Reclaiming Creative Spirit by Helen Warren
Helen Warren worked through clinical depression to arrive at a place where she reclaimed her Creative Spirit and her connection to Mother Earth. She gives her own account of the story. Helen Warren (NY) used Touch Drawing to move through a dark night of the soul:
After attending the first annual TD Gathering, I was very much aware of the shift that had occurred both in my creative process and in my being. A professional artist, art educator/facilitator for over thirty years, I had not until now discovered how it felt to create from my deepest yearnings, dreams, visions and to let go and immerse myself in the process. Little did I imagine how TD was going to support me in the challenging time ahead.
In mid-fall, I found myself plummeting into a darkness so deep that not only did I feel completely disconnected from myself and everything around me, but totally blocked creatively-my painting, a source of excruciating anxiety instead of a source of solace. Full-blown clinical depression was the diagnosis but my deeper awareness, arising out of the chaotic energy swirling around me, was of an opening to a deeper truth in myself and a letting go of old energies. In this place of desperate stillness, I turned to the simplicity and directness of TD and began to listen and then to trust.
What evolved over the next seven months was a flow of images reflecting my journey from immersion and drowning in the darkness to confrontation with the anger, fear, grief and other disowned parts of myself, to the gradual merging with my soul’s essence, Mother Earth, the angel realms, animal spirits and the Goddess. Bear, bat, owl, grouse and turtle appeared through the images to guide and support me with their medicine, prompting me to remember the wisdom deep within and to surrender fully to the Creative Energy.
Even as I write these words, I feel amazement and the ecstasy as time and time again I’d open my eyes after moving my hands over the paper and see the image already forming on the page! The process of TD has enabled me not only to heal deeply on an energetic level but also to let go forever the voices in my head that have blocked my creative passion all my life! As I continue to work with it and share it with others, I become more and more aware that the most profound potential of this process is teaching us how to listen to our deepest selves and know our divine connection to each other and Mother Earth.
