unblock the hosepipe

I once learned that creativity is like a hosepipe.

We have access to an abundant, ever-expanding stream of creative intelligence.

Therefore, our role on this earth is not to “become” more creative — but to remove all the kinks and knots that block us from channeling this infinite source of creativity.

The biggest blocks are systemic: oppression, hierarchy, social conditioning.

This can cause downstream blockages that we experience as individual: Perfectionism. Fear. Self-doubt. Comparison. Lack of community and support.

Each one, a stubborn knot in the hosepipe of our creativity.

On a collective level, this blocks our collective imagination, and therefore, possibilities.

As Dr. Ruha Benjamin writes in her beautiful work, Imagination: A Manifesto: “It should be clear by now that our collective imagination has been arrested and confined, making it difficult to think beyond the racist, classist, sexist, ableist status quo. If ideologies are imagination + power, then the most effective ideologies are those that need no police to enforce them, because we internalize and perpetuate them ourselves.”

How do we reclaim our imagination from the status quo? We dream and scheme together. We imagine all we could be. And then, as Dr. Benjamin emphasizes in Imagination — we do the work of actually creating in alignment with our visions.

This is part of why I am so in love with creativity. In this realm that bridges the unseen and the seen, the spiritual and the material, lies the wonderful world we are here to make together, and the intelligence to manifest it.

If collective utopia exists, we will have to have created it. If there is a world of collective love, belonging, and thriving — our inner artists must be determined to do the messy and magical work of bringing it to life.

To do so, we need to create in alignment with our highest visions for ourselves, each other, and the earth. Not our lowest.

And in any utopia: there is beautiful music, heavenly food, dance, books, ideas, art, relationships, spaces, gatherings, experiences, adventures, nature, moments, love.

We all have something to offer.

We all are here to co-create that world — be it in the way we treat other people, our very existence, and/or our creative being and doing.

Our inner and outer critics (when not grounded in love) are the cops of our collective consciousness, here to curtail our freedom and possibilities. These are kinks in the hosepipe we need to do the work of untangling.

We will not be solving all the kinks that plague the creative process today. But let’s discuss one technique that can help us reclaim a state of flow so that we can co-create the world we must.

For my podcast, Soul Salon, I call it the “Unblock the Hosepipe” episode, and it has saved me regularly.

A block here means water cannot flow there. And there is a lot more (possibilities, opportunities, creation) there than here.

So, in an Unblock the Hosepipe episode, I make it my mission to make something bad now, for the sake of being able to make more things later.

The Unblock the Hosepipe episode is humble, self-sacrificial, able to see far beyond itself. Its goal is simple: to allow the artist to keep creating.

They may release a song, publish an essay, or recite a poem they know is not their “best work”.

But in the shadow of this act of surrender is the light of their long-term devotion to their craft.

They are signaling to the universe: I love my craft more than my perfectionism. I am here to create. Maybe this will help someone who needs it! I serve the collective.

But maybe by insisting your work be “perfect”, you are resisting the lesson the work is actually here to teach you.

Maybe that lesson is: you are worthy of creation beyond perfection.

Maybe this “shitty” song, essay, or poem is what you need to make in order to keep creating at all.

Perfectionism puts you in the role of evaluating and criticizing rather than allowing your creative flow. It blocks the channel. It performs the work of the oppressor on an internalized level.

This was my thought process for about two weeks.

Far beyond evaluation, this episode is my commitment to continuing the project of the Soul Salon, even if it means pressing publish on something I feel could have been better (hint: it could always have been better).

Because the pressure I was putting on myself made my own standards impossible to reach. And it sucked all the joy out of the process.

• How can you release the pressure surrounding this work?

• How can you allow yourself to make something bad — and even share it?

• How can you love yourself enough to be willing to “fail”?

So this Soul Session ended up being meta. It’s called “Love yourself enough to fail” — as much advice to myself about the episode as an episode itself.

I love myself enough to fail, to flop, to be embarrassed and embarrassing — because the vision I see — the vision that sees me — is so much bigger than one episode.

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