Let the Gypsy in You Dance!

You cannot be truly creative until the gypsy in you dances.

Clarissa Pinkola Estes

Imagining your creative desires is the first step on the journey to getting them. The pursuit is not an easy one. Creativity doesn’t just happen. Wildly creative people aren’t the beloved children of the Fates. creativity is hard work. It is risky business. Creativity is something we must choose every day of our lives.

Creativity is active and passionate. Creativity is about doing and feeling. The rich fertile ground where creativity is born and nurtured lies in the heart and the gut. Creativity rises from the unknown, the unseen, the forgotten. Creativity laughs and cries, it dances and sings, it creates and destroys.

Labyrinth as a Metaphor for the Journey

In the ancient myth of Ariadne, her half brother, the Minotaur, half-man, half-beast, is imprisoned at the heart of the labyrinth and fed the brightest and most promising youth of Athens in sacrifice each year. It is Ariadne, muse and guide to truth, who gives Theseus the golden thread that leads into the labyrinth, where he slays the Minotaur and then follows the golden thread back into the light.

Each of us has a Minotaur caged inside us. We, too, feed this beast the best and brightest of our creativity. In the workshop, we will use writing and other creative methods as Ariadne's golden thread!

Using the image of the labyrinth is a bridge into the deeper mystery of self is a powerful creative experience that shifts our relationship to self and allows us to hear our true voice.

"Back into the labyrinth, where we are found or lost forever."
W.B. Yeats

Writings from the Sunday Creativity Circle, March 10, 2008

Where I am now in my wet, moist and juicy world

by Louise Easton

I am floating down the river, its dark bottom laden with my years of thoughts, burdens and yearnings. I leave some of them as mulch to nurture those who follow this path, but I carry above with me the parts that have broken off, longing to bring their newness to the surface, to have them nourished by light and sun. Thus the wisdom that was the wisdom that will be merge in the wet, juicy and moist being that is the core of who I am.

Risk: The Magic Ingredient

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:

“Right at the beginning and always, always. A blank page is always a risk. This is a very strong philosophy I have. You and I go to Las Vegas. And I buy ten one-hundred-dollar chips. That’s one thousand dollars. You buy ten one-dollar chips. That’s ten dollars. We go to the crap table. That man over there, we both bet with him. I put all my ten chips down that he’s going to win. You put down one one-dollar chip that he does. The man rolls a seven. I win one thousand dollars. You win one dollar. Who’s luckier?”

“You took a bigger risk,” I said. “You got more.”

“No, you were just as lucky because you bet for him to roll a seven and I bet for him to roll a seven. We’re equally lucky. What differs is what I was willing to lose—not happy to lose, but willing to lose for that risk. We both won on the same roll, the same number, the same bet, but I made a thousand dollars because I was going to risk losing a thousand.

“I tell this to my students—I taught drawing for twelve years—if you don’t want to be told you’re a lousy artist by someone out there who doesn’t know what he’s talking about, don’t draw. Don’t fill a white page with lines, because once you do it, you’re at risk. But if you are going to do it, put everything you can on that page, everything you are or what you feel, what you think, your perception, you alone, not what you’ve seen, not what you think you’d like to do. React to that model, be at one. You’re the only artist in the world drawing that model tonight that way, in your way. No one else can do it.

“Bet the whole roll and put yourself at risk. If not, you’ll never win. You may not lose, but you’ll never win. Go down swinging. Lose trying. But put yourself at risk. And that’s what creativity is.”

This was excerpted from The Art of Fiction Writing, by Emily Hanlon

50% Off Sale on 2007 TeleSeminar Ends on March 15

Sale on all 2007 TeleSeminars and E-books: 50% Off
Sale Ends on March 15

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Teleseminars on:

1. Character Development in Fiction Writing: The Art and Technique of Interviewing

2. Awakening to the Artistry of Living

3. The Power of Point of View in Fiction Writing

4. The Five Ingredients of the Scene in Fiction Writing

5. Creative Process, How and Why It Works

6. Accessing Your Writer's Voice: Defanging the Inner Critic

7. The Passion of Fiction Writing

8. The Myth of the Descent of Inanna and the Powerful Journey of the Feminine

9. Writing Your Story, Creating A Tapestry of Your Life: Memoir as a Healing Journey

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Sale Ends on March 15

Okay so I am on a roll now that I have figured this blog thing out.
Am posting a recent poem of mine

Parsimony

Our family hides hands

inside gloves and pockets,

under armpits, clasped tightly

front or back – so still.

We never gesticulate -

arms fluttering wildly

like sparrows’ wings,

like Sicilian widows

gossiping fortissimo.

Our lips, tightly pursed

or barely open, squeeze

syllables out begrudgingly

as a priest confessing lust.

We never have enough

to spare of words

of feelings,

straight-jacketed -

scarecrows leaking straw.

I came home from Sunday's circle at Emily's
and took a clam shell that sits on my windowsill;
turned it over...decided the inside was perfect for
" the creative process is a process of surrender
and not control." So wrote it in magic marker and
I love it. When the shell has it's outside - out,
no one knows what I have written inside! Makes
it just mine! 

Writings from the Sunday Creativity Circle, March 10, 2008

by Joy Weisman

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.

Be the rain falling on your skin.

When the Soul Speaks....

I had a fight with my husband last night. I slept in the guest room and come morning, I was still angry and hurt. So I decided to meditate on how to handle these feelings. This was the intention of the meditation, but soon I found myself considering the question of my truth. Not the truth in terms of my version of the fight. That I was right, of course, and he was wrong-- and would never admit it much less apologize. My meditation had taken me to my Truth with a capital T. I was aware, too, that the voice who was considering this Truth was not my own. That the thoughts in my head were not my own.

I wasn’t, however, taken aback by the fact there was this other voice talking to me. I often have conversations with my guides. Over the years, perhaps because I write fiction, perhaps because of my proclivity to imagine, or perhaps because my father, a great lover of Shakespeare, was fond of quoting Hamlet, saying: “There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamed of in your philosophies” — perhaps because of these influences and predilections, I have become an ardent believer that imagination holds the deeper, truer reality.

So, hearing this other voice was comfortable. What she said, however, took me by surprise. Here I was, ruminating over this fight I had had with my husband and, suddenly, I am given the answer to questions I have been asking for a very long time:

What is the truth of my life?

Why am I here?

What is my path?

I had always thought that if and when I knew the answers to these questions, my work, the meaning of my life would become clear. So the answer I was given surprised me. I was told this: The truth of who you are is simply this: you are one with God. You are safe in the light. Nothing can harm you.

I have heard this before. In fact, I have sucked on such thoughts as a child sucks on a hard candy. Intently. In the end, however, such beliefs—although nice—seemed just too… I’m not sure… Perhaps they didn’t sufficiently meet my work ethic, my need to be busy and to have meaningful work. So believing that the truth of my life is that I am one with God, that I am safe in the light, that nothing can harm me… simply wasn’t sufficient. I needed something more proactive. Something that would really do IT for me.

This morning, to my surprise, the words did IT for me. They impacted me like the greatest ah-ha of my life. I felt them in a way that words cannot describe. The image of a rainbow comes to mind. One can talk about the beauty of a rainbow but talk is only talk until once the rainbow appears. Another image is the joy of making eye contact with a small child whose eyes do not wander off of mine, but draw me in with innocence and immediacy. I smile. The child smiles. It is a smile of sheer simplicity. It is a smile that feels like, well, the rainbow.

Ach, pedestrian! my mind thinks. Rainbows and baby’s smiles. Come on, Emily, you’re a writer. You can come up with something better than that. But I can’t. For in the end, even these images pale before the experience.

I hear the words: The truth of who you are is simply this: you are one with God. You are safe in the light. Nothing can harm you.

The voice goes on. It says, “This is what your soul wants you to know.”

I think, “My God, a moment of soul-speak!” My heart pounds in anticipation. This is a dream I tell myself. But I am awake.

The voice goes on. It says, quoting me, “ ‘Who am I?’ you ask. 'You are light."

I listen very carefully.

“ ‘Who am I?’ you ask. You are the flame of God and creation.

“‘Who am I?’ you ask. You are a being of light.

“There is nothing to fear.

“You say that you do not know who you are inside you own skin. (Indeed this is a feeling I have had a lot of late.) The voice continues, “This is because you are searching for me. I am always here. Waiting. Waiting. For you to see. I have no fear. Only a longing for you, in this incarnation, to return to me. It is I who lives inside your skin. It is I who breathes the light as you breath air. I am light only. I seek the light and union with you. I am only half.

“You long for a twin. I know this. You have longed for a twin since you were a child, for someone who knows you because she is you. For someone who loves you because you have been together since the beginning. Someone who will never stop loving you, no matter what. I tell you this, beloved, you feel this hunger because you have a twin, one you have forgotten. Me. Your Soul. I am incomplete without you. You are incomplete without me.

“You feel sadness in this life, great uncertainty, what you call depression. You feel anger, even rage. These are not outward things or imagined hurts. Walking the path of an incarnate being is difficult and often feels impossible. You lash out at others or yourself. Why? Because you, the incarnate being, forgets the twin who is the soul, forgets that you are never and could never be alone.

“To walk in partnership with me is to truly embrace the journey of life. For I am here to remind you with each and every breath that in our oneness you are a being of light. You are a child of God. You cannot die because I cannot die. We transform, shapeshift if you will. Birth itself is the great shapeshifter.

“Matter, this stuff of the flesh is heavy. We, you and I, we choose the journey of flesh in joy and expectation. Promising always that the body will not forget the soul. And yet, you do. To remember and reunite with me is the greatest dance of life. The never ending dance that takes you through the veils and allows you to journey back to your true birthright. Where there is no anger, no depression, fear or meanness. Where there is only light and God and being and acceptance.

“To remember me is a great task of this life for you. So this moment is one of celebration. Remember Dear One, no one can hurt you. No one can demean you. From this moment on, when you feel anger, rage, depression, emptiness, know that you walk hand in hand with the twin for whom your heart yearns.”

The moment passed, the joy did not sustain itself. Life got in the way. And I forgot. But not ever entirely again. I hold the feeling of this conversation in my heart, in my mind’s eye, in every core of my being. And should I forget for long, one part of me will remember and remind me. I have nothing to fear. I am one with God. I am safe in the light. I am not alone.

And, the fight with my husband...my need to prove I was right and he was wrong... simply didn't matter anymore. It was forgotten and we embraced.