Explaining spirituality to an atheist
I believe creativity is a practice of magic. I understand magic as the act of alchemizing spirit into a new form. To alchemize is to transform. Spirit is the language I turn to describe a web of energy that connects all across (non-linear) time and (evershifting) space, including ancestors, spirits, guides of nature, and other entities. If magic is an act of alchemizing spirit into something new, creativity then is also a form of magic.
The entomology of “creativity” comes from Latin creatus, meaning: to bring into being. Creativity insists on the act of becoming. The becoming can shift form like water. On any given day, my creativity may arrive as a new poem, or the way my heart swells when I hear a particular song, or the rhythm I cut a slice of fruit by. Creativity may not arrive in a form that I recognize. As magic, creativity can be found in the most seemingly ordinary of moments.
An individual does not need to be a believer in a religion to embrace the idea that there is an animating principle in the self—a life force (some of us call it soul) that when nurtured enhances our capacity to be more fully self-actualized and able to engage in communion with the world around us.
Bell hooks