THE WHEEL OF CREATIVITY®

What will you create in 2013?

Whatever you want to achieve this year, you’ll go through a creative process to do it. The quality of your life this year depends on how you take that process on. Join me for this sneak musical preview of what that little trip is going to look like.

P.S. It’s the ride of your life!

Now, go live this year CREATIVE!

* The Wheel of Creativity: Taking Your Place in the Adventure of Life is a book by Katherine Robertson-Pilling. Learn more here by subscribing to my monthly Creative Adventure Journal.

Buy the book on Amazon.  Amazon USA: http://amzn.to/UCldyz and Amazon UK/Europe: http://amzn.to/TzFXos.

LYRICS:  12 Days of Creativity: A Musical Tour of The Wheel of Creativity

Station 1 and the Wheel of Creativity gives you… a hunger for something more than this.

Station 2 and the Wheel of Creativity gives you… an appetite for that… and a hunger for something more than this.

Station 3 and the Wheel of Creativity gives you…  anorexia… an appetite for that and a hunger for something more than this.

Station 4 and the Wheel of Creativity gives you… a little boat to launch… anorexia, an appetite for that and a hunger for something more than this.

Station 5 and the Wheel of Creativity gives you… isolation… a little boat to launch, anorexia, an appetite for that and a hunger for something more than this.

Station 6 and the Wheel of Creativity gives you… crisis-a-brewing… isolation, a little boat to launch, anorexia, an appetite for that and a hunger for something more than this.

Station 7 and the Wheel of Creativity gives you… conception of a new thing… crisis-a-brewing, isolation, a little boat to launch, anorexia, an appetite for that and a hunger for something more than this.

Station 8 and the Wheel of Creativity gives you… waiting for gestation… conception of a new thing, crisis-a-brewing, isolation, a little boat to launch, anorexia, an appetite for that and a hunger for something more than this.

Station 9 and the Wheel of Creativity gives you… finally breakthrough… waiting for gestation, conception of a new thing, crisis-a-brewing, isolation, a little boat to launch, anorexia, an appetite for that and a hunger for something more than this.

Station 10 and the Wheel of Creativity gives you… a new thing to nurture…  finally breakthrough, waiting for gestation, conception of a new thing, crisis-a-brewing, isolation, a little boat to launch, anorexia, an appetite for that and a hunger for something more than this.

Station 11 and the Wheel of Creativity gives you… a grown plant for pruning… a new thing to nurture, finally breakthrough, waiting for gestation, conception of a new thing, crisis-a-brewing, isolation, a little boat to launch, anorexia, an appetite for that and a hunger for something more than this

Station 12 and the Wheel of Creativity gives you… a ripe crop to harvest… a grown plant for pruning, a new thing to nurture, finally breakthrough, waiting for gestation, conception of a new thing, crisis-a-brewing, isolation, a little boat to launch, anorexia, an appetite for that and a hunger for something more than this.

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Christmas is upon us. So each day from now until December 25,

drop by The Wheel of Creativity blog

for a deep breath of spirit in the midst of the festive flurry.

Let’s be creative and connected this Christmas!

It’s the best gift under the tree!

Lean back.

Take a deep breath.

Look up from the screen.

Relax.

Station 6 and the Wheel of Creativity gives me… Crisis-a-brewing

There is a moment in any kind of struggle when one feels

in full bloom . . . vivid . . . alive.

One might be blown to bits in such a moment

and still be at peace.

                         - Alice Walker

The holidays can be stressful for us all. Emotions, expectations, priorities and celebration mix a potentially explosive cocktail, and when we try to manage it all we can easily feel overwhelmed. These moments of overwhelm are part of the creative process too. Respond to them consciously and transform them.

Good rope, bad rope

In the mid 80s, I participated in a self-development seminar in the Adirondack mountains of New York. One day of the seminar was a ropes course in the forest, which included three events. It was my undoing. And that was a good thing.

For the Tyrolean Traverse the ropes team secured a rope across a high gorge, some 50 feet across. I stepped into a harness and was attached to the rope with a carabiner. I stepped off the cliff and felt all my weight suspended below that rope. On my back with the carabiner at my waist, I was to pull myself to the other side.

Advancing was much easier than I expected until I got to the center of the gorge. Suddenly the angle of the rope changed from downhill to uphill. No matter what I did, I couldn’t move even an inch. I was furious. Tearful. Desperate. Someone was going to have to come get me. But no one did.

I dangled there for about 10 minutes, facing the sky, powerless to move. I got more and more angry, more and more helpless, until finally I kicked. With each kick, I discovered that I could lift my weight off the rope just enough to put one fist ahead of the other. And that was enough; just like that I moved my body across the second half of the rope and got myself to the other side. And then I got it!

Crossing over

Crisis is inevitable in the creative process. Seeing the Promised Land is not the same thing as entering it. Whatever you want to change in your life—whether it’s actually enjoying your family this season, managing the holiday have-to’s differently, or both—the obstacles between you and the new you are the way through.

The crisis, your feeling of overwhelm, is a wake-up call. In the midst of the storm, it yanks you from the crescendo of external demands and rivets you to yourself. In the center of every hurricane there is an eye, a still point where everything is silent. The storm brings you to the end of yourself, and finding that still point within it reveals the new idea, and the new you waiting on the other side.

This moment of CRISIS is station 6 in The Wheel of Creativity.

Where in life do you feel overwhelmed and out of control?

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Christmas is upon us. So each day from now until December 25,

drop by The Wheel of Creativity blog 

for a deep breath of spirit in the midst of the festive flurry.

Let’s be creative and connected this Christmas! It’s the best gift under the tree!

Lean back.

Take a deep breath.

Look up from the screen.

Relax.

Station 5 and the Wheel of Creativity gives me… I – SO – la – tion

“To navigate you must be brave . . .

and to be brave you must remember.”

                     - Mau Piailug

In yesterday’s post, I mentioned that while confidence and optimism will surely visit you in the creative process, they do not necessarily stay for long. The process of creating anything original—whether you are Man Ray in Paris or Cowboy John in Lubbock—requires that you leave what you know. And somewhere along the line, that is likely to make you a bit anxious.

“What was I thinking!”

I can’t begin to count the number of times I’ve found myself in this station. More than 20 years ago, when I first got a glimpse of the truth buried deep within me and the possibility that I could live my life in harmony with it my first reaction was fear. Established society does not always take kindly to those who honor their own truth above all else.

But I could also see the possibility of a world in which every person takes their place in the creative unfolding of because they listen and respond to what they know inside. Through every year I have lived since then I have come to see very little else. It’s the vision that inspired me to create The Wheel of Creativity. It’s the courage to stay my own course that changed the course of my life.

The gift of the creative process is that once you’ve left the shore, there is no turning back. The dark night of the soul is part of the cycle, and learning to navigate your way through it will show you strength and resilience you didn’t know you had inside. Find your center deep down in the bottom of the canoe, watch the stars and waves and keep your eye out for signs of land.

This ISOLATION is station 5 in The Wheel of Creativity.

What becomes available to you way out there, far away from all you know?

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 Christmas is upon us.

So each day from now until December 25, drop by

The Wheel of Creativity blog

for a deep breath of spirit in the midst of the festive flurry.

Let’s be creative and connected this Christmas!

It’s the best gift under the tree!

Lean back.

Take a deep breath.

Look up from the screen.

Relax.

Station 4 and the Wheel of Creativity gives me… a little boat to launch

Come to the edge, he said.

They said: We are afraid.

Come to the edge, he said.

They came. He pushed them,

And they flew.

                      – Guillaume Apollinaire

It takes a lot of energy to finally launch yourself into the unknown. And what might have felt like futzing around in the previous three stations was actually necessary to build the energy for launch. Whether you finally dare to apply for a new job, start dating again or don your old yoga clothes and get back to class, this is the moment when you take the plunge and “just do it!” You have to let go.

Trusting the unexplainable

Solar physicist and computer scientist Peter Fox has learned, through 30 years of research into changes in the sun’s activity, to “look for the unexplainable” in his intuition. “As a scientist, you have to have some element of confidence in yourself,” Peter told me on the phone, “because otherwise you don’t open yourself up to the creative thought. There’s the point where you have to trust that at some level your intuition is right.

It takes what it takes to find the courage to trust your intuition completely. It’s one thing to sit on the shore and want something; it’s another thing completely to pounce. When you finally do let go of the shore, it’s the high dive. You throw back your head, feel the wind in your hair, and a great big “Wheee!!!” flies from your lips. It is pure joy! For a minute.

Trusting yourself

Optimism of course does not last forever. Even though you will soon cry, “What was I thinking!” that is still to come. For now, the confidence of trusting your deepest knowing allows you to find freedom in your life again, often without changing a thing in the world around you. You have launched your boat and your are on your way.

LAUNCH is station 4 in The Wheel of Creativity.

Where do you find the confidence to take the leaps you need to take?

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Christmas is upon us.

So each day from now until December 25, drop by the Wheel of Creativity blog

for a deep breath of spirit in the midst of the festive flurry.

Let’s be creative and connected this Christmas!

It’s the best gift under the tree!

Lean back.

Take a deep breath.

Look up from the screen.

Relax.

Station 3 and the Wheel of Creativity gives me… AN-OH – rex –ya.

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate.

Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.

It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us.

Marianne Williamson

On December 25, I will launch my book as an eBook on Amazon Kindle. It’s a very exciting day for me, and probably no gift under the tree will mean more to me than finally getting my life’s work out into the world in this tangible way. But it’s been a long time coming.

I would have never imagined when I put the first ideas down on paper in 2003 that it would have taken me 10 years to make it real. But life is a process. And rarely does the creative journey take the straight road. In fact, the more personal, the more important to you a project is, the more you are to encounter the negative voices of self-doubt and judgment (within and around you).

Avoid at your own risk

This has been my experience: The things I’ve longed most to do in life have almost always traveled with insecurity, fear of judgment and avoidance, which I have named Anorexia. It is a natural part of the process to hear these voices. Sometimes they live inside your head; other times they come from the mouths of the people you love the most.

How you respond to them is a major challenge on the journey of creative living. And developing the courage to go forward with them whispering in your ear takes time. You will meet them as many times as you need to, but don’t give up. Use each encounter to build your resolve, and one day you will move through your avoidance toward that which you long for.

This ANOREXIA is station 3 in The Wheel of Creativity.

What automatic “No” prevents you from going for it in your life?

Check Amazon on December 25 & 26 to download the eBook for FREE. Get on my list to join a private tele-conferenece in January to begin putting it into practice.

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Christmas is upon us.

So each day from now until December 25, drop by the Wheel of Creativity blog for a deep breath of spirit in the midst of the festive flurry.

Let’s be creative and connected this Christmas! It’s the best gift under the tree!

Lean back | Take a deep breath. | Look up from the screen. | Relax.

Station 2 and the Wheel of Creativity gives me… an appetite for THAT

 “It doesn’t interest me what you do for a living.

I want to know what you ache for

And if you dare to dream of meeting your heart’s longing.”

Oriah

These past few months I’ve been with my husband on a small island in England where he has his house. Most of my attention has been on my book and getting it out the door, so I haven’t noticed much, but it’s pretty isolated down here for an American woman who comes and goes. There is a very sweet arts center in the nearby town of Havant, but it’s a long way from London. I’ve been feeling, shall we say, a little dry creatively.

 “Just tell me what you want!”

So our visit this past Saturday to London’s Tate Modern Museum reminded me what nourishes me spiritually and creatively. It was like rediscovering the light deep within myself by seeing it in the world around me. My heart leapt with joy.

Paraphrasing the text of the exhibition “Transformed Visions: New Images of Man,” creativity has to acknowledge and respond to what’s happening around it. Sometime that is beautiful, sometimes it’s catastrophic and often it’s just the everyday. Our response-ability in life is our ability to respond to life authentically. And our appetite for life is what illuminates the road ahead.

Mind the gap.

Some things are clear from the start. Others take time to develop. Sometimes in life all you know is that something’s missing. It often takes time to figure out what it is, and even longer to know exactly what you want to fill the gap.

It could be that you need a bit of down time to reconnect with yourself. Or you might need a heart-to-heart talk with your traveling husband. Or you might need to find creative ways to negotiate with a micromanaging boss.

The hunger of Station 1 will lead you to what you want and appetite will show you what it looks like if you’re listening to the voice within. If you struggle with that, download my FREE Daily Centering Meditation to get started.

Your APPETITE is station 2 in The Wheel of Creativity.

What’s the difference between hunger and appetite?

First Day of Creativity – Hunger

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Christmas is upon us.

So each day from now until December 25, drop by the Wheel of Creativity blog for a deep breath of spirit in the midst of the festive flurry.

Let’s be creative and connected this Christmas! It’s the best gift under the tree!

Lean back.

Take a deep breath.

Look up from the screen.

Relax.

Station 1 and the Wheel of Creativity gives me… a hunger for something more than this.

“Hunger comes to me on the road like a savage beast,

speaking the truth.

It calls to me from my innermost Self…”

Ever notice how food always tastes so much better when you’re really hungry? Contrary to popular opinion, the creative process does not begin with knowing what you want. It begins with the empty feeling of knowing what you don’t want.

Goal-setting, vision-boarding and positive thinking can be powerful motivators, but they do not inspire creative passion. Creative passion—the kind that keeps you going through the times when you’d really rather give up on that dream of yours—comes from deep inside you.

Whining’s not an option.

The problem is that most of us don’t see much value in knowing what we don’t want, and we certainly don’t like taking responsibility for it. We’d rather complain about what’s not working in our lives—the job that doesn’t fulfill us, the shape of our bodies, the partner who has still not shown up—than show up ourselves to create what’s missing. Most of us would rather just skip over our discomfort and move straight into the good stuff.

“I don’t know what I want, but this isn’t it.”

It might start with a vague sense of restlessness or a loud crashing bang of a “No more!” but that’s where it starts. And that’s the very first step to getting you up out of the chair of complacency and DOing something about your situation.

The key to knowing what you want—deep-down, quiet-in-the-storm, if-no-one-were-looking kind of longing—begins by being really honest with yourself about what you don’t want. Feel your longing. Connect with your discomfort. Let yourself get hungry. It’s that fire in your belly that ignites the entire journey of personal transformation.

That HUNGER is station 1 in The Wheel of Creativity.

Where in your life are you experiencing creative restlessness?

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This post is part of a series of excerpts from my forthcoming book. You can read them all in the Little Pink Spoons category. You can get advance notice of the book by subscribing to my Creative Adventure Journal over there to your right.

The Wheel

Throughout history, the wheel has been generally recognized as humanity’s first great invention. The word wheel is derived from a Proto-Indo-European word that means to revolve or move around. Always circular, often spoked and capable of rotating on an axis, the wheel made it possible for humanity to move across distances, to transport goods and to develop machines for achieving previously impossible tasks. Revolution empowered evolution.

The wheel is thought to have originated in ancient Sumer (modern Iraq) around 5000 BC, when it was created for throwing pots. Over the next several thousand years, it showed up in India and Pakistan on burial carts, in southern Poland on four-wheeled wagons, in China on chariots, and in Europe. The appearance of spoked wheels around 2000 BC made vehicles lighter and faster. As time went on, wheels were adapted to create new technologies, such as the water wheel for milling, the spinning wheel and ancient instruments of astronomy.

The Wheel as Metaphor

With its revolutionary impact on humanity through the millennia, it is not surprising that the wheel also took on strong cultural and spiritual significance. Across cultures and epochs, it became a metaphor for the cycles of life and the processes of growth and change. It still has deep symbolic meaning in most religions today.

The Wheel of Fortune.

For the Romans, the wheel was associated with the sun (as the wheel of a chariot that moved across the sky) and thus with life. The goddess Fortuna held the Wheel of Fortune in her hand, causing lives to change as she spun it, some for the better, some for the worse. Consequently the wheel endured for centuries as a symbol of the capricious nature of fate.

Ezekiel’s Wheel.

In Judaism, the wheel is associated with Ezekiel’s vision (Ezekiel 1:15–22), in which he sees four creatures descend from heaven. Twice, he says of these creatures, “the spirit of the living creatures was in the wheels.” “Wherever the spirit would go, they went, and the wheels rose along with them; for the spirit of the living creatures was in the wheels.”

The Rose Window.

In Christianity, the wheel motif appears in almost every major cathedral in the world, in the jewel-toned emblem of the rose window. From the Roman oculus, a round skylight, the rose window developed in the French Gothic period, when geometry played a symbolic role in cathedral design. Every angle carried meaning.

The Mandala.

The wheel is also a central feature of dharmic religions, such as Hinduism and Buddhism, in the mandala—a representational sacred space of concentric circles from its outer edge to its ornately decorated central square. For thousands of years, Tibetan Buddhist monks have painstakingly created mandalas in intricate patterns of colored sand as metaphysical symbols of the cosmos, a microcosm of the Universe from the human perspective. Many Tibetans also pray using a prayer wheel, a cylinder on a stick with a strip of paper prayers wound inside, which they turn back and forth to release the prayers into the world.

The Medicine Wheel.

One of the most sacred traditions of the indigenous people of North America is the medicine wheel, symbolized by a configuration of 36 stones on the earth—a circle with a cross inside. The circle itself, also known as the sacred hoop, represents different stages of physical life and the influence of the nonphysical world as well. According to Jamie Sams, author of Sacred Path Cards, “This symbol of all of life’s cycles has given the People of Native America an evolutionary blueprint for centuries. Each cycle of life is honored in a sacred way, giving us a way to see the value of each step of our pathway and a new understanding of our growth patterns.”

And you?

Q:  What area of your life could you honor by recognizing it as part of the cycle of life?

Start where you are. Share your story with other readers. Leave a comment.

Continued next Monday…

To be sure you don’t miss an installment, sign up for Blog Alerts. Just fill in the top box over to the right there to get email updates. In the meantime…

Live CREATIVE!

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Project management tips from the pit

As I write this, Formula 1 drivers, crews, spectators and fans are gathering in Monte Carlo for the richest stop on the Grand Prix circuit. The movements of cars and drivers through the narrow, winding streets of the French Riviera’s principle rock are synchronized like tassels on a twirler’s baton.

But running the race is only half the story. The other half is written by men and women with other talents, equally crucial to the outcome of the race. They are the artists to whom the driver entrusts himself in order to stay the course to the end. They take him in when it’s time to take stock.

The yin and yang of creativity

A creative project (the creative life) is much the same. There are times for firing up the engines and getting out there. And there are times for refueling, doing your homework and getting things right. Both are required numerous times in any project, as is shifting gears between the two.

I work with all kinds of creators – people who make all kinds of things in all kind of fields. So I have observed this process at work – and in breakdown – many times through the years. Each person has particular strengths, and corresponding weaknesses as well. A visionary finds details difficult, while a caregiver may have a hard time setting boundaries.

I see creative energies split in two equal and opposing forces, like yin and yang. Together these two types of strength complete the creative process. Each of us is stronger in one of the two.

Two types of talent

1. There are those who love to plan the perfect scenario, down to the last detail. They take their time to create a perfect product, getting everything right. But when it comes to releasing the product to the market, they hit the same wall again and again. The flags are waved, the cars are underway, but they find themselves still waiting.

2. There are others who are ignited by passion and vision and the longing for speed. They hit the road quickly, and customers flock to them. But without good planning and details, their projects are often not sustainable. Perhaps the business fails; perhaps they finally realize it was not their path at all. Something derails them, and they come and go quickly.

On the creative journey, we play both roles. To win, in the creative process as the Formula 1, requires responsiveness – the ability to shift gears and move between them. How can you train for the race?

Along the way, as a girl who’s made a few turns around the block, I’ve learned a few things in life’s pit too. You have to know when to pull into the pit and when to get out on the track. You have to know how to do your research in a timely fashion and when to release the product. You have to keep in mind that the pit is always there if you need to pop back in.

Secrets of staying the course

1. Know what your strengths and weakness are.

• Are you happier taking action and making things happen?
• Or do you prefer working out all the details behind the scenes?

Both action and receptivity are required to build a solid project with deep roots for stability and enough leaves on it to sustain itself.

2. Create a structure for your project in advance that incorporates both receptivity and action. Plan your work and work your plan.

• Manage your time with a timeline.
• Manage your money with a budget.
• Manage your human energy with a lifestyle plan.

3. Balance your weak areas.

• Use the process to transform your weaknesses into assets.
• Bring in a partner or collaborator whose skills complement yours.
• Hire a coach or mentor to hold you accountable and keep you moving forward.

Moving through the stations of the Wheel of Creativity in your project (and your life), you pass back and forth between yin and yang, receptivity and action. The Wheel takes you naturally from the receptivity of Vision to the action of Exploration; back into receptivity in Incubation, and on to the action of Cultivation. And when you emerge from the creative vortex – sometimes quickly, sometimes slowly – you emerge with your own wholeness as well as what you’ve created.

The win is your own life; the project is the prize.

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