Finding Your Middle Earth

A Series on Creativity and the Unconscious

*this post is in partnership with Communion Arts, the first in a series of 4 articles around creativity and the unconscious

He found himself wondering at times, especially in the autumn, about the wild lands, and strange visions of mountains that he had never seen came into his dreams. He began to say to himself: ‘Perhaps I shall cross the River myself one day.’ To which the other half of his mind always replied: ‘Not yet.’”

~ The Fellowship of the Ring, Book 1, Chapter 2 ~

I was first introduced to Tolkien’s Middle Earth at the age of 36 with a 9-year-old who fell head over heels with hobbits when he found a hardcover copy of Bilbo’s tale displayed at the entrance to our small library in Ohio. As most early Tolkien readers are prone to ask, whether nine or 36, I too held the question, “Where has this story been all my life?”

Tolkien wasn’t my first introduction to literature or fantasy, but Tolkien’s Middle Earth did bring to me an unrealized awareness that worlds might be built, not only lived in. And this was life-changing for me. I first took solace in worlds built by others –Tolkien, Lewis, Stan Lee, Frank Herbert, George Lucas – looking for nuance and detail on each page, hungry for the reminders that good and evil are universal, challenges and victories will come and go, and it is intimate relationships, friends and family, comradery and partnership, that often reveal God’s hope through it all.

Perhaps more than all those meaningful bits, I wanted to be creativity-adjacent:

I wanted to live in Tolkien’s head and eat the cheeses and apples of Hobbits.

I wanted to drink at the Mos Eisley Cantina and razz a Wookie.

I wanted to harness a sandworm.

Reading Tolkien’s writing gave me permission as a mom of four and graduate student to return to the art of daydreaming, which had been left behind with my childhood. Soon, I (re)discovered the writer and creative within me as well. Other parts of myself I had forgotten or buried in the work of daily living as an adult.

Yet, creativity is something I practice every day. It is all around me…

Article takeaway highlights:

Exercises for creativity - daydreaming, Jung’s active imagination, and remembering play