The mechanism of creativity: What it means to court your 'inner opposite'

I'll meet you in the hall of muses.

I recently had the pleasure of speaking with Hailey Soleil about creativity, the divine feminine and courting the inner life on her podcast Whatever Words Can Touch. Here’s a teaser:

In Jungian psychology, establishing connection to the inner opposites is paramount in the individuation process. It is critical in the aim of achieving wholeness.

We start out in the first half of life building our ego identity and becoming lopsided in the process as we build our selective musculature into who we think we ought to be. Usually it’s a curation of all we’ve been taught we should strive for. Girls do this, boys do that. Whatever doesn’t fit within sugar and spice and everything nice, gets stuffed down or traded off. Much of who we are born to be—as well as the gifts we came in carrying with us—gets pushed to the margins and the vital life force these parts of us carry goes into exile as well.

Creativity relies on the tension of opposites. In astrology the most dynamic aspects are known as hard aspects. They’re difficult because they create friction in our lives, but this friction builds heat, forces creativity and forges potency.

As the saying goes, “Necessity is the mother of all invention.” Call it what you will—invention, innovation, creativity, spontaneity—it’s all dynamic tension behind the wheel of wherever you’re going down the road of life or in the realm of imagination. The spontaneous combustion engines we drive everyday run purely on a series of controlled explosions. 

For Jungians, this inner opposite functions as gatekeeper and tour guide. For folks who embody femininity, the inner opposite is masculinity. Not to be confused with gender, masculinity and femininity are simply modes of being in the world. Although we each possess a measure of both, most of us embody one as our dominant modus operandi. 

For an individual embodying femininity, masculinity is a shadow presence. Meaning there exists within an inner other who possesses qualities or intrapsychic musculature opposite to our dominant nature, or that which comes most naturally. 

This inner masculine, or animus, is overseer of not only our personal unconscious, but functions as a ferryman to depths of psyche. He is our direct line to the collective unconscious, the realm of the archetypes, our own personal docent to the hall of muses. (For masculine beings, this inner feminine other is called the anima.)

Making contact with our inner “contrasexual opposite” is critical to igniting the dynamic tension that fuels creativity. It takes inner polarity. Opposites attract because Life seeks wholeness. Often outwardly we are attracted to those who embody an untapped quality we carry within. It is a powerful unconscious recognition. This is by design—and also why our shadow projections inevitably must fall away. The goal is that we become conscious of our own innate potentiality and thus grow within ourselves. It is the mechanism by which we become who we were born to be.

If you’ll humor me with oversimplification for the sake of illustration, the masculine principle is that of action and discernment, while the feminine principle is that of reflection and relationality. 

The masculine tool is the blade, the feminine holds the chalice. Singularity of focus and forward momentum versus containment and creative entanglement. But the two shouldn’t be pitted together. The end goal is that holy grail of sacred union. It’s where the magic happens. 

The feminine’s creative principle when paired with the focused action of the masculine becomes an unstoppable creative force moving Life forward. It’s the spontaneous combustion engine of Life itself.

Feminine fertility is ground, the rooted web within, and the surrender and beauty of the bloom, but masculinity is the force that pushes the new shoots up from the soil in spring and forces the tight bud into fullness. 

We are all creative. Because we are all, in the words of Kahlil Gibran, “sons and daughters of Life’s longing for itself.”

When Mary Oliver was asked in an interview how it was that she was able to write such poignant, beautiful poetry so profoundly and prolifically, she answered: “I keep the appointment.” She kept the appointment daily: her listening, her walks along Blackwater Pond, her quality of attention and presence and the willingness to write her wonder down on the page. All the result of a profound commitment to practice penning her wild wonder down on the page. A lifetime of courage and the willingness to meet the material of her life in a way that allowed her to weave meaning and medicine for all the world to read. 

Let’s meet in the hall of muses and keep the appointment together.

In just one week I am hosting Wildish Weekend: A two-day, in-person creative writing and therapeutic storytelling workshop designed to help you meet with the material of your life and create poetry and prose from your personal history.  

Together we will drop into our bones through embodiment practices and explore the deep wells of our inner being, digging up stories for soul-making and sharing. We will utilize writing prompts throughout the weekend, with our journals as soil for the seeds of our shared stories to grow into fruits of wisdom. We will create poetry from our own life stories and engage in therapeutic storytelling utilizing Gestalt principles interwoven with teachings and group process.

We will bring our stories to light and to life alongside one another as we enact dramas and release stuck or stagnant storylines in our bodies, our lives and our lineages. This work is not ours alone and it is not only for us. When we heal ourselves we heal generations past and the future ones who have yet to come.

Everyone is creative. 

Cultivating connection to the inner life is key to creative, authentic living. It takes the courage to bring what’s inside of you out into the world and allow yourself to be shaped from the inside out rather than the outside in. 

Living authentically doesn’t happen by accident. It is the result of courting the opposites within, making connection with the inner other to carry your unlived life out into the world. 

A writing practice is the  kind of aligned, purposeful action—hello masculine—that has the power to coax the inner opposites from their hiding places in the shadow and carry them out into the world on full, brilliant display, bringing untold treasures with them. 

You don’t know, until you find out for yourself. 

“Beautiful people do not just happen.” 
Elisabeth Kübler-Ross

Next weekend I’ll lead you through embodiment practice to make contact with the muses within who are waiting to be expressed through you. We will write and share our stories in a small, intimate setting. A fierce, creative container where you will experience first hand the power of therapeutic storytelling. 

Click here for the nitty gritty details whether it’s the good, the bad, the ugly or something in between. 

I hope you’ll join me in just one week! Sign up here. 

Whether masculine, feminine or wild creature, we’re going to dig in whatever it is that lies within and bring it forward! This is only the beginning of a wild inner courtship that you will continue to carry with you. So long as you keep the appointment.

Here’s more from the podcast:

You can listen to it in full here.