ABSTRACT
This chapter explores creativity through the symbol. Creative processes and works are inherently symbolic.
The first part addresses the way symbols and creativity hold as a unitary reality what is complex, seemingly separate, contradictory or opposed, like conscious and unconscious, psyche and matter, and psyche and soma. The symbolic capacity, rooted in the body, is psyche’s inclination to incarnate meaning and the means by which the work holds together.
The second part addresses the interiority of the symbol, of matter and of the created work. Matter is the substantiality, otherness, independence, stability, boundedness, specificity, sensorial accessibility and reality of psyche, allowing what is created a relatively sustainable life of its own.
The third part offers a phenomenological description of musical performance as a clarifying example of the symbolic nature and impact of creative expression.
In the fourth part, the symbol, a meeting of ego and unconscious, is imagined from the point of view of the ego-set-apart and from the point of view of the unconscious. Empathizing with the latter, we accept its invitation into an undoing of the illusions and antagonisms of separation and into creating with collaborative intent.
