The Creative Fire

OVERVIEW

“Creativity is less the creating of things—paintings, writings, working with clay or fabric, music making, theater and more—than the ability and tenacity to consistently use the tests, the trials and triumphs of one’s own life over many years’ time, in order to become oneself: a true and living work of art.”

“To stop ourselves at ‘I can’t make art’ or ‘I can’t draw,’ ‘Can’t carry a tune,’ ‘I can’t dance’ or ‘I can’t create,’ is missing the point. To allow this kind of “bad duende belief” cuts us off from The Truth: Creative Life has not one door but many.”

In this training Dr. Clarissa Pinkola Estés Réyes will show how creativity is not about specific skills or projects that need completing, but about “finding the fire, the genius [in ancient Greek the word "genius” means angel who was born with us] and allowing that force to burn brightly and lead us.” She will take you on a journey to touch into the generative fire that gives rise to your true life—and your one-of-a-kind soul. Within the sacred space of this training, the exploration is ever more important than the destination.

Dr. Estés Réyes will show how “a creative life is not a place but a presence. More than the outcome it is the search, and the search can be exciting, invigorating, and scary. Most of Creative Life’s requirements are interior ones, not outer ones. Success is not measured by imitation nor outer reward, but by meaningfulness with regard to Greater and to one’s own true self. Creative Life requires not the asking of the right questions but answering the questions, not from ego or ambition, but answering from soul and child spirit the questions given us by Creator.”

“Creative drive is not readily separated into nice tidy rational segments, and El Fuego, the Greater Divine spirit of Fire that stands behind all works of creating, demands daily labor in the idea mines, and the development of absolutely authentic voice. Not derivative; not copying, not a borrowing, not a knock off, rather your one-of-a-kind true voice— that is, not a project but rather a calling.”

Since 1970 Dr. Estés Réyes has written and spoken about “calling”—this being a core from the mystical traditions she was raised in; “knowing and following the difference between outer world [often shrill and shrieking] and inner world [the still small voice]. At first this might sound like an easy thing, even a wonderful, pleasant endeavor. But as she will show, if you follow the creative force for any immersive length of time, you will absolutely be required to cleanse away over and over again all your build ups of hyper-protective cynicism, egotism and ambition to be whatever ego’s most recent falsity has formed around.”

Dr. Estés Réyes teaches…”if you do not despair in some way about your capacity to bring the beauty that you see in your mind’s/heart’s/soul’s/child spirit’s eye down to earth through your chosen or given artful expression, then you are dancing on the surface, you are not in the driving Force, you are not the feather on the breath of G-d. Yet.”

“But one can becomes so: it takes daily devotion and hard, consistent work. We are built to do this. It’s just that for some, the detritus and trivia of life and driving overculture…are allowed to bank the fire, douse the vitals embers.”

Dr. Estés Réyes teaches that immersion in the creative life requires endurance. “It is an ever layered set of openings rather than merely doings. It’s a hard test about carrying the work of Greater, not to what seems appetizing, or makes one ‘important’ in overculture, but what one has original understanding of, bone deep: pulling, bringing, crying out, manifesting the most critical ways and means of Creative Fire for a needful self and a needful world. Thus, creating the so needed but often invisible, or restoring the half destroyed aspects of the worlds, that are so critical to human and humane existence, that in a sense, not only your callings but you yourself become visible—direct without muffling— from your unique realm of your own life, truly lived.”

She reminds us that “creativity comes to a halt from time to time, because like the wave in the ocean it must roll backward, turn under on itself and move far, far away—in order to gather the strength to roll massively forward again.” Knowing this pattern to move backward, and back and back in order to gather strength to fly forward, is how we take creative Force from tiny to bold and fierce once again. It is not something we go get; we were born this way.”

“Regardless of the mediums we create through— dance, writing, forming community, healing arts, business endeavors in non-profit and for livelihood—we sometimes exhaust our spirits, lose our way, or become stuck. Our intentions are well meaning, but we may be inconsistent, or listen to the ‘council of apes,’ believe falsehoods laid before us by old demons, ignore self care, thereby allowing ourselves to fall to ashes. Yet, there is ever La Chispa, the one glowing tiny ember that by being gently pushed, encouraged, breathed upon—is guided into flaming brightly again.”

Join Dr. Estés Réyes—a well of creativity in her own right—for a journey into the depths of your being and self-exploration to unleash a force you have carried all your life and perhaps never allowed to emerge, or stingily so, or because the time is right now—to allow the fire you were born with, to be built bright once again.

WHO SHOULD ATTEND

All who are connected to Dr. Estés Réyes’ work and are desiring to leave ego at the door and take this journey with her.

As always, this training is not psychotherapy, not post-trauma therapy, nor a substitute for these.

SCHEDULE

July 16-21, 2024
Sunrise Ranch, Loveland, CO

TUESDAY | July 16, 2024

2:00—5:00pm Registration and orientation at Sunrise Ranch

6:00 & 6:15pm Dinner served

7:00—9:00pm Meet with Dr. Estés Réyes

WEDNESDAY - SATURDAY | July17 - 20, 2024

7:30am Breakfast

9:30am—12:00pm Meet with Dr. Estés Réyes

12:00 & 12:15pm Lunch

2:30—5:00pm Meet with Dr.Estés Réyes

6:00 & 6:15pm Dinner

7:00—9:00pm Meet with Dr. Estés Réyes

SUNDAY | July 21, 2024

7:30am Breakfast

9:30am—12:00pm Meet with Dr. Estés Réyes and evaluations

12:00 & 12:15pm Lunch

12:30pm  Departure

Please arrange your travel so you can attend every meeting with Dr. Estés Réyes, July 16-21. This is a prerequisite for enrollment in this training.