THE WHEEL OF CREATIVITY®

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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This has been a tough week for me.  I could cite circumstances and reasons, but the real difficulty has come in my response to them. So I’ll just go directly there, and save us both the boredom.

One of the most intimate pieces of advice I’ve ever received about writing (and it holds true for just about everything else in life too) is:

“You can’t take someone where you haven’t been yourself.”

I guess that little ditty sits at the heart of what I’m up to in the world. It’s the launch pad for my thoughts about the creative journey we’re all on in life. For me, and I believe for all of us, it gives meaning and context to the inevitable peaks and valleys along the way.

In my Creative Process Group this week we’ve been working with the second gate in the Wheel of Creativity™… Chaos. Chaos is the far side of the Wheel, as far from the metaphorical Home as you can get. If Home is what is known, ordered, stable and predictable, then Chaos is unknown, disordered, unstable and unpredictable. Yet, throughout all of Nature—from the origins of the universe, to the regeneration of our cells—it is the creative void from which all things come to be.

In the past 30 days, the word chaos appeared more than 10,000 times in the text of the New York Times online. A few tidbits from the headlines:

• Chaos in Yemen
• The Chaos of War
• Anti-Chaos Crusaders
• Chaos of Internet
• Signs of Chaos in Syria
• Bloody Chaos

…along with:

• Creating Amid Chaos
• Creations of Poetry and Chaos

The world is currently undergoing an enormous and sweeping transformation. In times of Chaos, the forms we have known dissolve, releasing energy from which new forms are created. It is a creative process, but not an easy one. The point of Chaos is a fragile time, and what we do in these hours and days and months will determine whether it leads us to failure or a new way of life.

Chaos appeared in my life this week as disappointment and self-doubt, when Life threw me several unexpected curves. I have embarked on this journey consciously, and I am grateful to recognize this place and to know it is leading somewhere good. In order to take my group through the gate of Chaos, I must go through it again myself. Its infinite creative potential exists not only for them, but for myself, as once again I come through that gate and find my Life on the other side, and myself clearer and stronger than ever.

Where in your life does the instability and unknown of Chaos appear? What could your response to it be?

Be brave. Leave a comment.

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I am having trouble with my downstairs neighbor. He would say he is having trouble with me. He has complained that I am too noisy, primarily that he can’t take my walking back and forth in my apartment (which I do a lot, as I work at home). For the past few days, I have been unable to take a step without thinking of him, and wondering if…. My emotions vacillate between anger, worry and catastrophizing. But this morning I had a new thought.

The irony of all this is that I have been aware lately that I have been more nervous that usual, more anxious, more tense. I am aware that the disruption, destabilization and disasters around our world are disturbing me. What can I do? And I am left with a bundle of emotions inside, and very little sense of power to change anything.

So I have been working with my breath, trying to remember to keep breathing as I do other things. When I think… keep breathing. When I move my arm… keep breathing. When I read an email, keep breathing. It is amazing me how often I catch myself holding my breath.

In a way, it is not surprising, as I believe we are all doing a little breath-holding these days, waiting to see what transpires in the many vulnerable places in the world. But when it becomes a habit, as it has in me, the entire body is affected. My movements become less fluid, more abrupt. My thoughts and emotions get stuck. And I would imagine that my steps become heavier. So today, as I watch my breath throughout the day, I am watching my steps as well.

As individuals we may feel powerless, but we are not. To begin to perceive myself as powerful in the world begins with the simple reminder that my natural relationship to life is as a creator. This changes everything. It also shifts our perceptions of right and wrong, good and bad.

The process of dissolution is essential to the process of creation, because old forms must die to release the energy for new forms to be created. Then even those whose role in the world is destruction play a creative role. Even the neighbor downstairs, who has caused me to examine my everyday life, is part of my evolution.

Our relationship to the earth teaches us so much about ourselves. Just as other people offer us the opportunity to look at and amend things in ourselves that hold us back, so the world today is offering us this as a species.

Today I can see the plan and all our parts in it. And today, it makes me grateful. In losing touch with my breath, I had lost touch with body and with myself. I had fallen out of love with my life. And life is too sacred to not appreciate it. One day I will not be here. One day perhaps, this planet may too be gone, or may return to some dormant state that will not support life. Will we have regrets?

In the last months of my mother’s life, she was very ill. I knew that I wanted to do whatever was necessary not to have regrets when she was gone. So I left my home and my work and went to live with her. Her dying process lasted six months. It was difficult. She suffered a lot. But our relationship evolved farther in those six months than all the 40 years before. She needed me, and I was there. And through that experience she gave me her final gift; she showed me the kind of love I was capable of. That love is the most creative force in the world. We hold its power in our breath and in how we walk through our lives.

Every one of us, great and small, plays a part in creating this world. Just for today, let us take responsibility for our part. Let us breathe deeply to connect with the creative force of life in us. And let us, just for today, walk a little more softly on the Earth.

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