Mythopoeia

The heart of Man is not compound of lies,
but draws some wisdom from the only Wise,
and still recalls him. Though now long estranged,
Man is not wholly lost nor wholly changed.
Dis-graced he may be, yet is not dethroned,
and keeps the rags of lordship once he owned,
his world-dominion by creative act:
not his to worship the great Artefact,
Man, Sub-creator, the refracted light
through whom is splintered from a single White
to many hues, and endlessly combined
in living shapes that move from mind to mind.
Though all the crannies of the world we filled
with Elves and Goblins, though we dared to build
Gods and their houses out of dark and light,
and sowed the seed of dragons, 'twas our right
(used or misused). The right has not decayed.
We make still by the law in which we're made.

I want to share this little bit of Mythopoeia by JRR Tolkien because it so beautifully describes the tension that I feel between what we are able to make and how far it is from perfection. Or rather how far it is from "real" creation. I am very taken with the term "Sub-creator". When we create we simply rearrange the materials that have been given to us. We haven't created any new substances. And yet, our creations have never been seen before. They are one of a kind. They have a special character which is only there because of who we are, which can rarely be truly reproduced. So we have created something new.

I remember when I was a senior in college, I took up toy making again (I had made toys all throughout my childhood, but had not really continued when I got to college because there were other, newer things to attend to). I made a collective of little leaf elves,

a gathering of very serious, gem protecting gnomes,

and a nativity scene which really surpassed anything I had made before in beauty and grace.

I remember admiring them as they sat on my shelf and yet mourning in a way too. In my heart I longed for them to be real. Their beauty deserved to be alive somehow. Or, perhaps, I aspired to make something more than simply objects. I still don't know the answer to this riddle.