The Courage to Create

I picked up The Soul of Creativity by Tona Pearce Myers (ed) this morning, and as I habitually do, I began skimming the foreward only to find myself entrenched. I will share with you the first paragraphs:

In the Courage to Create, psychoanalyst Rollo May states, "If you do not express you own original ideas, if you do not listen to your own being, you will have betrayed yourself."

In order to tap the uniquely creative in ourselves, it is important to honor the four ways of deep listening: intuition, perception, insight, and vision. Many indigenous cultures recognize that intuition is the source that sparks eternal seeing (perception), internal viewing (insight), and holistic seeing (vision). For these societies, paying attention to these modes of seeing is a way to honor the sacred and fire the creative fire. We extend respect to our creative, visionary process when we give voice to what we see or sense. The Soul of Creativity impels us to bring our voice and creativity into the world.

-Arrien, Angeles. "The Four Ways of Creativity." The Soul of Creativity. New World Library. 1999.

Learning to be Creative

This morning I read an interesting interview entitled, "Can You Learn To Be Creative."

Some quotes from it:

Creativity for me, as it manifests itself in my poetry, is a process that's almost like a trance. I just sit down when I have that idea, and I begin to write. I've learned how to intellectualize it, to rationalize it, to speak about my poetry in an academic way. But the process itself--that first act--is just sitting down and letting myself go.

Rhoda Janzen, California Poet Laureate

What do you do when you're stuck, when the page is blank, when your creativity is cramped, when the ideas just aren't flowing?

I go for a walk, or I go for a swim. One thing I've learned is, don't make it hard. The surest way to block yourself is to make writing a disagreeable experience, so that your unconscious remembers next time that it doesn't want to go there.

Greg Benford, Physicist & Science Fiction Writer

If you have Real Player, you can view the Program (27:23) - It's pretty interesting to listen to people from such diverse backgrounds speak about what gets their creative juices flowing.

It's always good to look to other sources for ideas, inspiration, or even affirmation. What you'll find is there is no one right way to be creative - discover those things that work for you & then give yourself permission to do them.