I’ll let you discover the wonderful talent of Ben Solee on your own, but I want to share where this little distraction has led me today. Track number eight in Ben’s album “Learning to Bend” is called “Panning for Gold.” It’s a tender and soulful tune about God that moves me deeply, as God asks that, with all the beauty he has left us in the world, we help him remember where he’s put it. Ben can say this much better than I can, so I’m going to let him do so. Enjoy!

If there has ever been a time in history when the world’s in need of beauty, it’s now. What is the unique beauty you’re here to add to the stream of life? It could be the smile you give the shopkeeper or the song you sing on TV. Whatever corner of the world you’re in today, show me the beauty. Let your creative light shine.

This Sunday, April 21, I will share mine. Please join me for a half-hour of beauty in a free live teleconference

“Discover the Wheel of Creativity: Your Compass for Creative Living.”

Click here to register for the call.

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She spoke very personally about her experience growing up there and how the only thing that made the difference for her was opportunity – opportunities created by her parents who made sure she had the chance to be involved in things that stimulated her.

She talked about Hadiya Pendleton, the 15-year-old girl who marched in the parade for Barack’s inauguration, who was shot and killed in the park a week or so later.

She talked about, of course, not only gun control but the need to create alternatives for kids who now spend all their energy watching their backs. I was very moved. At the end she talked about words versus actions, and making a real difference.

I guess it struck me so deeply in part because I woke up this morning feeling very weary of words, still thinking about the film I watched last night: PINA. What a powerful testament to the work of choreographer Pina Bausch, Wim Winders’ love letter to his dear friend.

Pina Bausch is dead now, but the dance company she worked with for more than 20 years is still performing her work. They spoke about how she saw them, and how she called them to go places in themselves they had never gone, or didn’t even know existed.

The film opened with her talking about the limitations of words and the power of dance to say what words can’t. It ended with her inviting one of her dancers simply to “keep on searching” to keep looking for the place in herself she had not found yet. And I was struck with the emptiness of words when they are not inspired with the energy of that personal discovery.

“You can’t take someone where you haven’t been yourself,” it is said. I am up against this every day now, as I must confront my own personal limitations (fears, judgments, insecurities and preferences) if I am to keep evolving and help create a better world. So for me today, my intention is to speak less, act clearly and live from the center of my being. Maybe I’ll succeed; maybe I won’t. But it will be worth a try.

Just for this day, what is your intention?

Experience the Wheel of Creativity’s power to help you discover the undiscovered in yourself with my FREE Daily Centering Meditation. Click here to download the recording.

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One of the things I’ve learned about myself over the years is that I wait. Sometimes this is a wise choice. Sometimes it’s not.

Let’s look at the first kind of waiting first. There have been a few times in my life when I’ve made decisions because I felt a sense of urgency, external pressure. People were waiting on me. Things needed to happen. Someone else was going to get it first. Even as I signed on the dotted line, I knew. “This is not right.” But I went ahead anyway. That kind of decision has always cost me, usually financially.

But there is another kind of waiting that’s more a habit than a choice. And it’s not particularly helpful. For example, I’ve observed over the years my tendency to buy beautiful fresh fruits and vegetables at the local farmers market, bring them home with joy, and then let them sit in the fridge until they have lost their luster. All too often, I’ve found  myself waiting until they are too far gone to eat. This in fact makes me very sad, because I hate for anything that has lost its life to be wasted.

The first kind of (not) waiting taught me to honor my uncertainty: “I don’t know, and I don’t know and I don’t know. And then one day, I know.” The second kind of waiting has taught me how to seize the day. Both taught me about the  power of knowing what I want and taking action on it.

More than any other station in the Wheel of Creativity, I hear new clients identify with the Anorexia station. Anorexia is the place in the creative process where you are paralyzed with the automatic No. Over time, self-protection becomes compulsive avoidance. And years can pass as you wait to become worthy of your dream.

Wherever you are in your life today, you will never be younger, never have more energy, never have more time ahead of you to achieve your dreams. When your heart calls to you, stop, look and listen. And then get up and cross the street. Tomorrow it might be raining.

What are you waiting for? What calls you to cross the street?

If you’d like to read more about the Wheel of Creativity, click here to buy the book on Amazon.

See you in the Wheel!

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Have you ever noticed that the more you try to force your will on life, the more your desired outcome avoids you? This approach breeds a sense of urgency and desperation that drives you farther and farther from your own true place in the creative process of living. It’s a feeling that if you don’t make it happen, nothing will happen. Big lie. And one I tell myself way too many days of my life.

There are two fundamental principles in creating the life you want. One is receptive and the other is active. Yin and yang. One is about being open and receiving the unforeseen gifts there in every day. The other is about taking hold and making the most of what comes. One without the other is an incomplete system, like a hand that closes but won’t open or opens but won’t close. It doesn’t work.

You are not in control of the creative process. You have a responsibility for how you engage with it, but you’re not in control. The more you close your fists, the less you allow life’s creative energy to flow through you. At the same time, if you only open to receive without structure, and nothing remains. Does this mean you don’t have to work at it? Oh, no. That’s the other big lie.

Life flows like water, seeking the openings to give it direction. How would you hold a sip of water in your hand? Squeeze too tight and you squeeze the life out of it. Open too wide and it will all slip away.

To hold what flows, stay open and give it structure. Show up every day. Set your targets. Then set them aside and focus on what’s in front of you. Don’t think about the past or the future. Just do the work. And then go out with your friends in the evening.

To learn more about the active and receptive principles in creating your life, check out The Wheel of Creativity on Amazon or sign up to get my monthly Creative Adventure Journal over there on the right.

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Harbinger of all things new and vibrant and pure.

Like the four seasons in each year, The Wheel of Creativity is divided into four quarters.

As you move around the Wheel from Home to Chaos and back again, these four quarters, like seasons, take you into new energetic places.

Four Quarters of the Wheel

1. Vision is the domain of the mind and corresponds to the element of air. It is where your thoughts rule, and where ideas are generated.
2. Exploration is the domain of the spirit and corresponds to the element of fire. It is where your intuition takes you out away from what you know, and where you do your research.
3. Incubation is the domain of the heart and corresponds to the element of water. It is where your emotions nourish the seed of the new growing within you, and where you begin developing a prototype.
4. Cultivation is the domain of the body and corresponds to the element of earth. It is where your sensations connect you with the world around you, and where you do the work to make your idea real and useful in the world.

Four Seasons in One Day

Your thoughts are the lines you draw on the canvas of your life. They outline the pictures you make, whether a single creative project or an overarching career track that leads you through your life. They give the structure to the creations you will develop in your day and in your life.

Your intuitions – hunches or instincts – lead you out of your head into the world around you to discover what you don’t know, to engage with others and with what’s already in the world around your idea. Your spirit inspires the work and makes it universal, taking it beyond your limited personal vision into the context of all of life.

Your emotions and your feelings are the colors you use to paint within the lines you’ve drawn with your thoughts. They give richness and depth and texture and your original idea. They give space for the character of the new thing to emerge on its own and restore your passion as you fall in love with the work you’re doing.

And finally, your senses connect you with the physical world around you. They put you into the real experience of life. They connect you with other human beings who share that experience, those who will view your work, connect with it and be moved by it.

Whatever Comes… Be Inspired

Your circumstances are the subject of your creative work. They are the model in your figure drawing class, the protagonist in your story, the rhythm of your poem.

Everything in the world around you inspires you, either by your love or hate of it. Your work of art is what you do with those things, the forms you create with your mind, spirit, heart and body. Every one of us has a different vision, and every vision is important and valuable and creative. Your sketch comes only through you. The world is richer when you let it come and poorer when you don’t.

Reach out and Take Action

If you’d like to find out more about how you can use the Wheel of Creativity in your life, have fun exploring this blog. And sign up for updates on my Spring book tour itinerary to find out when I’ll be in a city near you.

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Like a great Scrabble game, only in 3D where you can get hurt playing.

One day last week, my letters spelled L O N E L I N E S S. I saw myself starting to go down the path where that can take me. And I had a moment of clarity.

What else can I create with these letters?

I took myself out for a walk. I took a new route to the local library to renew my card. As I passed the familiar row of unentered antique stores, it occurred to me. Today’s letters are 2 Ls, 2 Ns, 2 Ss, 2 Es, 1 O and 1 I. What else could I do with these letters? I could write a poem, I thought. Just the question gave me the awareness that I could just sit there with my letters and complain about them. Or I could play the game. I could create something else.

In line at the library, I saw a beautiful, well-dressed family at the counter getting their first library card. A grandmother, a father and two girls. Dressed in a suit with with with a bag full of paperwork, the man was very serious about this card.  Hovering above them like an angel who knows how things work, the grandmother took the girls to explore while their father waited. It took a long time. His eyes caught mine, seemingly a bit worried about the line forming behind him. I smiled and nodded it was okay. Then it was over. We never spoke, but I was no longer lonely.

I returned home by a different route still. I called in at the Italian food market for their delicious breadsticks, and bought two even more delicious cookies too. And when I passed the busy stylish café on the quiet side street, there was one table free. I sat down and wrote that poem. I called my husband on his ship. I left an extra tip for the server.

The world that seemed so empty in the morning was full by then. Everyone seemed friendly. And I returned home changed.

What letters has Life given you today?

A N G E R

D E P R E S S I O N

A N X I E T Y

E C S T A S Y

J E A L O U S Y

I L L N E S S

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

Join me.

Play the game. See what else you can create with the letters you have today.

Click on the MEDITATION tab above to discover one tool you can use to find the awareness you need today to…

liveCREATIVE!

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What came through to me so strongly is a feeling we’ve learned alongside math and spelling:

“I only want to do this if I can be sure it’s going to work.”

“Work” is defined in ways unique to each of us, but always occurs somewhere in the future. And it always seems beyond our control. There is an alternative.

Well trained as consumers from our first digital image, we learn to do what we do…

• because it’s going to make us famous
• because it’s going to make us rich
• because it’s going to make us attractive

…because it’s going to get us something we think we need to be enough.

But creative people learn that there’s an incomparable sense of aliveness only attached to doing what we do…

• because we can
• because it pleases us
• because we love it
• because we must

Internal, External

The first of these two points of view is  externally oriented while the second is internally oriented. The first is designed to increase your value in the eyes of others, while the other fulfills you as you are. The first leaves you at the mercy of others, while the second puts your worth into your own hands.

Too often, we want others to find the value in what we do because it means (to us) that they find value in us, especially when it is the work that comes from our hearts.

But each of us must define the value of our work, and we can only define that value for ourselves. As a creator, part of your work is to be clear about why you do it and what it gives you. As a viewer or listener, you also determine whether a work has value for you; that is your own personal response.

• Finding the value for yourself has to come first. Why must you do what you do? What does it give you?

• The value to others is discovered as you put it out there, test it, keep working and refining it.

• Value to society is yet another question, a commercial one.

Why Create?

Your experience of success depends on your intention for your work in combination with what others need and want.

• To create only because others will buy your work is to industrialize the process.

• To create only because it’s what you must do is to purify the process.

• To create what you must and then go about the ongoing process of connecting it with others is to find the deepest connecting links between your work in the world and what makes us all human. It’s also to accept that not everyone is going to like it or find the value in it.

But the value is still there, at least to you.

If a plant can’t feed us does it not have value?

If a stuffed doggie has no bark, does it not comfort?

If an unknown painter paints, does it not enrich the world?

What if you were to do your creative work just because you can? Because you love it? Because you must? And keep doing it until it connects with others who find the value in it. What kind of life would that be?

But what we tend to do when someone may not find our work valuable for them is to connect with them in the negative: “If they don’t find value for them, they don’t find it valuable, which means it has no value for anyone, which means I have no value.” A very deadly chain of sentiments for a creative person.

And how could anyone create under those conditions?

Best Case, Worst Case

On the other hand, if you start with the inherent value of doing the work because you can, because you must, the value is there already. Then you are free to engage in the creative process that comes after, which is promoting the work.

Many creators, it must be said, are not publicly recognized in their lifetimes. But we live in a world today where our work can spread to millions like wildfire. There are hundreds, if not thousands out there who will find value our work if we are willing to take that journey too.

I think we have to be very honest with ourselves about why we do what we do. We can’t afford to be surprised at the end of the road if we get something different. We have to tell the truth about what we are really seeking and decide if that is really what we want. Only then will our work be rightly aligned with the results we produce.

Even more important, we cannot expect our creative work to fill the voids within us for recognition for respect for someone else to tell us that we have value as human beings. I wonder if this isn’t why fame is so destructive to so many: “You mean, I went through all that, and I still feel this way inside? Damn!”

If the work itself does not fulfill us, we are risking a great deal indeed. We are risking our lives. And we’ve missed the value of the gift we’ve been given for ourselves.

And you?

I’m taking a poll on The Wheel of Creativity Facebook page. Please take a few seconds to head over there and let me know… How do you define the value of your work? Why do you create?

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It’s Not the Goals

Just a couple of months ago, we started another new year. Seems to me that with each passing year, the sense of longing for what I’ve still not managed to achieve grows stronger. A lot of people set resolutions, make new goals, commit to themselves that this will be the year. And more often than not, by the end of February, it’s becoming clear that this may not be the year either. But it doesn’t have to be that way.

In my experience, most of us hit points in our lives where we just stall. And this occurs more frequently around the thing we really want. What we said we were were committed to doing doesn’t get done again. We run out of fuel. And the fuel is not better goals, less distractions, better time management (though all those things are part of the equation).

It’s the Passion

The fuel the fuel is passion. It’s love. It’s excitement. It’s being in love with your life (at least one aspect of your life) in a way that keeps you showing up not because you have to, but because you just can’t stay away. And the truth is that what we call creativity and what we call art it has this quality. It’s the kind of thing that we just absolutely love and we can’t really live without it.

Passion’s Close Companions

But stuff comes up and gets in the way. Fears. Judgments. Self-censorship. Self-judgment. “I’m not good enough.” ” I don’t have what it takes.” “Who do you think you are?” When we get close to the thing we value the most, these are the voices we hear. I hear them all the time from the people I work with; and yes, I have them too.

Sometimes the voices are internal and sometimes external. They are what I call mind fields. The mind is a nuclear device, whose power is at our disposal if we can learn to manage it. It is also perhaps the most defended place on the human landscape. It arms itself against what it does not know, what it cannot explain or predict, what it fears. It buries its mines deep on the very path to our deepest desires. The more precious the treasure, the more treacherous the path. But it doesn’t need rigid control. It needs love.

Disarming Behavior

So what do you do with a mine field? You have to go in there, locate the mines and disarm them. This is not an easy path and a lot of people would rather just avoid it completely. Where your treasure is, there lies danger also. That which you love the most is the place where you are most vulnerable, the place where you’ll feel pain, the place where you’ll come up against all the reasons your dream is still undone. I can speak from personal experience and say the road is hard and there are mines in the way. But you can disarm them. Your passion, your desire and your commitment to get to the other side will see you through.

Whether it’s a piece of art, a new business, a new wardrobe, a fitter body, or a more loving relationship, you will come out the other side having created what you long for. And the journey to it will have created you. My work is to help you find yourself on the journey, to keep moving and to reach your goal transformed.

Sound like a feasible plan? Then let me invite you to join me this coming Sunday, March 3rd, for a free half-hour teleconference:

Back on Track, Here and Now: Creating Your Best Year Ever

which will introduce my next four week course, starting March 5th:

Love the Life you Live: Romancing the Mind

Click here to learn more.

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The Wheel of Creativity: Taking Your Place in the Adventure of Life

Will you be There?

This party celebrates more than the launch of my book.

It is also a celebration of all your dreams still being dreamt and all your plans waiting to be laid down. It is a celebration of what you are here on Earth to do.

The Adventure Starts Here

Come join me and a select group of creative spirits — from artists to entrepreneurs — as we share an evening of solace for body and soul. This evening offer you safe harbour from life’s creative storms, just for a little while. Come get inspired to embark on the adventure of your lifetime.

Canapés and bubbly will be provided by The Nomad Chef.

Register Now

Click here to register and get directions to the secret restaurant.

liveCREATIVE!

Katherine

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Whatever their shape, size, color or creed…

there is a great big world of people to love.

We all have a Valentine.

Let love flow through you today.

Happy Valentine’s Day!

from The Wheel of Creativity

and

Katherine Robertson-Pilling

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