Tiny poems about creativity

Five brief poems about creativity and openness. (I call them Creativity Tapas.)

I.

Listen to God

                                who speaks in a whisper

                                     or sometimes without words

                                      in a language known only to your soul.

II.

God creates out of nothing.

                We create out of what He has created.

                                Don’t take all the credit yourself.

III.

There comes a time

  in a creative life

    when silence becomes so much more important

       than the noise we’ve settled for.

IV.

Stage One:

idea. notion. concept. hypothesis. hunch. brainstorm. inspiration.

Respect what you are given.

Give it the attention it deserves.

                 (or maybe even  more)

Override negative, blocking, uninvited interference:

    let it not hamper

                let it not disempower.

                                let it not abort                  

Stay open and receptive as the spirit hovers about you.

Use a scrap of paper

                (or a napkin as so many have done)

                                sketch 

                                                doodle

                                                                use your words.

Take delight in the gestation.

                or simply in the play.

This is good practice.

V.

The pull to be present to the moment—

                                                          surrender to it. Let your mind stuff be, and follow . . ..

They dropped their nets and followed him.  (Mark 1)

Inspirational quote of the day

Our place is not in the auditorium but the stage—or, as the case may be, the field, the workshop, study, laboratory—because we ourselves form part of the creative apparatus of God, or at least are meant to form part of the creative apparatus of God. He made us in order to use us, and use us in the most profitable way; for His purpose, not ours. To live a spiritual life means subordinating all other interests to that single fact. Sometime our position seems to be that of tools; taken up when wanted, used in ways which we had not expected for an object on which our opinion was not asked, and then laid down.    Evelyn Underwood

Creativity in Business

A student reports: "1,500 CEO’s polled by IBM said creativity was the number one factor behind leadership competency."

Breaking through doubt.

I just finished reading a pile of letters that my creativity students wrote for me. A few of them said that they were skeptical or doubtful about the course since it is so different from other "traditional" courses thye have taken. But each of them laid aside whatever hesitation or objections they had and plunged on right ahead.

And guess what happened? Each one of them discovered that the material in the course is both valuable and helpful. Their personal experience was able to help them put their doubts to rest. Good for them!

It is so common that our thoughts about a thing prevent us from being open to learning or benefitting from what is new or different. The students laid aside their thoughts and were rewarded by seeing a whole new world.

I pray that our politicians will learn to do the same.

Who's out of who's mind?

From today's Gospel at Mass:

His (Jesus) family tried to seize him to take him away, because they said "he is out of his mind." (Mark 3, 21)

So many great thinkers and teachers, inventors and artists and individuals who try to lead us to a new way of seeing the world are scorned, ridiculed, even condemned by the Church. Creativity takes courage because it often brings us rejection and ridicule.

So they say,  "He is out of his mind."

I would answer: "No: he is out of your mind. What he says or does is so much larger than what you can wrap your mind around and that is why it makes you uncomfortable, and why you would like to remove him from the picture."

There is an implicit assumption at work here: If it can fit within the small area of your mind with all its limitations and lack of understanding, then it is nonsense or craziness. But could it be possible that the one you reject or scorn is inviting you to expand your mind, to accommodate what you never would have accepted or understood  in the past?"

We MUST create

This from a book I've just started. Interesting theory . . . that I happen to agree with...imho 

Creativity is often misapprehended as a purely artistic or intellectual inclination . . . but working with your creative energy is as essential to your health and overall well-being as breathing and eating. Creative energy is a basic survival instinct; it motivates us to become part of society, to become productive, bring things to life, and to distinguish ourselves from others by what we make, the crafts we pursue, the skills we develop in business or in cultivating friendships, the entrepreneurial ideas we conceive, the problems we resolve, and the children or communities we birth and nurture. Yet many people have creative ideas and yearnings that they do not pursue out of a fear of financial failure or embarrassment, or because they are reluctant to step outside of their normal way of life and change it.     Caroline Myss, Invisible acts of Power: Channeling Grace in Your everyday Life, quoted in Stimulated, p. 6-7

How we view things makes all the difference

   This may have happened to you as well: yesterday, because of the snowstorm, a lot of events got cancelled. One of those events was the first meeting of my Creativity Course. Dismay, dissapointment, and dammit!s ensued, to say the least. And if that wasn't frustrating enough, I suddenly realized that the cancellation screwed up my whole timetable for introducing the course. Dammit again!
   Fortunately, I didn't stay in that space. It gradually dawned on me that I was facing a new creative challenge--not of my own making, of course, but rather something that psychologist Mihalyi Csikszentmihalyi (pronounced "chick-sent-me-high") would call a "presented problem" (Creativity, p. 95).The challenge was this: How do I revise my plans to introduce the course given the new time constraint?
   "Presented problems" are not always welcome; but once they show up, the offer an opportunity to practice some creative and resourceful thinking.

   The point is that once I stopped stamping my feet and pouting like a 5-year-old and started playing with the new challenge, the disappointment was forgotten and the juices began flowing once again. Has this ever happened to you? And by the way, it also helped that I rewarded myself by making a nice cup of hot chocolate!

Creativity Blocker (This will probably be a series)

The damn computer. As useful and marvelous it can be, it also gives rise to so many distractions that it derails our creativity, productivity, focus, and ... (you fill in the blank). Case in point: While eating lunch, I had an inspiration for a book I'm working on, and fortunately, I immediately jotted it down in my little "idea book" which I always carry with me for just these moments.
     As soon as lunch was over, I ran over to my laptop so I could get working on the idea. But first, dammit, I had to check my e-mail. Three of the e-mails were about things that could have waited until the end of the weekend--nonetheless, I proceeded to take care of the things that were in the email. Result: momentum lost. Thank God I wrote the idea down before getting to the computer, otherwise that may have been lost as well.

Creative decisions

   A student writes: Creativity is not only expressed through art and music; it is seen through your daily actions and the decisions you make.  Something to think about.


   When I have a choice to make between x and y, which of the two expresses my "higher self"? Am I free to decide to "take the high road"? Hmmm... which shall it be--watching television or working on my hobby? sending that angry email or not?  I'm sure you can come up with a few of your own choices and decisions?
   Should I end this post now or continue squeezing out a few more lines?