Alice Wood - Creative Processes in Spiritual Direction
An SGM Interview with Alice Wood
Creative Processes in Spiritual Direction
Alice Wood is a spiritual director, university chaplain and retreat facilitator with a particular gift for facilitating creative processes in a contemplative way. In this blogpost, Kathryn Overall interviews Alice about her experiences of the gifts of creative processes, both personally and in her practice as a spiritual director.
Alice, what drew you to becoming a spiritual director?
At a time in my life when I was busy ministering to others, I found myself needing to provide for everyone else spiritually, yet having no one I could talk to about the things that mattered to me the most. Finding a spiritual director at that time was amazing. My director was there for me! I went into the Spiritual Directors Formation Programme hoping that I could offer the same gift to other people in similar circumstances.
There is nothing more rewarding, as a spiritual director, to witness what God does in mystery - transformation, empowerment and growth in a person, where it matters the most.
How have creative processes been a gift to you in your own spiritual journey?
I have always loved doing creative things.
I once decided to do a drawing of my journey with God in symbols and metaphors and it was such a meaningful experience that I kept it for a long time.
I have made it a rhythm for myself to make a drawing like this every few years. I know that the act of drawing is my prayer – a dialogue between God and me.
When I was younger I often felt that I had to justify being creative to other people within Protestant Christian circles. But God, of course, is extremely creative and full of humour. God cares about beauty! I feel the closeness of God when I create – I feel a little bit of how God feels about us, about God’s creation. I feel the ‘new thing’, the ‘new song’ that the scripture talks about.
What is the gift of creative processes in spiritual direction or contemplative retreats?
Doing something creative helps what is deep within us come to the surface. As we make art, honest emotions or truth comes from within us and into what we are making. It can speak to us from a deep place and we can also dialogue with God from this meaningful space.
Creative process provides a spacious ground for new possibilities to appear as well as make space for God’s voice to speak. The tactile nature invites us to touch, to see, to hear. The movement of art making can help us to experience new truths involving our whole bodies.
What prompted you to focus on creative processes in spiritual direction for your Special Interest Project?
I went into my project - From Head to Hands ~ Creative Processes as the Locus on Divine Encounter - with a simple desire to introduce the gift of creative processes to others in spiritual direction. People who do creative things often instinctively know how good the process is, even if they can’t articulate why. However there are often barriers to freely experiencing creativity, such as when people feel a pressure to perform or a need to control the process.
I have learnt a lot from other experienced spiritual directors in this area. Each person interacts with creative elements differently. I’ve realised that because creativity takes a person to a vulnerable and deep place, I need to be gentle and encouraging with my invitations to my directee to be creative. There is often a fine balance to be struck between giving enough guidance so that they are not lost and enough freedom so that the journey can be freely formed.
Pictured in colours of directees describing their feelings after they tried a contemplative creative process.
Creative process has the potential to offer new perspectives or possibilities for my directee. The process needs freedom to thrive, so a spaciousness of wonder is what I hope to offer.
How have creative processes been a gift for you in working with university students?
The campus is full of creative people, so creative language is what we have in common. The creative process is always a spiritual one, be it art, music, film, photography, because it comes from deep within us; it is part of us. To create something together, to listen to the music of the soul and to reflect upon what touches us – these are shared creative moments on campus that are life giving.
I love having an interactive art installation on campus where I invite people to take part in a group reflection using tactile objects, eventually forming an art piece. In those moments we are reaching out in prayer together, which is beautiful regardless of how the end product looks.
Do you have any insights about how creative processes might be helpful in exploring or affirming cultural identity in spiritual direction?
Using creative process during a spiritual direction session can naturally bypass some of the language and cultural barriers, and get to the truth of the soul. Opportunities to have a conversation within and with God without using words (English may be their second / third language) can be tremendously meaningful.
Offering creative processes is a way a spiritual director can help any directee to truly be themselves, especially when there is enough freedom, safety and space being offered.
This is a powerful space where they are allowed to simply be. For some of them this is a rare gift.
Creativity has the potential to help us to see ‘what is’, not ‘what I wish to be’ or ‘what I think others will accept’. A person living as a minority may find the space life-giving because they are often living with the constant discomfort of fitting into other people’s conditions. Gods meet us in that honest deep place. Often, it surprises us to find God already there, seeing us, accepting us before we accept ourselves.
I also want to add that for some cultures, doing things in a group as opposed to one to one is the norm! So the traditional way of spiritual direction with two people talking in a private room may not work as well as a few people gathering together exploring deeper things. Doing a reflective drawing in a group may work better in some cultures.
Where can people connect with you and your work?
Have a look at my website, creativeprayer.space, where I share about my work in spiritual direction and opportunities for exploring contemplative creative practices in quiet days, retreats and workshops.
