The Magic of Making Stuff
the creative side of soul work
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The Deep Satisfaction of Making Stuff
I’ve been making stuff since early childhood; you probably were, too. Maybe it was crayon drawings your mom tacked to the fridge. Perhaps it was sandcastles, mudpies, or faerie houses in the woods nestled between the roots of a great oak or maple tree. I have splendid memories of making all of those.
I remember the little red weaving loom with the stretchy loops that made potholders and, even before that, the cardboard sewing cards with thick shoelaces for “thread.” Plastic pop beads were my introduction to jewelry making. I also made clothespin dolls, an early precursor to the spirit dolls I make.
Later, there was a wood burning kit, sand art, and learning to embroider. The list of stuff I made goes on and on. You likely have a list of stuff you made as a child too.
There is something deeply satisfying about making something with your hands.
Some animals are experts at making things. Birds make nests, beavers make dams, bees make hives, coyotes make dens, and so it goes.
In nature, animals build or make their home for safety and as a place to raise and protect their young. Their creations are purely practical, and they know how to make these essential things through the collective instinct of their species.
The big three for humans, food, clothing, and shelter, require us to make stuff. This is one of the reasons we have such a strong impulse to make things; our survival depends on it. If our species ever had the collective instinctual knowledge for making shelter and clothing and finding wild food sources to make a meal, I think we lost that. I seriously doubt many first-world citizens would know how to make anything if they were dropped in the middle of the wilderness. Hence the popularity of reality TV shows like Alone.
Even though we may have lost some knowledge about making survival shelters, we still have a deep desire to make stuff, and we feel disproportionate satisfaction from creating even the most minor, basic thing. I would encourage you to lean into this feeling.
Each time you create a pot from clay (even if it’s lopsided), complete a simple felting project, sew a pillowcase, make a bracelet, bake a loaf of bread from scratch, build a birdhouse, or make a greeting card, the sense of accomplishment, satisfaction, and pride at your handiwork fills your entire soul with delight.
The satisfaction of making stuff is so intense because it activates an ancestral memory within us. Humans have always made things. We have continuously innovated and created.
It’s easy to understand the impulse to make better shelters, better weapons for hunting, and better tools to make necessary tasks like sewing, tanning hides, and grinding grain easier. What’s more elusive to understand is why we make purely decorative things. The urge to make something beautiful speaks to our spiritual dimension. It’s also tied up with our ability to think symbolically and conceptualize other planes of reality.
The deep satisfaction we feel when making things, whether functional, beautiful, or both, reflects the complexity of the human soul and our connection to more perfect and beautiful realms beyond the physical. In short, we touch the divine when we make stuff because the depth of our humanity, a reflection of the sacred, is activated in the process.
The Egalitarian Accessibility of Creating
Everyone can make stuff, and I recommend that everyone do so simply because it is uniquely human and satisfying. Plus, in an increasingly virtual world, with so much of what humans used to make now being made by machines and AI, it’s vital we keep making things with our own two hands lest we begin to lose our sense of humanity.
One of my treasured memories is of my mom’s last Christmas. She was in memory care, and one afternoon in December, close to Christmas, I brought her large red and white plastic beads and pipe cleaners, helped her thread them and bend the pipe cleaner to make a candy cane. She was so delighted. The process kept her focused in the moment; making something helped her feel as if she were useful, and like all making, it brought her deep joy and satisfaction. She made candy canes for the Christmas tree, filling her with a sense of purpose. One month later, on January 25th, she crossed over.
Everyone derives pleasure and satisfaction from making stuff. I've seen it with the elderly, children, adults, teenagers, and those who are physically challenged and emotionally unwell. Making stuff is a positive experience for those with everything from autism and anxiety to grief and even insomnia.
Making stuff is magical in its effect. It affirms our humanity and our abilities. It touches something profound and draws something powerful inside us to the surface. We are all magician-makers with the amazing ability to make something, to bring something into being that didn’t exist before our hands touched the raw materials and brought them together in a distinct way.
The Undeniable Benefits of Making Stuff
Experiencing the Power of Process
Making stuff (and you may have noticed I’m purposely trying to avoid the words “create,” “creating,” and “art” because, for so many people, those words come with baggage) has a plethora of benefits for the body, mind, and soul.
First, there is the power of process. This is especially important when intentionally creating, which we will examine in a moment. But, even at a more fundamental level, experiencing process is beneficial.
By the benefits of process, I mean two things. The initial benefit comes from moving through a series of known steps in an orderly way and with purpose. You may already know how to cut the wood and construct the birdhouse, or you may be following written instructions. Either way, engaging in an orderly process that produces the desired and expected result is an amazingly comforting experience. It’s the opposite of chaos and destruction. For decades, we’ve been swimming in an academic and intellectual slop that thrives on deconstructing everything, resulting in a sense of breakdown, destruction, and chaos. At this point, the simple act of an orderly process of making something can feel like the revival of ancient wisdom. Order and predictability are necessary experiences for the human soul to feel safe, and when the soul feels safe, human beings thrive.
Second, process is expansive and allows for that other jewel of human ability, innovation. If a known process works, the stage is set for experimentation and innovation. You are safe to try new ways of doing things if you know that should your innovation and experiments fail, you can always go back to the tried-and-true way and get the result you need.
When you are making stuff, the process is both a reliable and comforting experience and an exciting one, opening the way for the adventure and fun of discovering new insights and new ways to do things.
The Meditative Experience of Making Stuff
Busy hands make for a calm mind.
The rhythmic repetition of following a process channels excess energy from the body into the materials and kinetic actions of your hands. The mind is focused on the task at hand, and the muscle memory of cutting, sewing, weaving, painting, etc., lulls your entire being into a relaxed and calm state.
Making stuff creates a unique state of calm activity, a perfect synthesis of being and doing that allows the mind, body, and spirit to come to a central point of balance in which we are neither frantically busy nor lethargically still, overwhelmed with thoughts, or bored to tears. It is a near-perfect state that honors and allows for all of the ways humans can be at any moment while keeping all in balance. Making stuff ushers in the flow state our bodies, minds and souls love.
Making stuff is one of the things we were born to do, and we feel calm and centered when we’re fulfilling that potential.
The Therapeutic Value of Making Stuff
There’s art therapy, which is engaged with the help of an accredited art therapist, and then there’s the therapeutic value of art making. We’re going to talk about the latter.
As we have seen, making stuff (i.e., very broadly crafting and making art) is deeply embedded in who we are as humans. So it should be no surprise that it makes us feel good.
The therapeutic value of being a maker (this is an archetype I’ll explore with you at a later date) is manifold.
As we have seen, it calms and focuses us. It also gives us something to look forward to doing; it provides respite and relief from the care and worries of our lives. It provides space to relax, find quiet, and remove ourselves from the weight of our daily roles and responsibilities. It allows us to shift into an identity that’s just for us; the magician-maker empowers us to create beautiful things even if things in our lives are not so beautiful. Making stuff is a doorway into a world of our own where we can experience joy, beauty, order, excitement, change, power, voice, and goodness. Our makers’ world may be a stark contrast to our everyday world. Having an actual, tangible practice to turn to can provide the healing, nourishment, and fortification we need to courageously face our challenges and demons.
Intentionality
There is a kind of making called intentional creating. It leans heavily into the therapeutic value of making stuff and how working with images, colors and textures opens the door to symbolic content and connections. Intentional creating involves making stuff specifically for inner personal healing and growth. Making stuff becomes a way to engage with our inner life, personal mythology, self-realization, and individuation. It lets us explore who we were, who we are now, and who we are becoming. It provides a way to reflect, envision. It helps you discover life patterns mand your sacred life values.
Imagery that Reflects
The first aspect of the intentional making of stuff asks that you find a medium and imagery that resonates deeply with your soul.
Perhaps weaving or pottery call to you. Both of those have a long history and are loaded with symbolic content. You might desire something more traditional like nature journaling, art journaling or landscape painting. Maybe you move around between mediums. When you choose to make something let it be a medium, genre and theme that speaks to your soul’s desires and needs. This is the foundation of intentional creating.
If you work in collage, like I often do, then you will need to be seeking and gathering imagery, papers and buts and pieces that move you. If you’re sketching or painting your choice of subject will be important.
Intentional creativity is meant to help show you the way and create a map and record of what’s going on inside you at the emotional, spiritual and psychological levels.
The process aspect of intentional creating goes beyond igniting the imagination and the movement of your hands in satisfying work. As you explore your internal state of being through making something you have an opportunity to observe how your body reacts to the images, symbols, materials and techniques you use. For example, if a relationship has recently come apart and disintegrated tearing paper may trigger a painful somatic response helping you actually feel the emotional pain inside you. If you are feeling stuck in a situation at work you may suddenly realize that you’re struggling with the glue you’re using in an unexpected way. As you solve the actual glue problem your unconscious may be hard at work coming to an understanding of why you’re stuck in your situation at work.
The Freedom to Express
Making stuff, with intentionality or not provides a potent opportunity to express yourself. Consciously or unconsciously your inner state of being, struggles, wounds, beliefs etc. come out in your work. You can choose to say whatever it is you want to, and communicate in any way that suits you. Self-expression is a powerful experience and allows you to explore many facets of yourself that might otherwise go unheard. Regularly engaging with times of self-expression go a long way to helping you integrate all parts of your Self. With each project made you are making yourself more whole.
The power of creative choice
Making things involves choice. What will you make? How will you make it? What materials will you chose? Does this look good with that? Do these colors clash? How do I want this to look? What theme am I exploring?
One of the benefits of making stuff is that you’re faced with lots of choices. The more you choose the better you get at it and the more confident and competant you feel making choices in all areas of life. Making things helps you get in tune with your intuitive side. What looks right? What feels right? What communicates the emotion I’m expressing?
From Pretty to Profound
You may make things because you love creating things that are beautiful. To make something beautiful is really quite a profound action.
Beauty will save the world. ~ Dostoevsky
Don’t ever let anyone tell you that making something for yourself simply because it pretty is a waste of time. The devil may be in the details but the Divine is in the decorative. To surround ourselves with the beautiful is to create a connection to the supernal realms and to be reminded that there is a Beauty that transcends any ugliness that this world holds.
To work with the Beautiful, with intention or for pleasure is vital to the human soul and to humanity.
I hope today’s post inspires you to make stuff and to consider the ways that making beautiful things enriches your life.
Do you make stuff? Tell us about your experiences. Why do you choose to make things, how does it benefit you?
The comments section is a safe and welcoming space to share your insights and experiences.
Comments and conversation are always appreciated and enjoyed, so feel free to let your voice be heard. I read them all and try to respond to each one.
Thank you for reading Hedge Mystic and participating in this vibrant and growing community of creative, spiritual humans. You are always welcome here, appreciated, and loved.
PS
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Nice comments on making stuff Jan. Like your collages, esp the pink ones at bottom.
It’s truly a gateway to flow