Cracking my creative self open
A reflective and rambly post to start the year on finding and pursuing wholeness, creativity and authenticity.
I love mornings of January 1.
It feels like such a quiet, reflective time of year, with most people still asleep from the evening’s revelry. I like being awake when it feels like the world is asleep — without necessarily being awake at 3am. Lol. At the same time, for me, it’s also a time of great energy — from gratitude for the year that has passed, to hope and possibility for the year ahead.
Even when things have fallen short in the last year, and some (several) goals were not reached, I tend to be anchored in the belief that everything is compost.1 That all things have their seasons. That nothing is permanent; all this is fleeting.
Achievements and completion are merely pitstops.
Challenges and failing are the real adventures.
In my year end reflection in 2023, and prospection for 20242, I had set so many “creation goals” for myself (which I wrote down in a more private space) — and if I look at that list, I’ve fallen short on some of them spectacularly.
I could chalk it up to not going back to reviewing them often enough, having just set them at the start of the year. Or not having a firm enough resolve, or a strong enough system or practice, etc.
But also I think some of those plans were simply too rigid, too productivity-oriented, too output-focused, too much — as if I were a machine designed for industry, rather than a mind, body, heart and spirit in a human created for artistry — as we all are.
This is a question that has accompanied me in different ways 2024, as a year of coming back home to one’s self.3
I had boxed myself in some ways. In some ways just over the recent years in the pandemic, and in other ways, all my life. 2024 was about challenging the ways I saw myself and limited myself — mostly when it comes to my creative practice or seeing myself as an artist. It still feels funny to even use the word “artist” and “me”, “myself” or “I” in the same sentence.
At the end of 2023, I had set Tibay ng Loob as my theme for 2024.4 I wanted resilience for myself as I knew it would be a year when I would purposely put myself out there — in uncomfortable situations and new experiences, all in the interest of learning and growth. There’s no growth without discomfort.
Looking back, I feel like more than just resilience or inner strength, what I really need more is vulnerability, surrender, and letting the soft animal of my body love what it loves, as Mary Oliver would say.5
In a previous Pagbubuo post6, I wrote: Magkakapit-bisig ang pagbuo at pagwasak.
So, who were we before we forgot ourselves?
At anong pagwasak ang kailangang mangyari para maging mas buo?
While I often doubt it with my mind and don’t feel it on the surface, for me, deep in my core, I feel that I am a creative, or perhaps even braver to say, an artist— authentic, connected and divine.
It’s a little woo woo to say, but I believe more so now that creating is a form of prayer. (And this is me as a person who doesn’t adhere to religious practices.)
When it becomes less about a performance / exhibit, and more about openness and authentic expression, I want to believe we become a medium / vessel for messages that we and others need to hear from the universe or whatever higher being you believe in.7
As an air sign who placed a lot of importance on intellect, I wanted 2024 to be about trusting my intuition more. Intuition has served me many times in my life, and in some big decisions in my life it is still silenced by the “logical brain”.
This is not to say we do without logic, but perhaps that we also listen more to intuition — through our body and its sensations — because the body holds a lot of wisdom too.
In my brief study of somatics, I am also reminded of the limits of the Cartesian worldview: I think, therefore I am.8 It’s not just about what I think, what others think, or what I think they think. I am invited to consider that I think and feel, therefore I am.
The Church says: the body is a sin.
Science says: the body is a machine.
Advertising says: The body is a business.
The Body says: I am a fiesta.
―Eduardo Galeano
I have more than just my mind. I have my body, heart and spirit. And oh what a wonderful thing, the body. And I know all this — again in the realm of the mind. So 2024 was really as much about me trying to really inhabit my body, to feel my feelings more deeply, to trust myself more — through different movement practices, explorations of somatic coaching and expressive arts.9
Mag-ugat sa sariling kasaysayan
na may pagtingin sa paroroonan
Umusbong kahit di nakakasiguro
Magtiwala sa nabubuong kwento
ng pagkilala ng sarili mula sa
kwento ng napapaligirang kapwa
Di tayo nagkakaiba
may nagkakaisang pag-asa
sa mapagpalayang ginhawa
o sa maginhawang pagpapalaya
kapag naipahayag sa paglikha
kapag naisakatawan sa pagdama
Katotohanan ang bunga
- @pagbubuo
Feeling, embodiment and authentic expression are practices I intend to continue on in 2025 — to embody wholeness, truth and authenticity more and more. To embrace and give the gifts of imperfection — if it means that authenticity shines through, and gives someone else just that much more courage for authentic expression too.
I appreciate you for making it this far. More words in the next post. ;)
Breaking open,
Jen Horn | @pagbubuo
P.S. I’ll share more about my other plans for the year in my next post. In the meantime, you can also join my Instagram broadcast channel for updates on my latests post or projects. I also post occasional polls or prompts so you can also let me know what you’d like to see me write more about, gatherings you might want to join, or projects you might want to be part of.
All things we go through in life is compost for our creative soil. :)
Wrote about some of my thoughts on Tibay ng Loob in an earlier 2023 post:
From Mary Oliver’s Wild Geese
See more ideas in the post below.
You can also jump to the exact part where the “Magkakapit-bisig ang pagbuo at pagwasak.” shows up here.
Think Dobby the house elf in Liz Gilbert’s TED talk.
I’m learning about the Power of Embodied Transformation from Coaches Rising, and the Eduardo Galeano quote was a favorite shared by Staci Haines.
I’m also learning about Expressive Arts Facilitation through The Arts and Health Institute with Magis Creatives.
Hi Jen, I had to read this post twice before commenting, and it took me an hour to compose my response hehehe. This is who I am as an intuitive soul and a reflective reader. Ninanamnam ko muna ang bawat talata na parang panghimagas pagkatapos mananghalian. Akala ko busog na ako, pero ang panghimagas pala ang "best part" sa menu. Kaya dahan-dahan akong ngumuya habang nilalasap ang bawat kagat. Huminto lang ako nang maramdaman ko na ang kasapatan. 😋
Besides reflecting on "who we used to be," I wondered about what we have been feeding ourselves—soulfully.
*Divine is not a 'woo-woo' word, but more akin to a playful 'woot! woot!' 🤭 I celebrate you, Jen, and how you are becoming through your days of creation. Unfurling takes time, but every spark (dagitab) of enlightenment and change is, in itself, an act of becoming. Not all sparks or acts of creation need to be grand.
By the way, I giggled when I read that line from Mary Oliver's Wild Geese (it haunts me sometimes, in a good way) and the footnote about Dobby (who is always, always with us).
💌 TLDR; this could have been a longhand letter hehe. Anyway, I wish you more January first-ish days throughout 2025. Sharing these two wise insights as I end my comment from Dr. Susan David and Dr. Leo Buscaglia:
"Courage is fear walking." — Dr. Susan David
"To love is to risk not being loved in return. To hope is to risk pain. To try is to risk failure. But risks must be taken because the greatest hazard in life is to risk nothing." — Dr. Leo Buscaglia
Adding also these scribbles I recently wrote in my journal:
• Creation is the language of purpose.
• To create is to risk failure. But creation must take place because it is the only eternal space where we can fully realize our becoming.
May you continue to embrace every version and evolution of yourself despite all that seeks to hinder your becoming. :) Looking forward to reading your next posts!
I am privileged to witness your journey in the past couple of years and now in TAHI. <3 We should share a drink or a meal at some point. :-)