Creativity and Spirituality: the Enduring Path: inspiration

18 January 2014

How Is Water the Key to a More Fulfilling Life?

Do you have the patience to wait
til your mind settles and the water is clear?
Can you remain unmoving
til the right action arises by itself?
~Tao Te Ching

Water as a Metaphor for Conscious Living, Quote Tao Te Ching

Water flows in the path of least resistance. This is not a sign of weakness. On the contrary, water is one of the most powerful forces on earth. Water flows around, over and under. With the patience of the seasons, water carves its way through mountains. Water falls from great heights with nary a thought. It sparkles in sunlight and whispers to the soul on a moonlit night. Water is serene and violent, clear and murky, shallow and deep. All this without regrets.

This is the nature of water... Water is true to its nature.

What might your life look like if you did not fight against the natural currents and rhythms of your true nature? How might your life change? In exploring the nature of water, we deepen our awareness of our own deep, true Self.

01 January 2014

Being a Spiritual Warrior: Thoughts for the New Year

Spiritual Warrior: Thoughts for New Year

Being A Spiritual Warrior
Some Thoughts for the New Year

In 2014, I find I am enough.

In 2014, I fall into confusion and forget.

Humanity is filled with bumps and warts.

Meanness and jealousy,

greed and hate come with the territory.

Imperfection is a given.

In 2014, I stumble and fall,

and forgive my humanness.

Laughing, I embrace the fall,

receive a gift,

a promise

an offering

to remember

there is more to me than I suspected.

In 2014, I embrace compassion

fierceness and strength,

joy and adventure.

This is who I truly am.

More than I ever dreamed.

Me, in all my glorious humanity

I am a spiritual warrior.

I break the distorting mirror

and remember who I truly Am.

02 December 2013

Why Creativity Is a Journey Into the Dark!

In Hamlet, Shakespeare said, "Nothing's either good or bad but thinking makes it so." So tell your Inner Critic to put that in his pipe and smoke it when next it tries to stop you from following the passion of your creativity!

Creativity is a labyrinthine journey that takes us deeper and deeper into our self. With every twist, turn and seeming two (three and four!) steps backward for every step forward, we learn more, let go more, fear, love, cry and dance for joy.

Creativity is a journey into the dark and it must be.
Why? Because as creators, we are manifesting the unmanifested.

Where is the unmanifested found?

Where are seeds found?

What gives birth to dawn?

From where does the butterfly emerge?

What is the warm, encompassing darkness that gives birth to every living thing?

The answers are all around us.

Creativity is BIG STUFF!
Don't underestimate the power of the journey! And if you feel at times, and we all do, that you're not up to the task, think of this: if you don't risk the journey, you risk even more.

Explore The Cycles of Creativity

01 April 2013

What Is Your Pathway to the Cosmic Creative Landscape?

The Comic Inner Landscape Where True Self Abides

Creativity wells up from the cosmic inner landscape where the true Self abides. If we are free to meander in this landscape without expectation and need, our creativity becomes the wellspring of life in ways that cannot be imagined by the mind.

People approach this cosmic landscape in very different ways. How do you approach yours?

21 May 2012

How to Find Clarity in Flowers and Weeds

I have been wandering lately in a fog, finding clarity only when I pulling weeds and walking aimlessly in my garden, lush and wild with spring. Every way I turn, I am lost in a mélange of purples, blues, shades of rose. I stand in awe. Hardly breathing. Just like last year and the year before and the year before and the years that have long since become only memory, I am captured anew by the beauty and perfection of all that is color and form in nature. A flower becomes sanctuary.

There is, too, the intense purpose and focus of pulling weeds. Then I think of nothing else. Cleaning a patch, pulling and pulling until the earth is, for the moment, deep and brown... spotless. My fingers dig in the cool loose soil. I think the flowers and the bushes breathe more freely.

07 May 2012

The Zen of Blessings

God bless the whole world - no exceptions

Saw this great bumper sticker today.
Imagine........

14 January 2012

Without Silence We Would Not Hear the Song

Silence
by Emily Hanlon

Life is born of silence.

Without silence we could not
hear the song.
She is the life-giving womb,
the beat of the heart.
Worn like a crown,
she is a star-studded cape.

Worn in laughter, sorrow,
joy and pain,
she is Self.
Enter her womb,
there sound is born.

15 May 2011

Letting Stillness Grow

A few months ago I entered SIBYL Magazine's poetry contest and I am thrilled to share the results.

"Emily, although your written works did not place within the top four winning slots, the editorial judges absolutely fell in loved with the pure-light and healing energy your poetry emanated in the poem entitled: LETTING STILLNESS GROW.

Our judges were so impressed with this poem, they'd like to offer you an opportunity to share a single piece of your poetry inside each bimonthly issue of the brand new, forthcoming literary spin-off publication of SIBYL Magazine entitled, SIBELLA: Poetry and Artwork To Heal the Soul and Inspire the Heart".

Letting Stillness Grow

I saw a sky as large as my heart

and I did not know
it was mine.

What wonders lie in stillness,
that evasive gift of life.
Is it fear of death, of nothingness
that keeps stillness at bay?
My thirst is great.

My skills are few,

but what skills might stillness

require?

Patience, for one.

Am I patient enough
and brave enough
to let my stillness grow?

13 March 2011

Creativity and the Cosmic Shopping Mall

Artwork by Rassouli

At home with your creativity...
Being at home with your creativity and your creative unconscious is like walking into a cosmic shopping mall where each shop offers a different persona for us to try on, actually a different way of being in relationship to ourselves and the world. The only means of exchange in this cosmic mall is exuberance, fearlessness and a desire to share and be shared.

Oh, and there’s a key to the mall, too. We all have it in our pocket when we arrive, even if we don’t know it’s there. The key is a desire to break out of the box of who we think we are, who our families think we should be. It is a desire to fly in a place that, as John O’Donohue says, “is full of the most melodious and nourishing and wild freedom. And everyone should go there, to the wild place, where there are no cages, where there are no tight rooms without windows and without doors, everyone should go to the free clearance places in their own hearts.”

The key to your creativity is always in your pocket!

17 February 2011

Deepening the Meaning of Erotic: Changing the Meaning of Reality

Art by Daniel B. Holeman http://www.awakenvisions.com/

The Inner Journey demands the bravery of the Spiritual Warrior
The inner journey is not for the faint of heart and it demands the bravery of the spiritual warriors who, as the 14th century Persian mystic, Haifiz, said, “tame the beasts in their pasts so that the knights hoofs can no longer break the jeweled vision in the heart.”

Imagine if we saw our journey through life as
one that protected “the jeweled vision of the heart.”

The Erotic Embrace...

03 January 2011

How Using Your Inner Vision Supports Creativity Success

Artwork by The Soul Connection Network.

How do you explore the mystery of you?
What does intuition have to do with creativity?
How can you give birth to the true Self whose visions of possibility and becoming are beyond the mind's horizons?

INNER VISION IS THE MEDIATOR BETWEEN THE WORLDS...

Creativity is a force that gathers its energy in the mysterious inner worlds and gradually moves toward definition and completion in the outer world. The problem, especially in Western culture, is that we are educated to focus on the outer world, which demands us to get it right, get it done and be successful!

17 April 2008

Trust the Inner Journey

We journeyed to our "source", asked for images and let the images speak. Barbara Livingston's image was a swirling yin/yang. This is what the image wrote:

swirling down

swirling up

the direction does not matter

it is one and the same

breathe deeply

the mist obscuring the path

trust in the journey

the destination is not your purpose

you are not a visitor here

participation is necessary

the stillness is your guide

the questions need not be asked

their answers already written

04 April 2008

The Enemy Within

If you are a Trekkie, you might remember the very early “Star Trek” episode (#5) entitled “The Enemy Within.” Although dated—it was aired on October 6, 1966 (Stardate 1672.1)—it is a perfect example of Picasso’s quote and the core work of this book. I quote from the video jacket:

A transporter malfunction causes Kirk to be split into separate beings: one compassionate, the other savage. Spock and McCoy suffer along with their friend as Kirk confronts a side of his nature no man should see. His only hope for survival is to reunite his two selves.

Kirk has to destroy his image of himself as a “good” man if he is to survive.
Kirk’s savage or what I would call primal self gets split off. This is the enemy or beast within. This is the side of us the Inner Critic doesn’t want to let out. This side of Kirk is lustful, greedy, murderous; he incarnates all the deadly sins. But without his primal self, the “compassionate” side of Kirk begins to wither on the vine. He loses his ability to make a decision much less be in command of the Enterprise and, because of his indecisiveness, some of his crew are threatened with death. The compassionate side of Kirk, the Captain in Kirk, cannot function without his primal self. And the primal self, while at first roaming the ship and leaving havoc in his wake, also begins to weaken and soon is close to death.

The Embrace of Wholeness
While Kirk would like to let this side of him die, Dr. Spock points out that he cannot. He needs this part of him if he is to survive. It is this part of him, tempered with compassion and intellect, that makes him a leader. In a very touching finale, the two sides of Kirk not only unite but embrace one another, and the compassionate side of Kirk accepts his darkside with love. Only then can the real Captain Kirk step forward and take control of the ship once more. In essence, Kirk has to destroy his image of himself as a “good” man if he is to survive. He has to let his crew see that he, like all humans, has this self seething with all the primal instincts, and more importantly, he has to embrace, to love his darkside.

18 March 2008

Risk: The Magic Ingredient of Life

Risk: The Magic Ingredient in Creativity and Life, Nick Meglin, Mad Magazine

Take a risk, no matter how small, and everything changes.
I once did a series of interviews with people who were successful with their creativity and there wasn’t a one who didn’t light up when I asked them about risk. It’s the fuel, the manna, the soul food. It’s also one of the most powerful components of life; without risking, we stagnate. Take a risk, no matter how small, and everything changes. If you’re so afraid of the risk you won’t take chances, you will never be creative. No way. It is impossible.

When I interviewed Nick Meglin, who has been the “idea man” for Mad magazine almost since its inception, I asked him where he thought risk comes into play in creativity. His answer was immediate and forceful:

11 March 2008

Inner Beauty Walks Beside Me

Beauty within
Beauty inside me
Flowing and increasing
Alongside me
I am my own friend
Giving to myself
My love
Respect
My joy that I so deserve
Makes me happy
And makes me whole.
I am me.
by Joy Weissman

27 February 2008

Creativity Is a Connection to Soul

Creativity as Mediator Between the Worlds

Creativity is a mysterious journey that connects us to the unseen worlds.
There was a time when all people had access to the unseen worlds, although it was the shamans, story tellers and healers who mediated between the worlds as they journeyed into the Mystery and interpreted the images found there.

As a culture we have lost the connection to our instinctual nature.
Today we have our contemporary journeyers into the cosmic unseen worlds--many creative people are such journeyers--but as a culture we have lost the connection to our instinctual nature. With the development of the human brain and the march of history, the pendulum has swung so far that an overwhelming majority of people do not consider the journey into the unseen worlds a possibility, much less a necessity...

22 February 2008

Guidance for the Inner Critic

Love and honor yourself always and you will do fantastic work.

Here is a letter that Irene Kessler wrote to her Inner Critic. I was so moved, I asked if I could reprint her.

Dear Inner Critic,

What you have said to Irene is not reality and harsh and there is no reason to be harsh. The best things happen when you come from love.

Love and honor yourself always and you will do fantastic work. You have it in you and you see that in bits and pieces of writing you have already done.

Before you write, love yourself. Fill your being with compassion for yourself and the world. Shine a light on yourself and the universe. Know they are there to help and guide you and that is the strongest force there is. Nothing can override it. Go and write my child, and be happy.

21 February 2008

The Inner Critic and the Creative Unconscious

The Inner Critic is terrified of the creative unconscious because it is the home of feelings, emotions, images and it is chaotic and unexpected.

The Inner Critic likes order and loves the status quo, which is antithetical to the creative unconscious. That's why if you "fall down the rabbit hole" the Inner Critic won't follow you! Free of the Inner Critic, you have the possibility of experiencing real creative freedom and passionate stories awaits you.

Only then can the creative dance begin!

12 February 2008

Awake My Soul: A Message from the Muse

“People say that what we’re all seeking is a meaning for life. I don’t think that’s what we’re really seeking. I think that what we’re seeking is an experience of being alive, so that our life experiences on the purely physical plane will have resonance within our innermost being and reality, so that we actually feel the rapture of being alive.”

~ Joseph Campbell

18 January 2008

Who Am I? Who Has the Answer?

“You can live a lifetime and, at the end of it, know more about other people than you know about yourself.” -- Beryl Markham

Who am I? Who is the I who calls you home?

Most of us have a nodding acquaintance with the true self, the one who is hidden behind doors to which our ego has the key. The ego would like us believe that the hundreds of thousands of often critical thoughts it feeds us and the accompanying whirlwind of emotions are the true stuff of our being. Nothing could be further from the truth.

The ego keeps us prisoner of its neurotic habits
The ego keeps us stuck in patterns that do not serve our true self. Much if not all of the ego’s life is as unsubstantial as smoke.

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