Weekly Writing Ideas with Suzanne Murray

[creativity]

The Problem with Comparisons

So, is it possible to live without comparison of any kind, never translating yourself in terms of comparison with another or with some idea or with some hero or with some example? Because when you are comparing, when you are measuring yourself with 'what should be' or 'what has been,' you are not seeing what is. - J. Krishnamurti

Comparisons are odious. - Oscar Wilde

Most of us learned from an early age to compare ourselves to others. Competition and comparison are everywhere, in our schools and colleges, in our neighborhoods, in business and the workplace, in the media, in advertising and even among friends and family. Irish philosopher John O'Donohue called advertising “schooling in false desire”. We start to develop an identity based on outer influences and we feel compelled to gauge ourselves against another.

I see it in the writing and creativity coaching workshops I do. It's quite common in a writing workshop for people to compare their own work to others and they always feel that their work inferior. Then they share a piece that we all enjoy. Our creativity is the unique expression of ourselves and that will always touch others.

As Martha Graham, the mother of modern dance, said, "There is only one of you in all time, this expression is unique. And if you block it, it will never exist through any other medium and it will be lost.” Have you considered how unique you are? What gifts, talents and abilities lead you to the unique expression of you? If you tap into the knowing of your heart, you can reacquaint yourself with your uniqueness. Our heart is the seat of our unique expression or gifts that we can offer to this world. Rather than comparison our heart can help us celebrate our uniqueness.

Suzanne Murray is a writing, creativity and transformation coach with more than twenty years of experience in helping others to learn to write and access their creative essence. She offers individual creativity and writing coaching sessions that can really transform your relationship to your creativity. Visit my website and blog at www.creativitygoeswild.com and check out my The Heart of Writing Teleclass with online coaching support at https://creativitygoeswild.com/teleclasses/

[creativity]

If you want creative workers, give them enough time to play. - John Cleese

Play is our brain’s favorite way of learning. - Diane Ackerman

The creation of something new is not accomplished by the intellect but by the play instinct. - Carl Jung

THE POWER OF PLAY

Recently in working with both creativity and writing coaching clients I've found that the key element in getting them out of the doldrums or a sense of being stuck or not being sure where to go with their work is play. Play gets us out of the mind's need for doing and it's focus on product and puts us in the place of being and enjoying the process. Since creativity comes out of the alchemy of subconscious working in union with the mysteries, play is essential in accessing expanded states of awareness and putting us back into the flow.

This is true not just for art and creative expression but innovation and discoveries in science and technology. I always really enjoyed the books written for popular audiences by Nobel prize winning physicist Richard Feynman that illuminated the way he thought and made his remarkable discoveries. One of the founders of theory of quantum physics. Feynman had an IQ of around 123 which is above average but not close to the genius he was considered to be. He described his process that lead to his astonishing discoveries as "noodling around", his term for play. He was passionate about the subject and he would just play with different ideas and vantage points and let his mind run with the possibilities.

Ultimately when we engage in creative play in any endeavor it feels good.. Bright ideas, insights and inspiration stream in, time slows down so that hours feels like minutes and we are infused with a feeling of well being. On top of that play encourages variation and doing things in new ways actually builds new neural pathways in the brain which expands our ability to be creative.

Exercise: So ask yourself, what can I do to add more play to my life and see what ideas pop into your mind as you go about your day. You can also do this as a writing exercise where you ask that naturally playful part of yourself this question and then use freewriting for ten minutes (where you write a tad faster than you think) to let an answer come through the pen on to the page. And then have fun!

Suzanne Murray is a writing teacher and creativity coach with more than twenty years of experience in helping others to write and access their creative essence. She offers individual creativity and writing coaching packages https://creativitygoeswild.com/writing-coaching/ as well as Weekend Retreats in Yosemite https://creativitygoeswild.com/yosemite-retreats/

[creativity]

The Value of Writing Practice

The act of showing up to writing as a daily practice has enrich my life in countless ways. As Annie Lamott says in the introduction to her book bird by bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life, “Writing has so much to give, so much to reach so many surprises. That thing you have to force yourself to do – the actual act of writing – turns out to be the best part.” I agree completely. Through my writing practice I understand more about how I think and how I see of the world; I more readily see the value and meaning of my life as I gain deeper insight to the stories and ideas that are important to me; and I strengthen my ability to tap the inspiration, intuition and imagination of the creative spirit not only in my writing but the rest of my life. This awareness and approach has allowed me to fall in love with the process which after three decades remains fresh and in my willingness to play with the process I have been able to finely hone the craft of writing as well.

Try this: Here's a fun prompt to play with. The solution was rain, the problem was ___________.
Really let your creative mind run wherever it wants to go.


Suzanne Murray is a writing teacher and creativity coach with more than twenty years of experience in helping others to write and access their creative essence. She offers individual creativity and writing coaching packages https://creativitygoeswild.com/writing-coaching/ as well as Weekend Retreats in Yosemite using writing to connect to Nature and Our Inner Wisdom https://creativitygoeswild.com/yosemite-retreats

[creativity]

I don't know exactly what a prayer is but I do know how to pay attention. - Mary Oliver

THE WONDER OF PAYING ATTENTION

I have been spending time in the village of Doolin, County Clare, Ireland. The area is rich in beauty. The pale gray limestone rock slabs of the unique biological area called the Burren comes down into Doolin as a slender finger that runs right along the sea; a wild shore exposed to the full force of the Atlantic. Just to the south the rock turns to dark gray shale and slate that form the Cliffs of Moher, one of Ireland's scenic wonders. I have been here many times as I have to the spectacular Sonoma Coast near to where I live in California. I am struck by the way these amazingly beautiful places can become so familiar that we loose our sense of wonder for their magnificence. This happens too with the people we love and the world around us.

My first trip to this part of Ireland I gasped as the beauty. It literally took my breath. Now I walked here countless times I find I have to be quite mindful of appreciating where I am and focusing on really looking and seeing it fresh each time rather than letting myself self into the fog of the familiar.

Recently I was walking down the lane on my way to visit a friend who lives here. He saw me approaching with my head down and shouted out to me, "look up, look out to the horizon, it will help you stay in the Now. You look down and that mind of yours takes over taking you out of the moment for sure." I laughed as he cajoled me into the moment and appreciated the wisdom of the advice. So I started practicing looking ahead and really seeing the beauty anew each time I walk out. The glimmer of light slipping through the clouds sparkling the water, the astonishing green of the hills, the cows so full of curiosity. My friend's comment reminded me of Aldous Huxley's futuristic novel Island where parrots flew from tree to tree crying out "Here now, pay attention." to call the people back into the moment.

Part of the gift of being creative is that it becomes a practice of being present to what is and seeing the world and our creations more fully in the moment and celebrating the world around us. What ways can you find to pay attention and see your everyday world around you as if for the first time and express that creatively?


Suzanne Murray is a writing teacher and creativity coach with more than twenty years of experience in helping others to write and access their creative essence. She offers individual creativity and writing coaching packages https://creativitygoeswild.com/writing-coaching/ as well as Weekend Retreats in Yosemite using writing to connect to Nature and Our Inner Wisdom https://creativitygoeswild.com/yosemite-retreats

[creativity]

Creating in the Middle of Things

I had the privilege of taking a workshop from noted American poet William Stafford not long before he died. Stafford wrote a poem a day for most of his adult life. He would rise at four in the morning, make his tea and toast, then sit on the sofa in the living room and write a poem. By the time his wife and children were up he felt as if he had done his day’s work. He would then go off to his job of teaching writing to at Lewis and Clark College in Portland, Oregon. He would give his students the assignment to write a poem a day. When they began to whine and moan that that was too difficult, he would respond “lower your standards”. By lowering his standards he was awarded the National Book Award; appointed U.S. Poet Laureate and Poet Laureate of Oregon; received a Guggenheim Fellowship; and was a beloved teacher and workshop leader. He kept a daily journal for 50 years, and composed nearly 22,000 poems, of which roughly 3,000 were published. Of his work he once said in an interview: “I keep following this sort of hidden river of my life, you know, whatever the topic or impulse which comes, I follow it along trustingly. And I don’t have any sense of its coming to a kind of crescendo, or of its petering out either. It is just going steadily along.”

In order to show up for our creativity or the work of our life I think it helps to lower our standards on what we can accomplish on a daily basis while still keeping our focus on what we ultimately desire or want to achieve. Develop the practice of showing up everyday and taking some action, however small, toward your goal. If you are a writer be happy that you have drafted a poem or a page. You can start by showing up for 15 minutes rather than thinking you have to find two hours of free time before you begin. If you are moving toward a new career or expanding your work be happy that you have made one phone call to connect with someone you might be able to help you. By taking one small step a day you can cover a lot of ground and it has the added advantage of allowing you to sneak in under the radar of the part of you that is resistant to change. Carve moments out of your day for doing what brings you heart and meaning or gives you a sense of momentum. I carry copies of the poems or essays I am working on revising with me wherever I go and pull them out while I’m waiting to have my car’s oil changed or early for an appointment. By learning to do our creative work in the middle of things we infuse our daily life with the meaning and satisfaction that comes from nourishing our soul.

Suzanne Murray is a writing teacher and creativity coach with more than twenty years of experience in helping others to write and access their creative essence. She offers individual creativity and writing coaching packages https://creativitygoeswild.com/writing-coaching/ as well as Weekend Retreats in Yosemite Traveling by Train using writing to connect to Nature and Our Inner Wisdom. Find fall trips dates and details at https://creativitygoeswild.com/yosemite-retreats

[creativity]

Good News on Creative Frustration

I've been reading a really interesting book titled Imagine: How Creativity Works by Jonah Lehner. The book explores the neuroscience behind creativity and affirms what I have long insisted that creativity is capacity we are all born with. It is part of the natural workings of our brains, though it is something we have to learn to use, exercise and work at.

Lehner tells the fascinating story of Bob Dylan, who in 1965, already a folk music icon with songs like Blowing in the Wind and The Times They Are A Changing to his name, decides after a grueling four month tour that he is done with singing and songwriting. He is sick of his music and the expectations that being in the spotlight have placed on him. He told his manager he was done and meant it. He rode his motorcycle to his cabin in Woodstock, New York and didn't even bring his guitar.

The book goes on to consider what can happen in the brain when we are faced with creative frustration. We tend to fail to recognize that the frustration that pushes us to stop, let go and feel hopeless can be part of the creative process, can lead to revelation and rebirth. When we are stumped and let go a part of us can be quietly rummaging through the creative part of our mind, our right hemisphere, looking to give birth to something new.

After a few days alone in his cabin, relieved to the need to write another song, thinking he was going to start work on a novel, Dylan felt as Lehner describes it "the tickle of lyrics that needed to written down", something that needed to be said. Once he began he wrote a song twenty pages long unlike anything he had ever done and he had the awareness that this is what he needed to being doing. The lyrics didn't make sense. Dylan said it felt like they were being written by a "ghost" and all he needed to do was get out of the way.

Lehner suggests that "the ghost" was the right hemisphere of Dylan's brain pulling together the threads connecting the diversity and richness of all of Dylan's many influences and weaving them into something new. The song begun in Woodstock and recorded July 15, 1965 was Like A Rolling Stone. It revolutionized rock and roll.

Like A Rolling Stone has always been one of my favorite songs and it moves me still to listen to it, so I was especially intrigued and amazed by Dylan's story which serves as a fantastic reminder that frustration, hitting the wall and letting go can be an important part of the creative process. It creates an awareness of the importance of listening to the "ticklings" of our heart and soul and right hemisphere of brain after we have let go. It inspires me knowing I can have a new relationship with the times I feel in my own creativity that I am not going anywhere. And I like to think that creativity includes everything including the way we live and create our lives so that I can look at frustration in a whole new way.

Suzanne Murray is a writing teacher and creativity coach with more than twenty years of experience in helping others to write and access their creative essence. She offers individual creativity and writing coaching packages https://creativitygoeswild.com/writing-coaching/ as well as Weekend Retreats in Yosemite Traveling by Train using writing to connect to Nature and Our Inner Wisdom. Find spring trips dates and details at https://creativitygoeswild.com/yosemite-retreats

[creativity]

Shaking Things Up with Your Creativity

One of the things I suggest to all my creativity coaching clients is to shake things up. Break out of the routine. I tell them to eat new foods, drive to work a different way, put their clothes on in the morning in a different order and go somewhere they have never been before.

Our thoughts, our linear mind, are tied to the familiar, to what we already know. Yet our brain has the capacity to entertain infinite possibilities. Part of being creative is learning to use more of our brain and access our ability to make connections in new ways.

Yet when we do everything the same way day after day we create habit patterns that build neural ruts in our brains, so those become our default way of being, acting and doing things in the world. We become numb to the possibility of the new and find it difficult to change our ways even when we think we really want to.

One thing that can really open us up is travel, a change of scene. The experience of another culture or even a different region of our own country or state helps us open our minds and create an awareness that there is more than one way of being or doing things, which in turn can open us to a fresh perspective from which we can create something new. Researchers at the Kellogg School of Management have found that students who lived abroad for an extended period of time were much more likely to solve a difficult creative problem than student who have never been out of their home country.

When we get home from a trip, whether it’s a vacation out of the country or just somewhere different for the weekend, home may still be the same but something within us has shifted leaving us open to new ways of seeing and doing things.

You can also shake things up creatively by working with a new form. If you’re a writer, get a box of crayons and just play with colors and shape. If you’re a painter, read some poetry. If you’re a dance visit an art museum. The more we open to the world of expanded possibilities, the more we awaken to our creative potential.


Suzanne Murray is a writing teacher and creativity coach with more than twenty years of experience in helping others to write and access their creative essence. She offers individual creativity and writing coaching packages https://creativitygoeswild.com/writing-coaching/ as well as Weekend Retreats in Yosemite Traveling by Train using writing to connect to Nature and Our Inner Wisdom. Find fall 2013 trips dates and details at https://creativitygoeswild.com/yosemite-retreats

[creativity]

Are You Feeling Resistance to Expressing Your Creativity?

Note: With the New Year approaching I wanted to offer this to the community in support of embracing our creative selves in 2014

Recently I got a note from one of my writing students saying that she was really enjoying writing when she managed to find the time. The three top reasons that people give for not being able to fully show up, move forward or change some area of their life are, “I don’t have enough time, I don’t have enough money or My health isn’t good enough.” On the surface these excuses appear valid and hard to argue with. In truth they always cover up some deeper resistance. When we really want to do something and commit to it we can always manage to find the time, the resources and a way to work around any physical limitations.

Robert Olen Butler who won the Pulitzer Prize for his collection of short stories A Good Scent from a Strange Mountain worked full time and had a difficult home life so he wrote everyday on the train computing into New York City. J.K. Rowling, author of the Harry Potter books, was a single mother struggling on state aid in Edinburgh Scotland where she sat everyday in a local cafe writing the first book in the series that would turn her into a multi-millionaire. These stories point to the reality that you don’t have to have everything together or know exactly what you are doing or how you are going to make something work to begin whatever it is you want to create. Beginning opens you up to new possibilities.

With my writing coaching clients I start them out with a commitment to write a minimum of ten minutes a day. It would seem like everyone could find ten minutes, but if there are some unconscious beliefs and fears around expressing yourself or being creative then you will put it off until the end of the day and then say you are too tired. This is what resistance looks like.

If you are having trouble showing up to your writing, painting, music or exploring your creativity in some way, stop and get quiet. Take some deep breaths. Ask your deeper or higher self what’s in the way. Then just see what comes to you. It may be a memory of your third grade teacher humiliating you in front of the class by criticizing a drawing you did or your father’s refusal to let you take the dance class you so much wanted.

Such events really can impact the tender, vulnerable, innocent part of us that is our creative self and years later have us not wanting to risk being creative. If something comes up for you honor your feelings around it. If you feel sad or angry feel those feelings as a way of allowing them to shift and release their hold on you. Then send love to that part of you. Becoming aware of what’s in the way of your desire to create and being mindful and patience and kind with your self will help you cross new thresholds into being creative and finding time to show up.


Suzanne Murray is a writing teacher and creativity coach with more than twenty years of experience in helping others to write and access their creative essence. She offers individual creativity and writing coaching packages and creativity retreats in Yosemite and Ireland. For all offering check out https://creativitygoeswild.com as well as her extensive blog at www.creativitygoeswild.com/blog

[creativity]

Create, Create, Create!

When I asked my inner knowing and wisdom for guidance on moving forward in the new year all she keeps saying to me was create, create, create. I got the image of confetti being thrown into the air in celebration of the creative potential of us all. I got it's time to leave behind the beliefs that limit us and embrace the creative beings we truly are in whatever form that calls to us.

So I asked my muse for specifics. What should I create? The answers didn't come all at once. Generally they came as flashes of insight while I was out on my daily walk that puts me in a meditative state where an idea arrives that excites and energizes me. Then I know I'm on to something. One idea involved putting together an ebook for my writing students and clients based on my workshops to support them in engaging the process on their own. I also got the idea for doing the same for creativity coaching and to do more focusing on Nature and Creativity in Yosemite and other places I am exploring.

Beyond that I got that we all need to be willing to be surprised. That we need to open up in new ways. We tend to limit our creations, whether in the realm of creative expression or in creating our lives, to what we already know or to a variation on what we have already done. We also limit ourselves by thinking we need to figure out "the how" of whatever we are inspired to create rather than trusting and allowing the universe to support and guide up step by step.

At this pivotal time in human history opening up to truly new ideas and possibilities is essential. As Einstein noted, "We can not solve our problems with the same level of thinking that created them." So here are some questions to ask. Can we allow ourselves new thoughts? Can we start to see ourselves differently? Can we see ourselves as capable of more than we have imagined up until this point?

I am asking myself these same questions aware that there is a seed within me and all of us wanting to emerge. We don't have to go looking for our creations, they live inside us in the dark womb of our soul and imagination. We have to learn to let them grow, leaf out and blossom.


Suzanne Murray is a writing teacher and creativity coach with more than twenty years of experience in helping others to write and access their creative essence. Upcoming Yosemite Retreat - Waterfalls, Wildflowers & Wonder details bit.ly/1kSApoL For all offerings check out https://creativitygoeswild.com as well as her extensive blog at www.creativitygoeswild.com/blog

[creativity]

Greeting Wacco Community

I just did an interview on The Heart of Writing with Sharon Ann Wikoff on her Blog Talk radio show The Voice of Change. It's available as a free mp3 download or you can listen online. In the interview I share insights, ideas and wisdom on the writing process based on my more than twenty years of teaching writing. Whether you want to writing a novel, a memoir, poems or a blog for our website the writing and creative process is the same. Falling in love with the writing process has enriched my life in countless ways. I explain the possibilities for everyone in the interview. I wanted to share it with you. Here's the link to the recording https://bit.ly/1d87N8Q


Suzanne Murray is a writing teacher and creativity coach with more than twenty years of experience in helping others to write and access their creative fire. Upcoming Yosemite Retreat in April - Waterfalls, Wildflowers & Wonder details bit.ly/1kSApoL and she has written a book The Heart of Writing eBook based on her writing workshops. Check it out https://bit.ly/1ctY6M8 For all offerings check out her website https://creativitygoeswild.com

[creativity]

Understanding The Nature of Poetry

I was accomplished at writing essays before I started to write poems. As I ventured into writing in a new form it took me a while to figure out that poems were more than very short essays. I had to learn the rules of punctuation and line breaks and the music the words could make. It wasn’t until I read poet Donald Hall's essay on writing poetry titled Poetry: The Unsayable Said that I really understood the power of poetry.

His advice was “if you can say it any other way, don’t write poetry.” As my own experience of writing poetry deepened I began to grasp that poetry was the numinous expressing itself through words. More than in any other written form the poet has to surrender to what wants wants to come through. Poetry gives voice to the ineffable, that which is difficult to describe. Poems capture the feeling or soul of the experience. Once I really understood that my poems got a lot better.

Here's a poem of mine I wanted to share to celebrate the coming of spring. It was inspired by an awareness that kept tugging at my imagination. I then had to let myself be surprised by where the spirit of the poem wanted to take me. This is part of the magic and joy of writing poetry.


Spring

Loons drift across the bay
slowly dressing for summer, turning
winter's drab gray into the elegant
black and white of attraction.

Oaks unfurl their green brilliance,
and the melodies of warblers
crisscross the branches
coloring the forest with song.

Still, it is only when the swallows
suddenly appear, looping wildly in a clear sky,
that spring finally opens within me,
as if they have carried the season north.

- Suzanne Murray


Suzanne Murray is a writing teacher and creativity coach with more than twenty years of experience in helping others to write and access their creative fire. She has written a book The Heart of Writing based on her writing workshops. It's available as an ebook https://bit.ly/1ctY6M8 For all offerings check out her website https://creativitygoeswild.com

[creativity]

Writing a Poem

I thought I'd share with you my experience of what it feels like to write a poem so that you can learn to tap this place as you write:

It all begins in the miracle of the moment, a sunset, a bird in flight, the song of a river, each giving birth to the poem that winds a thread deep into the subconscious, weaving unexpected images tied neatly together tugging the heart strings of the reader. That is the magic and music of verse.

I start out with a flock of snow geese on a cold morning and my mind goes super nova, expanding like the universe, the awareness of the Oneness of all things undeniable. The dreamer, dreaming the dream. The scene finds its way to a satisfying conclusion. To write a poem you have to trust what wants to be born, you have to let spirit move through you, you have to surrender to, in the words of Nobel prize winning poet Seamus Heaney, "a moment of lift, of joy, of unexpected reward".

Here's a poem that came to me that way.

Snow Geese

Rising before dawn, we wait
in winter’s sharp cold
for the sun to climb crimson
out of the valley floor, stirring

a white froth of feathers. Ascending
in waves, one hundred thousand
lift from the marshes, their warbling
and wings a roaring ocean of sound.


Flying in long loops, they vibrate
like excited electrons spun off
the first explosion
that sent planet, asteroid, stardust

swirling in an expanding spiral.
We stand fourteen billion years later,
amid an orbiting flurry of life,
aware of this wonder of Being.

- Suzanne Murray


Suzanne Murray is a writing teacher and creativity coach with more than twenty years of experience in helping others to write and access their creative fire. She has written a book The Heart of Writing based on her writing workshops. It's available as an ebook https://bit.ly/1ctY6M8 For all offerings check out her website https://creativitygoeswild.com

[creativity]

PLAYING WITH HAIKU

Lately, I've been playing with Haiku; a form of poetry originating in Japan in the 16th century. A traditional Japanese haiku is a three-line poem with seventeen syllables, written in a 5/7/5 syllable count. It often focuses on images from nature and emphasizes simplicity, intensity, and directness of expression.

The form was mastered in the 17th century by Matsuo Basho. Here are two of his I particularly enjoy:

A wild sea-
In the distance over Sado
The Milky Way.

Wrapping dumplings in
bamboo leaves, with one finer
she tidies her hair.

Over time the form has evolved and the rules -- including the 5/7/5 syllable structure -- have often been broken. Yet the essence of haiku remains the same. The focus is on a brief moment in time; offering vivid, colorful images and a sense of expansion, insight or illumination.

I've always felt, as Shakespeare so brilliantly said, that "brevity is the soul of wit". Writing Haiku gives you a chance to really distill the essence of a moment in time and how it touches you on the deeper level of your heart and soul.

Here's one of mine

A single bird's call
opens our heart to the Universe
awakens our Oneness.

Plus if you want to try instant publication - it's perfectly suited to the 140 character limits of Twitter. I'm having fun with this and I thought you might too.

Suzanne Murray is a writing teacher and creativity coach with more than twenty years of experience in helping others to write and access their creative fire. She has written a book The Heart of Writing based on her writing workshops. It's available as an ebook https://bit.ly/1ctY6M8 Plus dates are set for the next Yosemite Retreat October 24 to 26, 2014 For all offerings check out her website https://creativitygoeswild.com

[creativity]

CREATIVE PLAY

Lately I’ve been writing at least one haiku poem a day - the Japanese form of three lines of 5/7/5 syllables. I’ve been doing it first thing and then posting it on Twitter, not waiting to revise or get it exactly right. I’ve just been playing with putting it out there and having fun. With more than thirty years of writing experience with essays and poetry I’ve always been exacting in crafting my work. There is great satisfaction in getting a piece exactly the way it wants to take shape. Yet I am also now enjoying relaxing and finding a sense of play with the quick word sketches.

Our brains, our soul, and our inner child need creative play time. Whether we consider ourselves to be creative we are all hungry to express ourselves in this way. It’s a deep human need on the level of our heart and soul. Creative play is one of the ways we can reclaim our joy and nurture not only ourselves but the world. It opens up more of our brains and capacities and exercises our imagination.

Whether it’s trying a haiku poem or picking up an instrument we may or may not know how to play and exploring the sounds we can make or getting messy with an art project like finger painting or working with clay, the child that we once were still lives inside us and remembers how to play in this way if we let her.

Even if you don’t think of yourself as creative that’s just a story that you bought into somewhere along the way. Everyone is creative in their own unique way. Playing can help you find and express it. So go buy a pack of crayons or watercolors. Sing in the shower or the car. Suspend the voice of the inner critic. Feel the joy that lives at the heart of creative play.

Suzanne Murray is a writing teacher and creativity coach with more than twenty years of experience in helping others to write and access their creative fire. She has written a book The Heart of Writing based on her writing workshops. It's available as an ebook https://bit.ly/1ctY6M8 Plus dates are set for the next Yosemite Retreat October 24 to 26, 2014 For all offerings check out her website https://creativitygoeswild.com

[Dixon]

I've been a fan of haiku ever since, many years ago, I read a book of haiku by the great masters Basho, Buson and Issa on acid. I would recommend that.

I once read about a guy who studied haiku with a Japanese haiku master. He wrote haiku every day for 3 years before he finally produced one that the master deemed acceptable.

That seems awfully stringent to me! I suspect that the master's criteria for judging the haiku were very subjective. I'd love to see a study of inter-rater reliability in judgments of haiku. I bet it'd be low.

Back in the 90s I spoke at a meeting of the San Francisco General Semantics organization. They gave me a couple issues of their magazine; I think it was called Et Cetera. Therein was an interesting article that taught me something about haiku. It said that properly written haiku comprises only sensory description. There is no abstraction, no interpretation, no generalizing, no philosophizing, no "spiritual" talk--just sights, sounds, smells, tastes, and tactile experiences. Looking over the works of the great haiku writers, I found that this was true. That one principle forever changed my approach to haiku.

Edit: Looking over some of Issa's and Basho's haiku for the first time in quite awhile, I notice occasional slight departures from the rule I cite above--a generalization here, an expression of a feeling there. Just thought I'd mention that for the sake of accuracy.

[creativity]

CREATIVITY AND NATURE

When I received the inspiration for the name of my business Creativity Goes Wild I was on a modern day vision quest with Bill Plotkin in an extraordinary canyon in southern Utah that allowed me to really open to the flow of new ideas. Along with the name, I also got that the essence of the work included three different elements: Nature, creativity and the soul which are aspects we can connect to that can really help us live full and authentic lives.

I have long thought of nature as the original artist. If you spend any time in nature and pay close attention, you become aware of the beauty and design and patterns in both small things like the symmetry in pine cones and snowflakes or on a grander scale the patterns in the erosion of mountains or the movement of clouds across the sky.

At first glance nature might look chaotic or random or disordered but the more you observe and learn about the natural world the more you become aware of the elegance of design in every creation. We can draw inspiration for our own creativity from spending time in Nature, the same way we feel inspired by visiting an art exhibit, going to a play or watching a good movie.

Spending time in nature actually slows down our brain waves, taking us from the beta waves where our mind attends to daily activities into alpha waves which offer a naturally meditative state where we access the part of our mind that has new thoughts and ideas, flashes of insight, and more readily makes connections. This can help us with the essence of the creative impulse and process.

Whenever I find myself stuck on a creative project I will go for a walk in nature and it always opens me back up to the flow. Or if I am looking for a place to begin a creative work I will plant the seed in my subconscious mind and then go to nature, not to think about it, but to allow the inspiration to rise to the surface of my mind.

Try it. Whether you like to sit in the garden or go for a walk among the trees, see if you don't find that connecting to nature doesn't open you up to new ideas and possibilities. Also you can create in nature. Take a notebook and try writing or drawing in nature opening your senses to all that is around you and allow it to feed your creativity.

Suzanne Murray is a writing teacher and creativity coach with more than twenty years of experience in helping others to write and access their creative fire. She has written a book The Heart of Writing based on her writing workshops. It's available as an ebook https://bit.ly/1ctY6M8 Plus dates are set for the next Yosemite Retreat October 24 to 26, 2014 For all offerings check out her website https://creativitygoeswild.com

[creativity]

LIVING LIKE POETRY

I recently found this wonderful poem by noted American poet William Stafford where he captures, as poetry does, the essence of what it means to be authentically alive. We live soulfully from a place of spontaneity and presence. We are aware of greater happiness and joy and celebration in each moment. We are less concerned with the confines of social norms.

I've always thought of poetry as being written by the soul for the soul. From this place we have access to expanded ways of knowing and being. We connect with what we really value in our hearts and can make choices from a place of greater clarity. Poetry can open us to new ways of seeing ourselves and the world.

Read Stafford’s poem below. Drink it in. Dance with it. Let it play in your imagination. Then ask yourself, "What would it look like, feel like for me to live like poetry?" What traits of spirit do I want to embody? Freedom, peace, joy, happiness? Pick one and play with experiencing it in your daily life. See if you don’t feel lighter and more open to new possibilities. Consider reading a poem a day for inspiration. Most of all poetry would ask you to have fun with this.

Poetry

Its door opens near. It's a shrine
by the road, it's a flower in the parking lot
of The Pentagon, it says, "Look around,
listen. Feel the air." It interrupts
international telephone lines with a tune.
When traffic lines jam, it gets out
and dances on the bridge. If great people
get distracted by fame they forget
this essential kind of breathing
and they die inside their gold shell.
When caravans cross deserts
It is the secret treasure hidden under the jewels.

Sometimes commanders take us over, and they
try to impose their whole universe,
how to succeed by daily calculation:
I can't eat that bread.

- William Stafford


Suzanne Murray is a writing teacher and creativity coach with more than twenty years of experience in helping others to write and access their creative fire. She has written a book The Heart of Writing based on her writing workshops. It's available as an ebook https://bit.ly/1ctY6M8 Plus dates are set for the next Yosemite Retreat October 24 to 26, 2014, https://creativitygoeswild.com/yosemite-retreats/. For for more about all her work or to read her blog go to www.creativitygoeswild.com

[creativity]

Are You Ready to Set Your Creativity Free?

Does it feel like your creativity is locked up tight in a box you are afraid to open? You put it in there long ago when your third grade teacher didn't like your drawing or your father disapproved of you wasting your time writing poems or your grandmother told you that you didn't have as good a singing voice as your sister.

It happened to me in junior high school when my in my design class the teacher exclaimed about a drawing I actually really liked, "Suzanne, you can do better than that". Decades later I've yet to pick up another drawing pencil. The creative self is a tender and vulnerable part of us, so it doesn't take much to discourage it.

I could have left the creative urge locked up with my drawing pad but fortunately I found other outlets. In college I developed a passion for black and white photography for creative expression. It was a fine replacement for drawing. Eventually creative writing became my main form.

I was lucky enough to grow up in a city, San Francisco, and with a parent, my father, who valued the arts so I wasn't weighed down by the general cultural beliefs that the arts and creativity are frivolous. I had implicit permission to play with creativity from early on and it informs my life in countless ways.

Back before I started my own writing and creativity coaching business and needed a resume to apply for work, the line that got me the most interviews was "creative problem solver". My relationship to creativity allows me to use the process to access the field of all possibilities so that I can come up with new ways of looking a situation and new solutions.

We all have this capacity. I just was lucky enough to grow up in an environment that age me permission to play with it. Whether you know it or not you probably are using this ability to some degree on a regular basis. You've all had the experience of trying to solve a problem at work using your rational, linear mind. Frustrated to give up and let it go, you drive home and as you pull up to the house the solution pops into your head. That's one way the creative process works. You learn to trust that if you give a problem over to your subconscious the answer will show up.

So to reclaim your creativity, to set it free, consider the ways you are already creativity in every area of your life and the benefits it brings. How have you been discouraged over the years from being creative and what action could you take today to begin to reclaim those gifts. Play with the idea. Have fun. That's the heart of the creative process. Joy and a deep sense of satisfaction.


Suzanne Murray is a writing teacher and creativity coach with more than twenty years of experience in helping others to write and access their creative fire. She has written a book The Heart of Writing based on her writing workshops. It's available as an ebook https://bit.ly/1ctY6M8 Plus dates are set for the next Yosemite Retreat October 24 to 26, 2014, https://creativitygoeswild.com/yosemite-retreats/. For for more about all her work or to read her blog go to www.creativitygoeswild.com

[creativity]

CELEBRATING THE EVERYDAY THROUGH YOUR CREATIVITY

Pablo Neruda, Nobel prize winning Chilean poet, early in his writing life wrote serious political poems which actually got him exiled from Chile for a time. One line from his poem I'm Explaining a Few Things written in 1935 during the Spanish Civil War has long stayed with me capturing the intensity of Neruda's work, ...and the blood of children ran through the streets/without fuss, like children's blood...

Later in his life, as if weary of the burden of protesting atrocities and political corruption, he began to write Odes about everyday things: salt, cat, dog, dictionary, tomato, to name a few. His Odes celebrate the ordinary in an extraordinary way. I have a hard bound collection of Odes to Common Things, the original Spanish facing the English translation. I cherish this book because, beyond the fact that the poems are an exquisite, playful honoring of the everyday, those things we take for granted, the things we no longer really see; they remind us to pay attention and look at common things with new eyes and imagination.

You could do this too in whatever form your creativity takes. Play with it and see if it doesn't brighten and expand your world.

Here's one of my favorites Odes by Neruda:

Ode to the Artichoke

The artichoke
With a tender heart
Dressed up like a warrior,
Standing at attention, it built
A small helmet
Under its scales
It remained
Unshakeable,
By its side
The crazy vegetables
Uncurled
Their tendrills and leaf-crowns,
Throbbing bulbs,
In the sub-soil
The carrot
With its red mustaches
Was sleeping,
The grapevine
Hung out to dry its branches
Through which the wine will rise,
The cabbage
Dedicated itself
To trying on skirts,
The oregano
To perfuming the world,
And the sweet
Artichoke
There in the garden,
Dressed like a warrior,
Burnished
Like a proud
Pomegrante.
And one day
Side by side
In big wicker baskets
Walking through the market
To realize their dream
The artichoke army
In formation.
Never was it so military
Like on parade.
The men
In their white shirts
Among the vegetables
Were
The Marshals
Of the artichokes
Lines in close order
Command voices,
And the bang
Of a falling box.

But
Then
Maria
Comes
With her basket
She chooses
An artichoke,
She's not afraid of it.
She examines it, she observes it
Up against the light like it was an egg,
She buys it,
She mixes it up
In her handbag
With a pair of shoes
With a cabbage head and a
Bottle
Of vinegar
Until
She enters the kitchen
And submerges it in a pot.

Thus ends
In peace
This career
Of the armed vegetable
Which is called an artichoke,
Then
Scale by scale,
We strip off
The delicacy
And eat
The peaceful mush
Of its green heart.


Suzanne Murray is a writing teacher and creativity coach with more than twenty years of experience in helping others to write and access their creative fire. She has written a book The Heart of Writing based on her writing workshops. It's available as an ebook https://bit.ly/1ctY6M8. Yosemite Retreat October 24 to 26, 2014 Connecting to Nature and Creativity, https://creativitygoeswild.com/yosemite-retreats/. For for more about all her work or to read her blog go to www.creativitygoeswild.com

[creativity]

I believe this passionately: that we don't grow into creativity, we grow out of it. Or rather, we get educated out if it. - Ken Robinson

THE PROBLEM WITH IGNORING OUR CREATIVITY

I've been reading a brilliant book by Ken Robinson called Out of Our Minds: Learning to be Creative. The title springs from Robinson's belief that at this time in human history if we fail to promote and support the vast reserves of latent creativity and innovation living within every person, then we must be "out of our minds".

He insists and I agree "that everyone has a huge creative capacity as a natural result of being a human being." The challenge is the lack of cultural support and permission for reclaiming the creative gifts that we have been largely schooled out of. There needs to be an atmosphere where it's okay for everyone to be creative rather than holding the assumption that it's the domain of a select few.

On a global level, we are in the midst of a major paradigm shift where old structures unravel because they no longer really serve the greater good. Humanity is in the process of evolving from a world based on competition to one where cooperation and co-creation holds the key to our well being and survival. As entirely new ways to doing things need to be developed, engaging and expanding our creativity and innovation are absolutely critical. Creativity is where our intuitive and imaginative minds play with the field of infinite possibilities.

Since most of us have had our creative efforts discouraged at an early age, we have a hard time wanting to re-open that door. Start with this. Look at all the ways you are already creative in your life. This includes creative problem solving. Many years ago at a wilderness trailhead miles from help I fixed the broken cable to my gas pedal using a paper clip and rubber band so we were able to drive home.

I suspect that if you look at your creative self in this new light you will come up with a long list of all the ways you are already creative. Then ask yourself, "how can I expand my creative capacity?" and "how can I support others in being more creative?"
Along with helping the world, on a personal level being creative feeds our own heart and soul. When we fail to use our creative capacity we limit our experience of the joy and presence that being absorbed in the creative moment brings.

As we approach the new year be open to the ways you want to bring more creativity into your life. Once you ask yourself the question, "how can I bring more creativity into my life and the world", let it go and just see what pops into your mind when you aren't thinking about it.

Pay attention to synchronicities, those chance occurrences that hold meaning. I've had books I've needed to read literally fall off the bookstore shelf at my feet. I tend to get goosebumps at such moments as if my body recognizes the communication from a higher source at work. That's part of how creativity works.

Opening more fully to our intuition, imagination and creativity can be key in navigating the rapid pace of change in the world. Accessing the expanded way of knowing, at the heart of being creative, can keep us from feeling overwhelmed by our sense of uncertainty.

The more complex the world becomes, the more creative we need to be to meet its challenges. - Ken Robinson


Suzanne Murray is a writing teacher and creativity coach with more than twenty years of experience in helping others to write and access their creative fire. Her book The Heart of Writing: Jumpstart the Process, Find Your Voice, Calm the Inner Critic and Tap the Flow, based on her decades of experience is available as an ebook https://bit.ly/1ctY6M8. For for more about all her work or to read her blog go to www.creativitygoeswild.com

[creativity]

Have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary - Steve Jobs

READY TO CREATE A NEW YEAR, A NEW STORY

It’s hard to describe the creative process with words and rational thought. It’s really a dance, a song, music in the blood, rising on the breath of inspiration. It’s a flow of energy that connects you to the heart of the universe. When you enter that river it feels really good. You are alive in the moment, expressing the uniqueness of you.

You can create anything from this place: a poem, a song, a garden, a solution to a problem or a new story for your life. Take a dash of inspiration, a flood of ideas, woven into a images in the mind’s eye by your imagination. Your heart and intuition play a key role, too.

What if you really knew that you could create anything from this place? What if you understood that you could rearrange the creation of your life by what you imagine, what you pay attention to, and what you choose to focus on.

Begin by relaxing your hold on whatever you think of as your “story” now. Suspend disbelief and imagine that you can change the story of your life more easily than you think. Consider that you have an opportunity for rebirth. What would that look like if you had a magic wand that allow you to access infinite possibilities?

TRY THIS: Take a moment and consider the life you desire for yourself. What do you feel called to create? What areas aren’t working the way you would like? Close your eyes, take a few deep breaths. and drop your attention down into your heart. Then imagine yourself journeying to a place where anything and everything is possible. As you leave your old story behind feel the creative excitement and energy of the new life that wants to be born. Invite your soul to participate and ask the universe to help.

Imagine the elements of your new life coming toward you. What do you see, hear, smell, feel, and taste. Using your senses makes the experience feel much more real. Know that whatever you can imagine is possible. In your mind’s eye try on whatever comes to you. How does it feel? Do you feel expanded? Does it feel good? If so, this helps you discern what is for your highest good. The more you play with this exercise on a daily basis the more you are energizing the potential for what you want to create.

To help your creativity along begin to break out of habitual patterns. Find new ways to creatively engage even the most ordinary aspects of your daily life. Put your clothes on in new order. Eat new foods. Find meaningful and inspiring challenges. Explore new possibilities for interacting with your inner and outer worlds. This generates new opportunities that will lead you to the future you feel called to create.

You can use this exercise for anything you want to create whether it’s engaging with a new art form or creating a whole new life. In the changing world we live in using our expanded capacities of imagination and intuition can open you up to things happening in magical and unexpected ways, that our mind would never have considered. Living from this place allows you to tap the creative flow in every area of our lives. It leads to our greatest happiness and fulfillment.


Suzanne Murray is a writing teacher and creativity coach with more than twenty years of experience in helping others to write and access their creative fire. Her book The Heart of Writing: Jumpstart the Process, Find Your Voice, Calm the Inner Critic and Tap the Flow, based on her decades of experience is available as an ebook Now available on Amazon Kindle! https://amzn.to/174WIU9 or on her website https://bit.ly/1ctY6M8. For for more about all her work or to read her blog go to www.creativitygoeswild.com

[creativity]

I'm not much of a math and science guy. I spent most of my time in school daydreaming and managed to turn it into a living. - George Lucas


THE IMPORTANCE OF DAYDREAMING

Do you remember all the times you were told as a child to stop daydreaming and all the times you got in trouble in school for staring out the window? We are routinely judged for daydreaming, the implication being that we are wasting time or being unproductive. Yet, daydreaming is actually a very high-level brain function that has many uses and benefits.

Scientists have found that daydreaming actually exercises your brain’s ability to handle multiple thoughts at the same time. This can definitely enhance creative abilities. You may have noticed that your most brilliant ideas come while you are washing dishes, going for a walk or taking a shower. When you are occupied with an simple task your brain is free to process complicated thoughts and problems drawing on the depths of the subconscious.

People who are actively creative likely have an increased capacity to stay focused on a task at hand while letting their mind wander at the same time. Your mind can drive your car or clean the house while also working on a poem or coming up with a solution a problem at work.

Once you let your mind wander without trying to control it, you allow your brain to explore ideas and solutions to problems that you might not have thought about before when you were actively concentrating on the problem.

Allowing your mind to drift without censoring or judging provides space new ideas or perspectives to show up. When you are daydreaming, anything is possible. This allows you to imagine things working in a new and better way. You can use this for creating anything including your life.

Often while daydreaming you will find that the answer to a problem seems to just pop into your mind, even when consciously you thought there was no possible solution. Many of the greatest minds in history claim that they came up with their best ideas while daydreaming. So the next time you find your mind wandering let it go, knowing something important and productive is going on.


If you would like more inspiration for the New Year consider collecting your Free eBooklet: Setting Your Creativity Free: Essential Elements to Help Your Engage Your Natural Gifts https://bitly.com/1bxnGyE

Suzanne Murray is a writing teacher and creativity coach with more than twenty years of experience in helping others to access their creative fire. Her book The Heart of Writing: Jumpstart the Process, Find Your Voice, Calm the Inner Critic and Tap the Flow, based on her decades of experience is available as an ebook on Amazon Kindle https://amzn.to/174WIU9 or on her website https://bitly.com/1ctY6M9. For for more about all her work or to read her blog go to www.creativitygoeswild.com

[creativity]

Stories Bring Our World Alive - The Power of Storytelling and the Oral Tradition

On my first visit to Ireland, I went to Matt Molloy’s pub in Westport, County Mayo and had the delight of hearing a traditional storyteller. I could feel the enchantment woven through this oral tradition. The same way I have witnessed people's attention held in a wondrous way from my own involvement with spoken word poetry in Sonoma County. There is something in the human psyche that is brought to life by stories.

Ireland has produced per capita more Nobel prize winning writers than any other country. With a population of 4 million, Ireland claims four Nobel laureates in literature: William Butler Yeats, Seamus Heaney, Samuel Beckett and George Bernard Shaw along with other writers of great stature like James Joyce, Jonathan Swift and Oscar Wilde.

The reverence for words, stories and poetry runs deep in Ireland tied to the oral tradition of the Celts who had no written language For centuries in Ireland, the itinerant Seanchai—the Storyteller—was the person who kept the legends, the history, the traditions of the people alive. Up until the 1950s there were still storytellers traveling from village to village housed and fed along the way. This oral tradition was especially important in holding on to Irish culture during the eight hundred years of British occupation. Writers and storytellers are revered. Poet, William Butler Yeats, was instrumental in helping to spark the rebellion that lead to Irish independence in 1923.

My father, son of two emigrants from Ireland who settled in San Francisco, came home every evening and read the great works of literature. Shakespeare, Thomas Hardy and W. B. Yeats were among his favorite. So I was raised with this love of words and stories that runs deep in my bones and I suspect is part of why I became a writer and why Ireland has such a strong pull on my heart.

While the storytelling tradition isn’t so obviously present in modern Ireland, support for writing and the arts is strong. Ireland actually gives a tax exemption to writers, composers, visual artists and sculptors for income made from the sale of their work. Traditional Irish music has remained vibrant through the 20th, and into the 21st century, despite globalization. Musicians gather nightly in pubs all over Ireland to play together.

I have long felt that Ireland hold something for the world. There is an ancient wisdom that runs deep in the land, the feel of magic and mystery present especially in the West where the Irish language is still spoken. It holds a reminder that a love for words and stories can bring the world alive. You don't have to be Irish or travel to Ireland to experience this. You can embrace it wherever you are.

. . .to understand the Irish, mere facts can never be enough; this is a country that reprocesses itself through the mills of its imagination. - Frank Delaney


Suzanne Murray is a writing teacher and creativity coach with more than twenty years of experience in helping others to access their creative fire. She leads journeys to her beloved Ireland for more info https://bit.ly/1IUyk3h Her book The Heart of Writing based on her decades of experience is available as an ebook on Amazon Kindle https://amzn.to/174WIU9 or on her website https://bitly.com/1ctY6M9. For info more about all her work or to read her blog go to www.creativitygoeswild.com

[creativity]

I have no special talent. I am only passionately curious. - Albert Einstein

Curiosity about life in all of its aspects, I think, is still the secret of great creative people. - Leo Burnett

CURIOSITY CULTIVATES CREATIVITY and keeps you younger

Leonardo da Vinci, one of the most diversely talented individuals ever, was infinitely curious. He carried a notebook with him wherever he went and wrote down or sketched anything that aroused his curiosity. While best known for his paintings, the Mona Lisa and The Last Supper, he was also a sculptor, architect, musician, mathematician, engineer and inventor.

Being curious is a way of inviting creativity and can open us up to our unique genius. It opens our mind to make new connections and consider new possibilities. Albert Einstein attributed his brilliance to being passionately curious. Writer Henry James suggested to help your writing, Try to be someone on whom nothing is lost. With my writing students and coaching clients, I ask them to shake things up and do new things or visit a place they have never been before. Without curiosity, without “I wonder what would happen if I tried. . .”, we would never create anything new.

Between my own creative work as a writer and my interest in nature, my curiosity about the world is finely honed. I love to eavesdrop on conversations or watch people in cafes, not out of noisiness, but a real interest in other people’s lives and the wonderful range of possibilities for being human. I often get ideas for my writing that way. I’ll make up stories about people to exercise my imagination.

Paying attention and being curious as I walk in Nature is a great way to practice mindfulness and live in the moment. It also allows me to feel connected to and nourished by a larger world. Observing Nature’s great capacity as an artist also provides inspiration for my own creative work.

One of the things that ages us is doing the “same old, same old” over and over again. We do the same thing everyday, drive the same way to work, eat the same foods. The neural nets in our brain actually get rutted by our habits. Developing a habit of being curious and trying new things can keep us open to new possibilities and help keep us young as well as increasing our ability to be more creative.

TRY THIS: What are you curious about? It could be about trying a new recipe or visiting a new store that just opened. It could involve exploring a new place to walk or reading a book about a field you don’t know anything about but feel a pull toward. What can you do today to start building the muscle of your curiosity?


Suzanne Murray is a writing teacher and creativity coach with more than twenty years of experience in helping others to access their creative fire. Her book The Heart of Writing based on her decades of experience is available as an ebook on Amazon Kindle https://amzn.to/174WIU9 or on her website https://bitly.com/1ctY6M9. For info more about all her work or to read her blog go to www.creativitygoeswild.com

[creativity]

Imagination is everything. It is the preview to life's coming attractions. - Albert Einstein

WORKING WITH AN IMAGINARY MENTOR

I’ve been asking myself, how can I best help empower others at this time of great global change. The first answer that came in the flash of inspiration was the word imagination. Einstein regularly insisted that “imagination is more important than knowledge”. But the thing is, it’s not just for geniuses. It’s for everyone. We have just be taught to favor the rational mind at the expenses of capacities that actually can help us in amazing ways. It’s easy to reclaim.

Years ago I learned an exercise from Jean Houston, noted author, visionary and one of the founders of the human consciousness movement. It involves working with an imaginary mentor to get advice on any question that we have for any area of our life. Using our imagination and intuitive mind give us access to a deeper wisdom and way of knowing beyond the capabilities of our linear mind.

I have used this exercise for years in teaching writing and with creativity coaching. I have been amazed and delighted that my students get much better advice than I could have ever given with all my years of experience. Everyone in class could hear the wisdom coming through as we shared our answers. Most remarkable is that the answers actually sounded like they were coming from the individual asked. If someone asked Mark Twain, the response would sound like something Mark Twain would write. Tapping your imagination and writing in flow can give you access to expanded awareness and better answers you could think up.

TRY THIS: Pick someone you think would give good advice. It could be Einstein, Plato or your grandmother. Imagine you have written him or her a letter asking a question you have about anything in your life. It helps to be specific. Then using the technique of free writing (writing as fast you can without censoring) you write the response to you as if it is coming from your imaginary mentor. Really let go on this one. Don’t think. Just let the answer flow out of the pen or the keyboard for at least ten minutes. Then read the answer with an open curiosity as if you really have just received this letter in the mail. Be open, be objective. The more you play with this, the stronger the muscle of your imagination grows.

OR TRY THIS: You can also go for a walk with your imaginary mentor and have a conversation with them in your imagination. The key is to play and be open. Let go of thinking that you have to figure out everything with your mind. After all Einstein never figured out anything with his rational mind.

Suzanne Murray is a writing teacher and creativity coach with more than twenty years of experience in helping others to access their creative fire. Her book The Heart of Writing based on her decades of experience is available as an ebook on Amazon Kindle https://amzn.to/174WIU9 or on her website https://bitly.com/1ctY6M9. For info more about all her work or to read her blog go to www.creativitygoeswild.com

[Dixon]

After all Einstein never figured out anything with his rational mind.

With all due respect--and I do think you have a lot of good stuff to teach about writing--you are stepping outside the bounds of your expertise here. Your ludicrous statement (above) shows your bias as well as your ignorance of both Einstein and the relationship between rationality, imagination and intuition.

[creativity]

Hi Dixon, Thanks for sharing. Einstein himself said that none of his discoveries came from using his rational mind. I probably could have a made that clearer. Best, Suzanne

With all due respect--and I do think you have a lot of good stuff to teach about writing--you are stepping outside the bounds of your expertise here. Your ludicrous statement (above) shows your bias as well as your ignorance of both Einstein and the relationship between rationality, imagination and intuition.

[Dixon]

Suzanne, thanks for your prompt and pleasant clarification. I'd be very interested in seeing the quote from Einstein if you could direct me to it. But even if he said that "none of his discoveries came from using his rational mind", he was wrong about that--not surprising, since his expertise was in theoretical physics, not cognition or epistemology. His reasoning processes are well known, as he discussed them publicly, and things like his "thought experiments", as well as, obviously, his use of math, fit perfectly with the definition of "rational" you can find in any dictionary. Also, his commitment to empirical verification of his hypotheses is very rational (well, okay, rational-empirical). Some may think that if imagination or intuition are involved we have exited the realm of rationality. This is mistaken; both imagination and intuition, used properly, are part and parcel of the rational enterprise.

If I seem touchy about devaluation of rationality--well, I am! Two reasons for that:
1. As a committed rationalist, I take put-downs of rationality personally.
2. We're faced with very serious problems on this beleaguered little planet, some of which are unprecedented. We're gonna need all the rationality we can muster to have any chance of coming through the crises in decent shape. So when I see people seeming to want to demote the rational mind to a position of little influence, I get scared, then angry.
Thanks again for your clarification, and I hope you enjoyed mine.

Hi Dixon, Thanks for sharing. Einstein himself said that none of his discoveries came from using his rational mind. I probably could have a made that clearer. Best, Suzanne

[creativity]

Dear Dixon, Thanks for your response. I didn't intend for it to seem that I devalue rationality. I think all our capacities are important and that they are a complex weave. And I share your deep concern for this lovely planet of ours and my work with creativity and imagination are intended to help build all of our capacities for solving the problems we face. All my best, Suzanne

If I seem touchy about devaluation of rationality--well, I am! Two reasons for that:
...

[Richard Nichols]

I'm way over my head here, not being very rationalist, more on the creative side, but I've got to say Dixon, that was a good one about being a rationalist, and taking offense at put downs of rationality. How irrational.

Anyway, Einstein was a creative genius, and what he created were mind bending theories about reality.

... 1. As a committed rationalist, I take put-downs of rationality personally. ...