The Creative Fire Quotes

“An artist is an artist before they have ever produced a single thing. The production of something is not what makes a body an artist. It is the soul that makes an artist, the core of the psyche that fills the person, the creative fire inside a person that make them an artist. And if that person has the soul of an artist, that is they have the burning as each and every individual does, then they are an artist, they are entitled to the title artist, we are all entitled to the title artist before we have produced one single thing”
― Clarissa Pinkola Estés, The Creative Fire: Myths and Stories on the Cycles of Creativity

“Everyone who creates struggles to keep the flow clear. And every day purification or hygiene is required in that respect. And if it is not done, then the flow becomes dammed... people are barely taught how the creative life works let alone how to care for its needs and requirements.

All creativity is a cycle, not a singular event with no past and no future. But a cycle that has that quickening and rising to a Zenith and begins to decline and falls into a death and then an incubation, a holding or waiting period, and once again a quickening and then a rebirth. And this process continues over and over again. And it is this cycle that is right, and proper and cohesive and sacred.”
― Clarissa Pinkola Estés, The Creative Fire: Myths and Stories on the Cycles of Creativity