Creativity Exercises
Create an Invocation- A Powerful Tool
If you have ever said a prayer before you begin to write, draw, dance, or be creative in any way, you have spontaneously used an invocation. This is a technique that has been used by inspired creative geniuses for ages. Near the beginning of Paradise Lost, Milton says “Sing heavenly Muse” and follows this with an invocation to her, asking her to aid him in the creation of his “adventurous song”. Before Brahms began to compose each day, he..
The Air is Alive..
This exercise is simplicity itself. You just have to sit on the grass. Whether you live in the North, where it is still spring, or in warmer climes where, even though it is technically still spring, summer has a hold, your assignment is to find a place where you can sit on green grass and observe green things that are growing. Prepare yourself by getting into a meditative state by breathing slowly and deeply, and that with every breath you are breathing in..
Connect with the Creative Unconscious
This is a good exercise to do right before going to bed or having a nap. Have a notebook handy and the germ or an idea or a specific aspect of a project you are working on in mind. Then begin as usual with Inspiration – Just a Breath Away Exercise so that you feel deeply relaxed and in tune with the radiant light that is the creative force within. Next, allow yourself to sink even deeper. Breathing deeply..
Sprout!
I sliced open a clove of garlic this morning to find, instead of the pale yellow center I would have found in the dead of winter, a pale green and growing sprout. I cut an onion and find it, too, was beginning to sprout. How, I ask myself every year when I see this springtime miracle, does it know? Science, of course, answers me with talk of encoded DNA, but I know that, even beyond the truth of science, it is the miracle of prāna — the life force that animates..
In the body – Head to Toe
It might seem a little strange to move from the sensual experience of last week’s
exercise to this week’s topic: feet! But then one of Kahlil Gibran’s most quoted
lines is: “And forget not that the earth delights to feel your bare feet and the winds long to play with your hair” . There is something quite lovely and even a bit
romantic ..
The Creative Clash of Yin & Yang
Great creative expression often comes out of the clash of polar opposites – yin and yang, good and evil, darkness and light, birth and death, love and fear….
The goal this week is to intensify your creative awareness of these contrasting energies.Your exercise is to create..
You! The Queen of the Lake of Awareness
Recently the images in some poetry by an 8th Tibetan Buddhist named Yeshe Tsoygel have burned their way into my mind and reminded me how essential imagery – and, more specifically, how we play with it in our minds – is to our ability to allow creativity to flow. In Yeshe’s writings she switches from her own voice, where she is recounting the agonies and ecstasies of her life as..
Jack, the Beanstalk, and the Power of the Feminine
Like seeds in the dark earth, the meaning of myths and fairy tales is buried deep within us. Spring is a good time to let their luminosity unfurl in the darkness and push its way up to join the light.
Jack and the Beanstalk is a perfect tale for this time of year: A poor, destitute..
Inspiration - Just a Breath Away
Get Inspired! Be Inspiring! It is trite but true: A big reason creativity doesn’t flow in our lives is simply that we don’t make time for it. These creativity tips and exercises are meant to light that fire under you at least once a week and get you going so that you: Do it! Just do it!
Every book or article written on creativity tells you that.