Reimagining Creativity for a Partnership World with Sara Saltee

Imagine a world where creativity thrives, unhampered by domination systems or cultural constraints. Where our perception of time is fluid and our ability to create is nurtured. This is the reality Sara Saltee, Director of the Center for Partnership Systems Educational Program, is passionately advocating for in this episode of the Power of Partnership podcast. Exploring the nuanced layers of creativity, Sara guides us through the labyrinth of gender influences, the impact of play deprivation, and the necessity of a caring economy to fully unlock our creative potential. Sara Saltee doesn't stop at identifying the hurdles; she provides a blueprint for a more balanced and fulfilling life, one where creativity is not just recognized, but celebrated!

Center for Partnership Learning Center

Saltee Academy 

Sara Saltee Substack

Sara Saltee and Susan Carter IJPS article “Reimagining Creativity for a

Partnership World”

The Power of Partnership: Seven Relationships that will Change Your Life, Riane Eisler

center@partnershipway.org

Resilience, Rising Appalachia

Chapters

• 0:09 Partnering Creativity
• 10:27 Creativity and Time Perspective Shifts
• 15:46 Redefining Time and Embracing Creativity

Transcript

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Welcome
to the Power of Partnership podcast.

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I’m Riane Eisler, President of the Center
for Partnerships Systems.

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This podcast brings you
the voices from the partnership movement,

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people using partnership

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practices
to build a world that values caring

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nature and shared prosperity.

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The Power of Partnership podcast

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is hosted by Cherri Jacobs Pruitt,

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a Health Policy and Partnerships scholar.

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Today, Cherri interviews Sara Saltee,

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Director of the Center for Partnerships

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Systems Educational Programs
And Founder of the Academy

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for Complex Creators
And now on to the POP podcast

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showing how we can reimagine,
creativity for a partnership world.

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Welcome, Sarah, to
the Power of Partnership podcast series.

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We're so glad
that you're able to join us today.

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Thanks for having me.

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Let's begin by you
sharing with our listeners

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what is a creativity coach.

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Okay. Well, 

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I studied to be

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a creativity coach in the early 2000s
with a man named Eric Maisel,

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who was sort of the father of this
whole idea of creativity, coaching.

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what my training with him taught me was to

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really help people know themselves

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as creators, to

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deepen their understanding
of the creative process

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so that they can be more joyful
and more free in not only in

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creating their body of work so their art,
but also in creating their lives.

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And so I do a lot to try to understand
the kinds of things that block creativity

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or that interfere with our ability
to sort of have our creativity flow.

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And because my own background
is not in psychotherapy

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but is in social science
and sort of social and cultural studies,

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that has informed my work in the sense
that when I'm thinking

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about creative blocks,
I'm not just thinking about the blocks

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in our psychology,
but the way in which our culture itself

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and the dynamics of our culture

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can block our access
to our creativity.

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And so can you speak about

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how patterns of domination
versus partnerships

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show up
when we think about creativity.

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Yes, I mean, it's been such a gift
to be working

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with the Center for Partnerships Systems
over these last decade,

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while I simultaneously have been doing
so much of my

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developing my thinking
and writing around creativity.

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So for me,
these things are very intertwined.

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We know that domination systems

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are inherently anti creative,
and this is for a lot of reasons.

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So their hierarchy domination systems
operate as hierarchies of control.

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And of course, creativity is this force
that is inherently wild.

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It is inherently uncontrollable
by external forces.

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It's

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imminent.

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It's a form of imminent power
that, you know, exists within each of us

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and is really not amenable completely ever

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to external control.

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And we see,

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I think, in the culture wars
that we're witnessing in the United States

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today, in this impulse to silence diverse
voices, right to silence

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the creativity of authors of color, of,
you know, LGBTQ

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authors to ban books,

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to shut down, libraries to restrict
what teachers can teach.

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All of that is a way, you know,
of sort of controlling the narrative,

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right control, having control
of a singular story that we all agree.

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And as we move toward the partnership
end of the spectrum,

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what starts to happen,
I think in partnership cultures

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is that there's this recognition
that truth exists in multiple,

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you know, there's that there's
multiple truths to be told

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and that our perspectives
and our identities shape

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the way we see the world and that our job

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isn't to pick the one and enforce it on
everybody else,

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but is to try to deepen our understanding
of one another's perspectives,

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to be respectful of those ways
in which our position

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in the world shapes
what we're able to see and not see.

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And so

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I think the other way that I know

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Riane and many others have talked about

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creativity in terms of domination systems

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has to do with gender and the way
in which domination systems inherently

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have that hierarchy of the masculine

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is superior, feminine inferior.

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And this has translated over time
into our thinking about

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creativity in the sense that

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the creativity of men is has historically

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been valued over the creativity of women.

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And so we have, you know, male chefs

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and women have been home cooks, right?

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Men have been fine artists.

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Women are crafters

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and sort of access to the training
and to the,

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you know, trajectories
that that help people to cultivate their

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creativity have been limited for women
and for people of color.

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The one other thing I wanted to say around

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domination systems and

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creativity is one of the things
that happens in domination systems

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is the suppression of creativity
through play. In our culture

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we see this in the erosion of,

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you know, arts programs, music programs

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in our schools, and

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but also just the erosion of time

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that's allocated for children to play.

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And across
all that translates across the lifespan.

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And that when we as
we lose our access to play.

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What's fascinating,
I mean the studies have been done,

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that play deprivation

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leads to antisocial behavior.

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It erodes our ability to think flexibly
and imaginatively

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and create solutions to complex problems.

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In play,

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we learn to see past

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how things are
and to see what they could be right

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to invent new worlds,
to invent the future.

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We get comfortable
with this sort of malleability of reality,

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the multiplicity of reality. And

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we, I think,

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do our
culture, you know, such a disservice

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when we don't stand up for the

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value of play in terms
of how that sets the stage for that

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poly-cultural, healthy cultural ecosystem
that we would want to live in,

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that that represents a sort of partnership
vision

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of the world.

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And I think, the way
in which domination systems,

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the reason that we've shut play down

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isn't in a sort of overt desire for

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sort of control in the traditional
domination system sense.

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But it has more to do with our
with the way in which

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our particular American culture
has embraced

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the ethos of productivity

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as its sort of dominant ethos.

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If that's the value system,
this ethos of productivity

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that we've been living with,
and I've learned from Riane Eisler that

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the idea of a caring economy says

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we're not valuing the work of care
as we should, right?

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We're not valuing the time
and

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the energy and the exchange

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and the relationship development
and the nurturing and all of that.

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That's in the realm of the ethos of care.

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You know, the whole point of the caring
economy work is to say,

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hey, all this work
that's going on here to care for people

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and the care for nature is also productive
work, right?

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So we should value it.

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We should stand up for it.

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And so I thought to myself, well,
we need to do the same thing

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for creativity,
because just as productivity drove out,

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as sort of the rise of
productivity as our dominant

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value system,

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you know, the world of care

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was sort of shoved to the side
and we shrunk our site.

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You know, it's the world of women
and it's not productive

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labor, it's reproductive labor.

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So we don't have to think about it
in terms of economic value.

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And it just happens
out of the goodness of people's hearts.

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So good.

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That's taken care of.

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Where is creativity in that picture?

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I think, you know, we
we come from this history

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of productivity as this masculine world.

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Care is this distinctly feminine world.

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Creativity is in this really queer
kind of in-between non gendered space.

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Right?

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It's not doing,
it's not traditional

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women's work, but it's also not
traditional men's work, right?

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It's this place
where boundaries and categories

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and binaries
and all of that are fluid and,

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you know, open for malleable
and open for exploration.

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So one of the things I

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started to think is, okay,
so what is the?

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If we were going to assert

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that creativity is itself an ethos,

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creativity is a value system,

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It is a distinctly third thing.

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So I've started to explore
like what is the ethos of creativity?

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And it's a really fascinating question,
like, what are the values

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that writers, artists, creators share

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and what does that
have to teach us in our world?

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And I think that at the core of that
is this distinction

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between the productive self,
the productivity self.

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We are trained with this attitude of
I impose

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my will upon a world of things, right?

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I make things happen.

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I, you know, do the thing.

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I get my stuff done.

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The creative self and this is

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part of the ethos of creativity
says I interact

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within a dynamic living world, right?

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I am not surrounded by things and objects.

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I do not turn the natural world
into a resource or an exploitable.

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You know, I don't see a tree as a thing
to be chopped down and turned into profit.

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I see a tree as a living being with whom
I can have a relationship.

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And, if I'm a painter,
I can deepen that relationship by trying

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to capture the spirit or the essence
of that tree, you know, in my painting,

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or if I'm a writer,
I can write my poem about that, you know.

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So we have this.

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I think the creative ethos is

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this idea of interactivity,
of interplay

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that everything is reciprocal,
two way mutual.

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And it's very much the way Riane Eisler

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describes the sort of spirit
of partnership systems right?

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Is that relationality,

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the relationships of mutual respect
and mutual benefit?

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You know,

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and so

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there's this way of being in the world
that says

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my work is to, as a creator,

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is to heal and involve myself

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through my caring
and curious relationships with the world.

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And by so doing,
I will also heal and evolve the culture

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and I’ll create a culture worth living in,

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or at least be part of that.

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You are listening
to the Power of Partnership podcast.

00;14;14;43 - 00;14;18;08
If you would like us
to share your partnership story

00;14;18;13 - 00;14;22;45
or if you would like to become
a proud sponsor of the POP podcast,

00;14;22;50 - 00;14;28;18
please contact us at center@partnershipway.org

00;14;28;23 - 00;14;31;53
And now back to today's episode.

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So as a creativity coach,

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where do we go from here?

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How do we reimagine our own creativity
to really help us move

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towards a partnership based world?
There's are two parts to the solution

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or to the, the directions
we might head at an individual level.

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It has to do with really owning

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and advocating
for the values of creativity.

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What is it?

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What is it?

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What are the values
we are expressing when we are engaged

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in creative play or creative work?

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What does that look like?

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And those are, as I've said,
you know, profoundly relational values.

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They have to do with our

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sense of interconnection,

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with one another
and with the world around us.

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The other is a more systemic answer.

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And it really has to do with
a shift in

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how we think about time.

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Time is really
such a central part of this story

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because the vision of time
that we have

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inherited from the industrial age,
as we talked about before,

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is this time is scarce and linear
and right is clock time.

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And if you picture, you know,
when I talk about this in presentations,

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in classes, there's a wonderful video clip
from Charlie Chaplin's

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1930 whatever movie called Modern Times,

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which is his critique of productivity
culture in which

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his character is just like being hit
by the pendulum

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of the clock and falling down
over and over and over again.

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Right.

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And
the image of the clock, you know,

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looming so large in that film
as this emblem

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of how power
is exercised through productivity culture.

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So one
of the things I'm really interested in

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is, having us expand
our vocabulary of time beyond clock time,

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because what creators know about time
and what caregivers know about

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time is very different.

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Is essentially that time
is a kind of container that changes

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shape and feeling depending
on what you're doing with it, right?

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So the structural part of this is we see

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workplaces, you know, moving toward things
like the four day workweek,

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flex time,

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time off that you don't have to pretend
to be sick to

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to get, right.

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Those kinds of workplace shifts

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that just move us away from being

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in a perpetual state of exhaustion
such that all we can imagine doing is

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trying to offer some care to our families
and then taking a nap or falling asleep.

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Right.

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There's not a
lot left over of that kind of

00;17;56;18 - 00;17;57;21
you know,

00;17;57;21 - 00;18;01;57
room for imagination and dreaming
and envisioning and musing

00;18;01;57 - 00;18;05;41
and you know, all of those kinds of things
that are part of the creative life.

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We all need

00;18;08;31 - 00;18;13;12
to retrain ourselves
from thinking about time and task

00;18;13;17 - 00;18;17;32
and focus on a sort of new equation,
which is sort of the quality

00;18;17;32 - 00;18;21;49
of our presence informs
the quality of our interactions

00;18;21;49 - 00;18;25;45
with others,
which informs the quality of our results.

00;18;25;50 - 00;18;30;07
And so I think we see the threads of this
in the culture

00;18;30;07 - 00;18;33;18
of more emphasis on self-care,

00;18;33;23 - 00;18;37;26
more emphasis on the quality of presence.

00;18;37;28 - 00;18;41;26
You know,
when you're making widgets,

00;18;41;30 - 00;18;45;28
it doesn't matter if you're cranky or,

00;18;45;33 - 00;18;49;51
you know, tired or stressed or impatient.

00;18;49;56 - 00;18;54;04
You're there as part of the
machine and you're churning something out.

00;18;54;09 - 00;18;58;01
But as soon as you're
trying to create a result

00;18;58;01 - 00;19;02;34
that requires a sort
of high quality interaction,

00;19;02;39 - 00;19;04;05
it matters

00;19;04;05 - 00;19;07;05
how you show up, the energy
that you bring,

00;19;07;07 - 00;19;11;28
the quality of your spirit, you know,
are you there and enjoy.

00;19;11;32 - 00;19;15;06
So are there tools
that you can speak about or that you've

00;19;15;06 - 00;19;20;25
developed to help us all really get in
touch with our creative selves?

00;19;20;28 - 00;19;24;35
Yeah, well, 

00;19;24;40 - 00;19;27;40
on this productivity, creativity
ethos side.

00;19;27;53 - 00;19;31;20
I've developed some tools, tools
that describe

00;19;31;20 - 00;19;35;20
each of these ethoses
as a set of values and beliefs

00;19;35;24 - 00;19;38;01
and what happens is and so you can kind of

00;19;38;01 - 00;19;40;44
go through and sort of,

00;19;40;44 - 00;19;43;10
you know,
check the ones that, that you hold

00;19;43;10 - 00;19;46;10
most dear from all three of the columns.

00;19;46;14 - 00;19;50;18
And what happens is you begin to realize
like, I hold beliefs and values

00;19;50;18 - 00;19;54;39
from all three of these ethos’s,
productivity, creativity and care.

00;19;54;44 - 00;19;57;44
They're all interwoven
through all of our lives.

00;19;57;58 - 00;20;01;58
So it's about,
and once we can sort of see that,

00;20;02;03 - 00;20;05;42
I think that tool is really helpful for,
getting people to say,

00;20;05;53 - 00;20;09;49
I already hold these values,
I just don't live them

00;20;09;54 - 00;20;14;03
because I'm overwhelmed
by the demands of productivity.

00;20;14;08 - 00;20;16;06
And that's, I think, a good first step.

00;20;16;06 - 00;20;21;29
I've also developed an expanded
vocabulary of time

00;20;21;34 - 00;20;24;42
that pulls
from the kind of understandings of time

00;20;24;42 - 00;20;28;57
that writers and artists
and other creators have,

00;20;29;01 - 00;20;32;12
and also the kinds of vocabulary of time

00;20;32;12 - 00;20;35;12
that care givers have.

00;20;35;23 - 00;20;38;26
Things like, you know, in caregiving

00;20;38;26 - 00;20;42;44
we think about making, if you have a friend
in need, you make time, right?

00;20;42;49 - 00;20;44;27
What does that mean in productivity?

00;20;44;27 - 00;20;46;48
You know, in clock time,
that makes no sense.

00;20;46;48 - 00;20;49;26
Time cannot be made.
It's just ticking away. Right.

00;20;49;26 - 00;20;53;07
But so thinking about what we already know
about these other ways

00;20;53;07 - 00;20;57;52
of being in time
and giving more value to those.

00;20;57;57 - 00;20;59;41
But the other I think so there's two

00;20;59;41 - 00;21;04;28
other tools
that I've developed that 

00;21;04;33 - 00;21;06;01
I've noticed really

00;21;06;01 - 00;21;11;09
have been very helpful
for my students and coaching clients.

00;21;11;14 - 00;21;14;36
And one is just,

00;21;14;40 - 00;21;21;31
I don’t want to say just, but is a cyclical map
of creating as a process.

00;21;21;36 - 00;21;24;36
And what it helps us to see is that while

00;21;24;50 - 00;21;28;10
productivity culture teaches
us that progress is this linear

00;21;28;10 - 00;21;33;07
sort of straight up line on the graph
that we can all picture

00;21;33;12 - 00;21;37;20
that creativity happens
in cycles and spirals.

00;21;37;20 - 00;21;43;16
And one of the features of that
cyclical map of the creative process

00;21;43;16 - 00;21;46;16
that's really helpful for people

00;21;46;16 - 00;21;49;58
is that it shows that

00;21;50;02 - 00;21;55;05
one of the built
in features of the cycle of creativity

00;21;55;10 - 00;21;57;35
and it is a feature, not a bug, is

00;21;57;35 - 00;22;01;09
this space called the void.

00;22;01;13 - 00;22;05;42
Is this space where something has ended

00;22;05;47 - 00;22;08;47
but the next thing has not yet begun?

00;22;08;48 - 00;22;13;02
And creators experience this all the time,
right at the end of a project,

00;22;13;02 - 00;22;17;02
you think, I'm empty,
I'll never create again.

00;22;17;07 - 00;22;20;05
I can't, you know, like,
will I ever write another song?

00;22;20;05 - 00;22;21;33
Will I ever write another book?

00;22;21;33 - 00;22;25;58
Will I ever paint
another painting? And

00;22;26;02 - 00;22;29;02
that space of void

00;22;29;08 - 00;22;33;41
is so such a critical part
of the creativity ethos.

00;22;33;41 - 00;22;35;18
Because

00;22;35;18 - 00;22;37;20
in productivity culture,

00;22;37;20 - 00;22;42;27
we treat those spaces
where nothing seems to be happening

00;22;42;31 - 00;22;45;50
and we genuinely don't know where
we're going next.

00;22;45;55 - 00;22;50;21
As horrifying, right,
in productivity, culture, what do you do?

00;22;50;23 - 00;22;51;57
You get to work faster,

00;22;51;57 - 00;22;56;24
you get more restless, you get more busy,
you know, more breathless.

00;22;56;24 - 00;22;59;44
You just like, I got to get through this,
you know, as quickly as possible.

00;22;59;49 - 00;23;04;57
And what creators know is like,
if you sit with that space

00;23;05;02 - 00;23;09;27
and, you know, in Tibetan Buddhism,
there's like 32 forms of consciousness

00;23;09;27 - 00;23;12;38
that are available to you
only in times, right?

00;23;12;41 - 00;23;16;32
That are not available to you
and other times, which is fascinating.

00;23;16;36 - 00;23;20;06
But you sit in that space of not knowing

00;23;20;10 - 00;23;26;07
and trust that it is not the empty
void, it is a fertile void.

00;23;26;11 - 00;23;29;32
And so that piece of that tool.

00;23;29;36 - 00;23;35;02
And I just taught
that particular lesson yesterday in a

00;23;35;02 - 00;23;40;29
in a class, and it's just so powerful
to give people that tool

00;23;40;29 - 00;23;46;02
for accepting naming,
honoring that those times.

00;23;46;02 - 00;23;49;21
And people are like, well I've experience
like, yeah, we all have,

00;23;49;36 - 00;23;52;50
but we don't talk about it
or we talk about it as depression

00;23;52;50 - 00;23;57;02
or we talk about it as lost ness or we,
you know, we have all these ways

00;23;57;02 - 00;24;02;29
of sort of invalidating
the importance of those times.

00;24;02;34 - 00;24;04;41
So that's one tool.

00;24;04;41 - 00;24;05;18
Wonderful.

00;24;05;18 - 00;24;09;03
Well, for our listeners,
I want to make sure you know that links

00;24;09;03 - 00;24;12;03
to Sarah's Academy.

00;24;12;04 - 00;24;15;20
will all be provided in the show notes
for today's

00;24;15;20 - 00;24;18;20
episode, as well as,

00;24;18;26 - 00;24;22;37
as always, the links to the Center
for Partnerships Systems,

00;24;22;37 - 00;24;28;05
where you can always dive into
of the courses that Sarah helped develop

00;24;28;10 - 00;24;30;56
to dig much more deeply into

00;24;30;56 - 00;24;34;16
Rihanna Whistler's
cultural Transformation Theory,

00;24;34;21 - 00;24;38;22
her domination partnership, social lens
continuum,

00;24;38;26 - 00;24;42;15
So, Sarah, before we close,
I wonder if you have any

00;24;42;15 - 00;24;46;03
final words that you would like to share
with our listeners.

00;24;46;08 - 00;24;52;30
I think I would
just close with a sort of,

00;24;52;34 - 00;24;54;35
you know, exhortation to

00;24;54;35 - 00;24;58;35
the listeners to really

00;24;58;39 - 00;24;59;48
feel empowered

00;24;59;48 - 00;25;03;59
to stand up for the

00;25;04;03 - 00;25;09;04
the ethos of creativity,
for the values, beliefs and aspirations

00;25;09;09 - 00;25;12;43
that have room for joy, that have room

00;25;12;43 - 00;25;16;02
for generativity and play

00;25;16;06 - 00;25;21;16
for deep engagement
with ourselves and the world.

00;25;21;21 - 00;25;24;14
And don't let your idea of what creativity

00;25;24;14 - 00;25;27;13
is get shrunken down

00;25;27;17 - 00;25;30;13
to the productivity ethos view

00;25;30;13 - 00;25;34;15
that creativity is just sort of a snazzy
way of making products.

00;25;34;20 - 00;25;36;40
It is not,

00;25;36;40 - 00;25;39;56
and I think in this age of AI, it's
it's essential.

00;25;39;56 - 00;25;43;24
We didn't really go there,
but it's so important that we understand

00;25;43;24 - 00;25;46;30
the human role of creativity

00;25;46;30 - 00;25;49;30
in our humanity.

00;25;49;35 - 00;25;53;52
And so stand up for your own inner

00;25;53;52 - 00;25;57;23
life, your own inner light,

00;25;57;28 - 00;26;01;13
your soul,
your way of discovering the world,

00;26;01;22 - 00;26;05;02
your way of expressing your spirit.

00;26;05;07 - 00;26;07;56
Because this is not

00;26;07;56 - 00;26;10;14
it is essential and life saving

00;26;10;14 - 00;26;13;54
at the level of us as individuals to

00;26;14;06 - 00;26;19;58
stand up for ourselves in that way
and for the power of our creativity.

00;26;20;02 - 00;26;23;37
But it is also to me,

00;26;23;42 - 00;26;26;49
very clear
that we are not going to produce

00;26;26;49 - 00;26;29;49
our way into a better world.

00;26;29;56 - 00;26;32;45
We are going to have to create it.

00;26;32;45 - 00;26;34;47
And so

00;26;34;47 - 00;26;36;53
having access to

00;26;36;53 - 00;26;40;27
our creativity is the only way

00;26;40;32 - 00;26;45;04
we're going to collectively really be able
and are caring,

00;26;45;06 - 00;26;48;53
of course, which sort of to me
baked into creativity too.

00;26;48;58 - 00;26;53;51
But, you know, we are going to have
to create a better world together.

00;26;53;56 - 00;26;56;49
And the values and beliefs and ethoses

00;26;56;49 - 00;27;00;34
as of task lists and goal achievement
are not going to get us there.

00;27;00;48 - 00;27;03;39
We need this expanded way

00;27;03;39 - 00;27;07;24
of understanding the world
and relating to the world.

00;27;07;24 - 00;27;12;37
So it's not just about self-care
in the narrowest sense.

00;27;12;37 - 00;27;16;08
It is about care of our cultural ecology.

00;27;16;13 - 00;27;21;06
And, I think we should all take that really

00;27;21;11 - 00;27;23;31
seriously in a very playful way.