb.
The natalism work helped with the
process of doing the early work and connecting with the
part of me from that time. It helped with the process of
bringing that part of me more to the present and to enlarge
that part. The natalism work was not the only catalyst,
but I think that it was part of my healing in this whole
process.
In terms of my overall personal growth
work doing the early original trauma work was healing myself
and was helping to allow the essential self that I came
into this world with to come out more and more. I was allowing
it to be more and more present and to fly. At the time the
workshop series was over I was not entirely conscious that
I was going through another whole layer of development of
my spiritual inner self and my womanhood and my intuitive
psychic self. In that place of change I had a feeling I
wanted to own my own birth art. Doing the original healing
work was very much connected with loving that part of me.
One possible response to my queries for an explanation for
the increased creativity through natalism has to do with the
significance of connecting with the prenatal realm. This realm
occupies a highly creative time in human development. Art,
music and other forms of creative experience may tap into
early aspects of the self. Sarah expresses:
There was a great sense of ease and
flow in the sculpting of being directly connected with my
origins, with my beginnings. Again I struggle with how to
talk about the wordless state. The beginning of the piece
was about going to the core of things.
During the first two trimesters, the prenate creates all
the many components and the organization which go together
to create a human being. It is possible that the most creative
time in human existence is during embryonic and early fetal
development when the person is creating themselves.
My view of this arises from my own experience of regressions
to prenatal and embryonic times and from creating my own artwork
expressing those times in my life. I have had experiences
of profoundly connecting with creation energy through working
on my own natalistic sculptures. I have experienced along
with other people that there is an intent or urge towards
creativity which may be prenatal in origin. My personal experience
is that there was much awe and wonder in the prenatal act
of creating; that the embryo is enthralled and awed, is excited
about the process of creating itself; that the prenatal creative
burst is a fascinating, enjoyable, interesting experience;
that there is literally a desire, or motivation to be creative
during the gestational period.
My experiences of going back to the womb during sculpting
led me to look at myth, rites of passage and ritual transformation
in context of a natalistic perspective. Many creation myths
or rituals involve in some form, the initiate's returning
to their origins or going through a death/rebirth experience
reminiscent of birth and the womb experience.
More than is cognitively understood at this point, art and
creative activity may be significantly related to this, the
earliest and most creative time in human development. It may
be that, by reconnecting with the prenatal period through
creative expression and art, one is reconnecting with an early
developmental stage of high creativity. Feher (1980) hypothesizes
that early regression through natal therapy, "in that
it is non-verbal, may be able to reach the material that has
been locked into the non-verbal hemisphere prior to eighteen
months; and then to transfer it to the verbal side with the
later sessions, to create unity and consistency among the
hemispheres" (p. 18). Feher (1980) and Lake (1981) suggest
that early memory, being preverbal, is non-verbal, and therefore
resides in the non-verbal right hemisphere. If this is correct,
it might account for the common occurrence of "rebirthing
rituals" cross-culturally and historically and their
being association with highly right brain creative activities.
(Mott, 1953; Eliade, 1958; Irving, 1989; Janus, 1993). Its
connection with rebirthing in many cultures throughout history
lends credibility to the importance of using art to address
birth and womb issues.
Often when people view creative acts or artworks they resonate
with the original prenatal awe and wonder. Viewing Natalistic
art or photographic images of life being created may return
people, on some level, to the experience of creating oneself.
For example, the fetal images of the film 2001 or Nilsson's
photography in Life Magazine in 1968 or his later film The
Creation of Life and his subsequent book presented culturally
powerful images. People were powerfully attracted to these
images (Farrant, 1985). It may be that they were connecting
with their own creative embryo selves. It is possible that
art also connects to the embryonic urge to create; and therefore
art activity may have a particular relevance to pre- and perinatal
psychology.
As they returned to their earliest gestational periods,
artists had contact with a sense of rightness in existing
and being. Cynthia expressed it as, "Going back to that
prenatal period has allowed me to establish a beginning place.
There's some kind of security in that. That's where I began
my life and I go back to that place now because it's like
Heaven." People creating early prenatal natalistic works
reported a transformative experience of connecting with an
energy or life force which was more powerful than any in utero
or childhood trauma they may have experienced. Brigette shares:
I think through the whole workshop
and doing all those drawings, one of the things that has
come up again and again for me is a sense of "I am
" and "I have a right to be." The people
and the environment around me may not like that, but that's
too bad. I'm not guilty and I'm not to blame for their issues
around my being. That creates sort of a safety within the
creation of life. My belief system and my faith are related
to this in that I believe babies are a gift. Somehow as
I did those drawings, even the one with the things poking
in as if it was an abortion, there was a rightness and a
holism about the baby that was somehow not affected by whether
or not those other folks wanted her or not.
I was able to own that more. I internalized
that I have a right to be here and that there's a rightness
about me and I am a gift that has something special about
her. I liked doing the pictures.
The energy which arises from natalistic activity seems to
be a powerful transformative agent. Perhaps the common use
of natalistic material in myths, rituals, rites of passage
and as religious ornamentation is partly related to the transformative
qualities of a natalistic energy or a creative natalistic
dimension within the whole self. Cynthia comments:
Because it's so irrational I
cannot put it into words. I just know I have a feeling it
has affected me, I am aware since the workshop there has
been a positive pleasurable experience I now have in the
midst of the pain.
It stays with me all the time now.
I think that what I'm saying is true. I have gotten in touch
with a beginning place before my parents ever even came
into the picture. A place where you float in space and there's
a unity going on between you and something. I can't speak
in any other terms.
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