This morning I woke up in Berlin. I’m staying here with my husband and son in the apartment of family for our Summer Holiday.
We love Berlin. Well, what’s not to love. Many songs, books and poems have been written in this Magical City. But so far Berlin had been treated me as the tourist I am. An outsider who merely looks, but cannot feel the invisible atoms of inspiration.
But this morning I stood on the balcony and all of a sudden a surge of bright inspiration hit me.
Within 15 minutes I drew the Storyboard for my Celebrate your Creative Soul Challenge. Something I had been trying to do for weeks. I was visited by Superheroes and villains who wanted to become part of my world. Loose ideas merged and formed new stories. I had a Very Happy Celebration Party on my Berliner Balcony.
That day we would visit the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe.
It had been on our ‘Things To Do in Berlin When our Son is Ready For It’ list for years. It was a happy, warm and humid day. Outside tourists young and old, from all over the world played on the concrete blocks of the Memorial. Thousands of photo’s were being made. Children ran through the narrow streets between the blocks. Their bright happy voices in many languages filled the air.
Inside the memorial it was silent.
The unspeakable amount of six million murdered Jews transformed into the suffering of real people. Into families whose ‘crime’ was being Jewish. People like you and me. With dreams and daily worries about bills or a sick child.
Inside the memorial they were given a name. Faces. A family with beaming faces because the oldest daughter got married. Within months all those smiling faces were killed in the death camps.
Letters thrown out of overcrowded trains “Dear father, I am saying goodbye to you before I die. We would so love to live, but they won’t let us and we will die. (…) †were written on the floor.
We, the visitors of the memorial became mourners on a huge invisible graveyard.
Nobody spoke. I started to cry and felt ashamed because I’m not Jewish. What right did I have. But I couldn’t help myself. The numbers on the walls: Norway 762, France 77.320 … The names, the letters, the photo’s of the faces. The tears kept coming.
The rooms were dark. The feeling of utter hopelessness weighed heavy. There was no space left for lightness. This was what desperation feels like.
When we stepped into the light we still felt the tightness in our heart. Our soul had been connected to the darkness.
There were questions. How in the world is it possible that Humanity can survive this kind of darkness? Who are we as a species that we let this happen? What is the point of living?
We kept walking and talking until we stood in front of the Gedächtniskirche.
The 22.000 blue glass tiles of this Church – a well known Second World War Memorial – casts the most soothing blue light.
When we entered the church we walked straight into the Friday afternoon Service.
A handful of tourists and Berliners sat scattered on the chairs while people walked in and out with their camera’s. The minister — a woman my age — with short dark hair, and clearly used to giving a service with the doors wide open, spoke about God as if it was a dear friend. Someone – or something – who was able to console the soul.
There was a choir from a Church in Chelsea.
When they sang their voices created fresh unlimited space for my soul. For all our souls. Once again there were tears. But now they were a physical reaction to the unclenching of my heart.
I looked at the young faces of the choir members. English people who sang a German song about Leben und Liebe (Life and Love) written by an English composer for a German church.
In the middle of the busy Kurfürstendamm, with outside a steady stream of luxury cars and tourists, the choir and the blue light created a place of quiet sacred reflection.
Then I realized why we — Human Beings — are able to survive unspeakable darkness.
It’s our creativity. It’s our ability to create.
We are able to write, to sing, to dance, to invent rich recipes when there are no ingredients to buy. We can tell stories when all hope is lost, write a last poem to say goodbye. And when we’re afraid we can hum a tune that makes us feel brave.
That’s why our creativity is a birthright. It is a huge gift from the universe that helps us to grow, to survive, to help, to feel happy.
So if you ever feel you’re are not very creative, know this gift of creativity is part of who you are. Honor it, use it and share it. Because it just might change our world into an even better place.