The Cycles of Creativity

by Emily Hanlon

Although at its core, creativity is a mystery, the creative process is knowable, and we can use it as a template for living a more fulfilling, aware, meaningful life. If allowed, the cycles of creativity become the enduring flow of our lives, bringing with them the freedom to live life sourced from your passions instead of your fears – from your life’s true purpose rather than from your ego’s vision of security and prosperity.

The Spark of Inspiration
The initial spark of inspiration is creativity’s calling card. It can be an idea for a poem, sculpture, dance or concerto, a new garden, business or invention, a Halloween costume, a party or a gift; it can be a vision of you in a new relationship to others and to Self. Inspiration is non-verbal; it is the life-enhancing “Wow!” moment when the vision of what can be –of who you can be – carries you into unchartered territory and the land of possibility.

The land of possibility is the womb of creativity; it is here that you swim on the sea of the unconscious; your spark of inspiration is thrust about by the surging waves of the chaos. This land is not unknown to you. In fact, you visit it every night in your dreams. What sometimes makes it a nightmare is that your mind cannot make sense of this non-verbal world. Which is why mind – with its language, thought and need to analyze – should not be allowed entry into the early stages of the creative process. The mind is also home of the ego, that busy-body who will surely bully his way in and put your spark of creativity under the microscope of judgment! Now, you feel confused. The image that made glorious sense a minute ago feels muddy, vague and stupid – just another one of your dumb ideas. Out it goes!

Gestation
That is why inspiration needs time to gestate unfettered in the unconscious, in the place of mystery, where there is only possibility, not definition....
To read the full article, go to:
http://www.creativesoulworks.com/index_creative_cycles_i-con.htm

Lilies and Roses In the House of The Dark Moon

I was in the garden, taking in its early August glory as I went about aimlessly pinching off the dead daylilies. Although I love all flowers, daylilies hold my heart. I have perhaps thirty different colors, sizes and shapes. I wait for their blooming each year and wander most mornings to see which beauty is offering herself to me this day. Sometimes I gasp in joy at the subtleness of colors as tender petals open and curl backwards, showing me their hearts. I talk to them. I admit I do.

“Oh, you are so beautiful,” I tell them. “And you and you! You are all amazingly gorgeous.” As I admire their profuse abandon, I try not to think that tomorrow morning each of today’s perfect flowers will have folded in on itself and begun to shrivel. Tomorrow I will be pinching off the very ones that bring me such joy today. I don’t, however, linger on the thought. The daylily has no patience for such morbidity. She blooms with all her heart, perfect for a day.

As I walk, the rosebushes suddenly claim my attention. They are blooming again and, as I near, I see that in between the shimmering red clusters are heretofore unnoticed brittle, brown dead flowers. How had I missed them?

With great determination, I reach for my clippers and, as I am about to cut off the first shriveled bunch, I stop, clippers in mid air. The thought strikes me that while I mourned the prospect of the daylily’s fate, I have no such feelings for these dead roses that mar the otherwise vibrant bush. I am eager to cut them off and dump them into the compost heap. What is the difference between the lily and the rose?

Then I realize there is no difference, except from my mind’s perspective. I saw the lily as life in all its beauty and fullness. I saw the rose as death in all its withered ugliness. But what truly amazes me is that as peaceful as the lily is in her beauty, the decaying roses are peaceful in their death. Such thoughts bring me deeply into my heart and, with love and awareness, I prune away the dead roses and gently lay them in the compost.

As we learn, with love and awareness, to appreciate our blooming, we learn to prune away with love and awareness those parts of self that no longer serve our being. The more we live in equanimity with the cycle of birth, bloom, withering and death, the more present we are; and the more we cherish the fullness of life in its moment to moment progression. Death, the pruner par excellence, becomes our master gardener. Death no longer looms as The End.

CRONE AS THE GUIDE TO EQUANIMITY

The House of the Dark Moon in this workshop refers to "dark of the moon," those three nights every month when the moon is hidden. Metaphorically, this is the time of Crone, whose province is the dark, the stillness, and letting go. To the ego, Crone and her dwelling is synonymous with death and charged with fear. To the heart, Crone’s dwelling is a place of letting go, a place that opens to rebirth, symbolized by the new moon and her rhythmic dance toward fullness.

This is a nine month TeleWorkshop Series from Emily Hanlon.

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On Creativity

Our creativity is most often used to birth our creations in the outer world, whether it be in the arts, the healing professions or any creative expression that is driven by our passion. Although these are powerful expressions, we are called to an even deeper level of creativity: the birth of true Self, She who was there before you came into life and will remain when the body dies. She is your center, your stillness; she is the mystery and she knows the immensity of who you are — an immensity beyond the mind's reckoning. She is waiting for you. She has always been waiting. Through her, you find your passion, your purpose and your freedom.

Creativity is the fire of the Seeker's path; it is the Spiritual Warrior's torch-giving light.

The Silence

Life is born of silence.
Without silence we would not
hear the song.
Silence is the life-giving womb.
Silence is the beat of the heart.
Wear her like a crown.
Wear her like a cape.
Wear silence in the midst of laughter,
sorrow, joy and pain.
Enter her womb,
there sound is born.

"I hide myself inside myself and then I try to find myself..."

When I was a little girl, I loved this rhyme that my mother taught us. There were more words, but these are the ones that have remained with me all my life. I loved the idea of hiding myself inside myself. I remember giggling and giggling as the giddy ballerina in me turned round and round in circles singing this to myself...

Lately, the rhyme has been coming back to me with an understanding that became quite visceral the other day. I was walking my dog on a beautiful trail and paused on a bridge overlooking the reservoir. The sky was a brilliant blue. The branches of the bare trees held the stark beauty of winter; it seemed to me that the branches were reaching skyward in prayer. As I gazed out over the immense horizon of blue sky, glistening water and the sepia trees, I became aware that something had changed. Everything was clearer, more brilliant, more defined and the three dimensionality of the view seemed like a digital picture. An unexpected giddiness filled me and I called to Phoebe, "Let's go, girl!" We started to run and it was as though all of nature ran with me. I whizzed by trees as they whizzed by my. The sky was in front of me and the air beneath.

This is me, I thought, not knowing what I meant. I was flowering from within. Finding myself suddenly breathless, I was forced to slow and feared the moment had passed. But as I began to walk, the colors, the sense of depth and beauty within and without remained. Again I thought, This is me...I knew this feeling. I've had it before, but usually for just a few moments and then I am myself again. Gloriously, the timelessness and joy stayed with me for the entire walk and with it a deepening sense of having found myself — the me I had lost so long ago — and my childhood rhyme came back.

I hide myself inside myself and then I try to find myself.

Have I found me? I wondered, feeling the giddiness of my six year old ballerina self twirling inside me. I was the six year old and I was the grown up me, both of us laughing at the trees and feeling as if we could merge with the sky. I love you, me. Stay with me always. Where have you been, you wondrous creature? Oh, thank you, thank you, glorious me, for returning!

The walk ended and I returned to me who goes about life with all her hopes, plans, worries, problems, etc. But the awareness I had that day has remained and changed me in a most profound way. The awareness of freedom, love and connection to joy is me, the deeper, truer me, and is not something that can be taken away. It can't be taken away because it was not given, not by me or anyone else. This awareness is my beingness, and the well of my creativity. It is ephemeral because I am living in a body and weighed down by both my physical and emotional bodies. But what a great challenge that is! To be me. To be alive. To be on this adventure called Life.

Series Begins on Thursday, December 11 For 35,000 years—millennia before Yahweh, Christ, Buddha or Mohammed appeared on the scene—the Goddess was worshipped as the primary divinity. She was everywhere: in the seasons, the tides, the sun and the moon, and the birth and death cycles of all living things. During the time of the Goddess, scripture was Nature and Nature was feminine. As we move into the dark time of the year and the promise of rebirth offered by the Winter Solstice and the holidays of hope and light, the Divine Feminine, our most ancient divinity is calling us to remember and return. It was sometime between 3500 and 2000 BCE when the warrior tribes with their masculine gods and patriarchal societies descended on the rich lands of the Fertile Crescent where Inanna was the reigning Goddess. These patriarchal tribes first challenged, then attacked and finally crushed the Goddess, her beliefs and the ways of those who worshipped her. At best, women were stripped of their influence at spiritual and cultural levels; at worst, they were enslaved and demonized.(read about etymology of word "hag".) Today more and more women, and men, are questioning traditional biblical teaching about deity. Although many people assert that God is beyond gender, long centuries of referring to "Him" as masculine and addressing Him as Lord, King, Father, etc have been a strong conditioning factor in our lives, whether we are "religious" or not. Sacred duties and religious rituals have been largely in the hands of men, and a priestly hierarchy. Because history is written by the victors—the patriarchy—this image of a masculine God and his earthly spokesmen is presented as one prevailing since time immemorial; it is "natural" and enshrined in both Holy Writ and religious tradition. Nothing could be further from the truth! Without the Divine Feminine as an integral part of our psyches, our hearts and minds, we are a world out of dangerously out of balance. For without the feminine to balance the masculine, the patriarchy has become a twisted task master who sees itself as the center of all life instead of living in partnership with the others, the earth and the cosmos. This world view, as we now know, has created disastrous affects on the earth itself and has led to almost constant warfare. Without the feminine, the masculine has no womb. Without the womb, there is little hope for compassion and creativity to take their place as two of the great triumphs of human history. Over the next six months, I will be running a series of TeleSeminars on the Divine Feminine. Join me in this first in the series. How has the loss of a Divine Feminine affected your life? How would you be different if you had been brought up knowing that the divine has a feminine face whose loving arms protect you? How might your life have been different if you were taught that the Divine Feminine promises joy, passion as well as compassion. How might your life have been different if you knew that the constant changing rhythms of life and the flow of one form into another is what gives life its challenge, its fierceness and its beauty. And that this flow is divinely feminine. "The Goddess in all her manifestations was a symbol of the unity of all life in Nature. Her power was in water and stone, in tomb and cave, in animals and birds, snakes and fish, hill, trees, and flowers. Hence a holistic and mythopoetic perception of the sacredness and mystery of all there is on earth." ~ Marija Gimbutas, archeologist Read about Marija Gimbutas Registration: All sessions are recorded. If you can't attend in person, you will receive the download. Sign up for all six session and receive a 30% discount. 6 sessions: $84. CDs are $10 extra per session. Each session: $20 with audio download,$30 with a CD Read about Emily Hanlon www.creativesoulworks.com emily@emilyhanlon.com

Being open-hearted makes us vulnerable....

I am currently giving a TeleWorkshop called Tapping Into the Feminine, Connecting to Source: Wisdom as Nurturer and Warrior. The first session held last week was very powerful and we spontaneously came up with prompts to help us embrace the Divine Feminine. There were about five and the one I chose was:

Being open-hearted makes us vulnerable....

I am posting what I wrote.

Now as I am with that thought, Being open-hearted makes us
vulnerable....my first response is fear. Openheartedness seems utterly terrifying. Open heartedness to everyone? Is that what is demanded.

I think yes. That is what is being asked. And why is it so scary? I see, I think that I have work to do on my warrior. How right that feels. My warrior. It has taken on new meaning.The warrior who knows that my heart is good. The warrior who knows that I am safe. I am safe because there is a part of me that is embraced by the Divine Mother who, like water, can be gentle and kind as well as powerful with the fierceness of flow.

Like Kali, the Creator/Destroyer.

Like the cycles of life/death/ rebirth.

Always giving in... opening to the dying, the letting go.

It is fearelessness and an embracing of joy. The sheer joy of being. The child's laughter and lover of life. The vulnerable heart that holds the hand of the Divine Mother within.

A mother who protects.

A mother who is fierce in her love.

A mother who holds me without judgment of need.

The mother I year for is within me. She is my Warrior!

What does the above prompt open for you? Please post.
Also, if you would like to be on my mailing list to receive notice of future workshops, please email me.

I look forward to reading your thoughts..

namaste

Emily

Prompts on the Journey

Mythically, where do I come from?
Who are my parents?
My ancestors?
My siblings?
With whom do I belong?

Are you more than you think you are?

There is a very particular risk inherent in the creative process: when you take the journey inward, you discover that you are not who you think you are, or you are more than who you think you are. But sometimes these images reflected through the inner mirrors are so alien that they first appear ugly, even demonic and cause us to run. The trick is not to run, but to persevere. The image will shift, the fear will dissolve and the stranger seen through the creative mirror will become familiar and quite wonderful. These unknown parts of us will guide us through unseen doors, into unexpected landscapes.

A poem by Juan Ramon Jimenez speaks wonderfully to this point.

I Am Not I

I am not I.
I am walking beside me
whom I do not see,
whom at times I manage to visit
and at other times manage to forget.
The one who forgives sweet when I hate,
the one who takes a walk when I am indoors,
the one who remains silent when I talk,
and the one who will remain when I die.

How do we discover these who walk beside us and tend to be who we are not? How do we learn to lift the smoke screen?

First of all, I'd like to suggest that these ones do not walk beside us, but these unseen, unexplored voices live inside us.

There are different ways of finding this inner self which some call the dark or shadow side, hidden self or true self. Whatever you call them they are parts of our selves that have been secluded, usually in childhood or adolescence, when it seemed somehow dangerous to put them out into the world. We learn very early in life to pass judgements on those parts of ourselves that don't meet with acceptance and, in so doing, we doom ourselves to live through a very small part of the totality of self while casting other parts of self into the shadows, where we keep them hidden, silenced in the dark.

Carl Jung said that the unconscious is a great friend, guide and advisor to the conscious and that psychic wholeness comes from bringing the unconscious and the conscious into balance. He believed the primary way of doing this is through dreams. I believe that this communication is also part and parcel of the creative journey. The trick is in breaking through the stranglehold that the rational, conscious mind, the "I" we think we are, has on us.

As far as I am concerned, this is the most difficult part of the journey, quieting the inner critic so that we can go unfettered, without judgment and criticism, into the great sea of the unconscious. This breaking through is also the hook -- or perhaps it is more accurate to say that when we finally break through into the creative unconscious, we are hooked. For there we find the hidden selves who hold so much of our deep yearnings and explosive drive. They hold talents, wisdom and knowledge we never dreamed we had. For the fiction writer, our hidden, disowned selves often come through as powerhouse characters -- if we let them! In so many ways, these hidden selves are partners in the dance of creativity.

On walking the path of relationship to self, creativity and the song of the soul....

"Creativity is faithfulness to the art of mirroring your secret individuality..."

John O'Donohue

Your Darkside Is a Powerful Part of Your Creativity

Darkside has nothing to do with evil or morality. It has nothing to do with ethics or lack thereof. Darkside is a label attached to psychological material that lies in the shadows of consciousness and even deeper, buried in the unconscious. Your darkside material holds some of the most fertile ground for your creative expression.

You can call the darkside by a variety of names, including shadow material or disowned material, which means those parts of self that the Inner Critic, deeming them unsuitable for the face that you show to the world, has shunted off into the shadows. In so doing, the Inner Critic has forced you to “disown” what could be the truest part of you. For your disowned, shadow or dark side holds some of the most vital parts of what makes you you. In this light, then, you might call your darkside or shadow material your True Self.

This True Self holds a lot of your instinctive, primal material; it is the part of you that Clarissa Estes says has been “starched out.” It is the part of you that knows your creativity is the most passionate part of yourself. It is the part of you that knows how to get down and dirty, the part that has no interest in merely surviving but instead wants you to flourish like a rose bush flowering with mad abandon. It is the part of you that isn’t afraid to claim your body and the passions that lie within.

"One does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light but by making the darkness conscious."

~ Carl Jung

Message from the Muse

One does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light but by making the darkness conscious.

—Carl Jung

From Meenu Mehrotra

Hi Emily,

Your thoughts never fail to inspire me and make me feel very proud of being a writer.

Here's something I wrote for your Creative Soul Works blog and mirrors what this journey that I started 4 years back.

I am being born out

of myself

shedding my bark

revealing the new

fresh, the untainted

part of me

soft murmur of the wind

faint chirpings of the birds

gentle crashing of the waves

the stillness of the round moon

the shrieking darkness of the sea at night

the brilliance of the pale blue morning sky

the lingering presence of the mountains all around me

the blushing of the sky at sunrise...

I appreciate it more now

feel them with my soul

my inner self is blooming

unfolding

tossing & turning

to wake up

and

walk on a new journey...

--
warm regards
meenu

She Touched Me In Silence by Irene Kessler

From the August Retreat: Women, Creativity and the Journey of the Soul: Embracing the Gift of the Shadow

She touched me in silence in the early morning dew.
She touched me at midnight in the moonlight glow.
She reached down to my core and found what was needed to make me whole once more.
She took me down the labyrinth path and made me whole once more.

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.

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.

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

One of My New Favorite Poems

Saint Francis and the Sow

by Galway Kinnell


The bud

stands for all things,

even for those things that don’t flower,

for everything flowers, from within, of self-blessing;

though sometimes it is necessary

to reteach a thing its loveliness,

to put a hand on its brow

of the flower

and retell it in words and in touch

it is lovely
until it flowers again from within, of self-blessing;

as Saint Francis

put his hand on the creased forehead

of the sow, and told her in words and in touch

blessings of earth on the sow, and the sow

began remembering all down her thick length,

from the earthen snout all the way

through the fodder and slops to the spiritual curl of the tail,

from the hard spininess spiked out from the spine

down through the great broken heart

to the sheer blue milken dreaminess spurting and shuddering

from the fourteen teats into the fourteen mouths sucking and blowing beneath them:

the long, perfect loveliness of sow.