The Creative Will of Nature

I believe all living things possess the ability to be creative. For humans creativity is inherent to our very nature. That’s what we do, we create. We dream and imagine our world into existence.

But what about animals? What about a flower? Are they also creative? I think so. Flowers are not like humans and don’t need to, nor have the means to physically invent their own material creations. However, what if they can consciously create and change their own appearance? I’m pretty sure they can.

I think that all animals and plants have an awareness of their place in their environment and are fully in control of their physical evolution in order to adapt to a competitive and always changing environment. That’s a lot to unpack, I know. Furthermore, I don’t think this evolutional process of manifesting their appearance is all necessity, I think that there is a degree of creativity in the way an entity comes into being.

Birds for example construct their nests consciously. You can say that they do so only out of necessity, sure, but who is to say that they are not also employing creativity? For support of this idea look up the amazing diversity of the many birds nests we know about. They’re not just functional, they’re orderly, thoughtful, beautiful and unique from one another. They may also take into account in their design the dangers of predators or the competitive game of finding mate. This shows a high level of creative thought.

The functionality of a flower is not unique, it is part of the ordered and predictable system of nature. But if you believe that all of nature, which we are a part of, is conscious, then it’s only logical to assume that a flower is conscious, self aware and therefore creative. I believe that a flower, or any plant or animal has a say in the way it is aesthetically manifested. Again, think about the diversity and range of incredible flowers in the world and try to explain away their mind-blowing beauty and complexity as simply “necessity”. “Necessity” almost implies a bare minimum approach, but many flowers or exotic birds of paradise for example clearly exceed the bare minimum requirements for being a flower or bird.

What a flower chooses to look like could be simply out of necessity; in a competitive world the brighter flower attracts the bee. It could also be for the sheer sake of creative expression. I think it’s both of these. Humans are quite concerned with how they look, why would any other conscious being, whether it’s a flower or a cat, not be? Cats spend a lot of time on self care and looking good. Is that just part of the necessity to look better in a competitive world, or is it also a bit of vanity? If it’s vanity then his shows us that animals are more self aware than we typically give them credit for.

Someone once said to me “I like animals because they don’t have preferences.” I looked out the window we were standing in front of and saw a chipmunk searching the ground which was covered in fall leaves. She would pick one up and examine it then throw it aside, rejected, until she found what she was looking for. When she found the leave that suited her preference she would disappear with it down into a large opening in the rock wall. She was building a nest I assume and as a nest artist she took pride in her work and wanted to make it perfect, not just functional. Think about that for a moment.

Where is the line between necessity and artistic expression. In nature there may not be a line because it’s actually both. Animals and plants need to meet some basic requirements in order to survive but by God they’re going to look good doing it. Imagine a world where this was not true, where everything was just functional and beauty and grace and wonder were not part of the equation?

I could take this thought experiment a step further. What if our elements like fire, wind and air are also alive with a kind of intelligence? Are they then not also creative? Again, I’m in support of this notion, as far out as that might seem. One could explain away the act of elemental creative expression in nature scientifically. You can explain how a tornado is formed, but it’s much harder to explain why it forms. What about the infinite array of cloud formations or the fierce beauty of fire or the sheer power of lightning. All scientifically explained results of the the earths energies are just superficial descriptions of how these things occur. Does anyone ever ask the earth “where do you get your inspiration from?” Isn’t that every artist’s favorite question?

Nature is creative and it likes to show off. “LOOK MA, NO HANDS!” Look at the great canyons and their rock formations, look at the old growth forests (if you can still find one), or look at the endless expression in clouds, and witness a five-star sunset and try to tell me that nature does not have creative expression and is not self-aware. Look at the flowers, look at the birds and all the beautiful creatures in this world. New species come and old ones become extinct, for as long as we can know this has been going on. Nature is one great highly intelligent and self sustaining, creative system that keeps all life going.

We can’t really fathom the scope of this phenomenon. It may give us some comfort to call it God perhaps, but again, that doesn’t really explain the WHY of it all. It’s okay, it’s actually not necessary to understand why but to just be with it, to experience it and to appreciate with gratitude its magic.