- Oracles: Medicine cards, Tarot, I Ching, Runes, Angel cards, Goddess cards, etc
- Dreams: asking to remember your dreams and keeping a dream journal
- Questions: invite expansion and answers (conclusions limit)
- Knowing your which of your sixth senses is best developed (clairvoyance, clairaudience, clairsentience, claircognizance)
- Meditation
- Yoga
- Stretching (opens you up)
- Walking (especially in Nature)
- Whenever your mind is otherwise occupied (driving, doing the dishes, in the shower)
- Asking and paying attention
- Writing (freewriting, mind mapping, dialogue with the Divine)
- Drawing (freedrawing, mandala making)
- Feed your spirit, (do things that make you happy, bring you joy, raise your vibration)
- Paying attention (to signs, synchronicities, hunches, gut senses felt in your body
- Gratitude
- Connecting to your heart
- Connecting to your body and your gut sense

To see the world in a grain of sand
and heaven in a wildflower.
To hold infinite in the palm of your hand
and eternity in an hour. – William Blake

Each month the day before I sit down to write my newsletter I ask the question as I hold the intention of wanting to be of service, “what should I write about?” I ask it silently in my mind and then let it go as I go about my day waiting for the answer to come from my imagination. This month the response came as a line from a favorite poem by Mary Oliver called Spring Azures that ends with the line “a life of the imagination”.

The poem begins with Blue Azures, the small blue butterflies that cluster around mud puddles and ends with William Blake, the 18th century English poet, painter and printmaker. (find full poem below). Considered mad by contemporaries for his idiosyncratic views, Blake has since been held in high regard for his expressiveness, creativity and the mystical undercurrents within his work as well as the way he embraced the imagination as “Divine” or as “Human existence itself”.

Creativity and imagination are something that tends to get stomped out of us at an early age. We are taught to conform. Daydreaming is punished. Drawing within the lines rewarded. Yet without imagination we are cut off from insights and ideas of expanded states of awareness and the higher realms of consciousness. And as Einstein so brilliantly put the levels thinking that created the problems we are experiencing won’t get us out of them. This is true in our personal lives as well as on a global scale. We need the gifts of our own creativity and imagination now more than ever. This is not just for art but for business, technology, our workplace and our homes. Accessing our imagination can assist us in every aspect of our lives.

So try this. Ask the question, “What would it take for me to bring more creativity and imagination into my life?” Then let it go and be open to an answer that comes as a song, or a poem fragment or a book that comes to you or an ah…ha that pops into your mind or however you are able to hear your imagination. Keep asking questions to invite your imagination to emerge to help expand the possibilities in your life.

Spring Azures

In spring the blue azures bow down
at the edges of shallow puddles
to drink the black rain water.
Then they rise and float away into the fields.

Sometimes the great bones of my life feel so heavy,
and all the tricks my body knows―
the opposable thumbs, the kneecaps,
and the mind clicking and clicking—

don’t seem enough to carry me through this world
and I think: how I would like

to have wings—
blue ones—
ribbons of flame.

How I would like to open them, and rise
from the black rain water.

And then I think of Blake, in the dirt and sweat of London—a boy
staring through the window, when God came
fluttering up.

Of course, he screamed,
and seeing the bobbin of God’s blue body
leaning on the sill,
and the thousand-faceted eyes.

Well, who knows.
Who knows what hung, fluttering, at the window
between him and the darkness.

Anyway, Blake the hosier’s son stood up
and turned away from the sooty sill and the dark city—
turned away forever
from the factories, the personal strivings,
to a life of the the imagination.

- Mary Oliver

Everyone is creative. It is a natural gift we are all born with that we actually have to be schooled out of. Watch young children at play and see how they naturally use their imagination. Consider their willingness to draw outside the lines and the way they don’t judge what they are doing. They are “just” playing, having fun, trying different possibilities.

Play is a large part of what creativity is all about. Once we start playing with an idea or any creative form we then need to be open to the inspiration that will come through when our everyday mind is quiet or distracted by routine tasks like doing the dishes, driving our car, going for a walk, or taking a shower. At that point the bright idea or solution rises up out of the subconscious almost like something out of a dream and we need to write it down or intentionally remember it or like a dream image we will not be able to recall it later on.

One way to claim your creativity is to begin asking questions like “what would it take to solve this problem” and then don’t try to figure out the answer or solution with your rational mind. Rather let it go and then just notice the thoughts or ideas that pop into your head during the day. This can include the urge to turn on the radio where you hear a song or program that provides you with an ah. ha moment. Or you pull a book from the shelf and open it at random and a bookmark falls out with a quote that gives you another idea. Or we wake up in the middle of the night compelled to start writing. We are all different and creativity speaks to each of us in different ways. Part of being creative is learning what works best for you.

Another benefit from learning to work with your creativity is that we naturally experience a sense of joy and excitement since we are operating in an expanded state that feels really good. Start playing and see what happens.

-William Carlos Williams

When I started to work on this article I had originally intended that the title “Coming to Your Senses” would refer to how important actively using all our senses (sight, smell, hearing, touch and taste) is in engaging our creativity and imagination and accessing inspiration for our lives.

Then I flashed on the fact that the phrase is also an idiom that refers to someone who has been doing something that is clearly a mistake and finally realizes it and begins to act more in alignment with what is right for them. This has me wondering about the origins of the expression and the true value of really occupying our senses. Jean Houston, one of the founders of the human consciousness movement suggests, “that enhanced human capacities begin with what we generally think of as our most concrete reality, our own body.” And opening more fully to experience all our senses can help us inhabit our bodies and the knowing, wisdom and “gut instincts” that it holds for us.

People who are highly creative have a vivid sense memory. Memory of things we delight in can actually help us develop our senses. Remember biting into a ripe, juicy peach with the juices running sticky down your chin. You can do this for all your senses. This exercises your imagination as well.

For many the use of their senses has largely atrophied. Western culture especially values concepts and ideas over direct sensory experience. I was lucky enough to grow up within sight, sound and scent of the sea and throughout my childhood we often went camping so I developed a closeness to the natural world where opening your senses to fully experience the world is a delight.

So spending time in Nature, enjoying a good meal or taking a hot scented bath can really help you more fully embody your senses which in turn gives you access to your creative gifts and more of your full potential.

Here’s a poem that came out of engaging my senses in an experience in the world.

Spiritual Practice

A flock of bluebirds flutter
across a fallow field,

their cheerful chirps
ring the air like a temple bell,

calling me out
of my thought-churned mind,

their azure-blue backs
burnt-orange bellies,

holding me,
in the moment.

- Suzanne Murray

Our imaginations are like muscles. If they haven’t been used they atrophy and we to strengthen them to allow for optimum access. As we start to exercise our imaginations we actually form new neural connections in our brain. To start we need to relax the constant mental chatter that has us focused on the past or future and allow ourselves to be present in the moment. Our imagination gives us access so much more of who we really are and what we know and the more we learn to use the more we are able to open up to expanded ways of being.

Try this. Take three deep breaths all the way down into your belly and with each exhalation let everything go and let the peace of simply being present in the moment enter you. Then imagine being in a favorite place. What do you see. If you are not visual, don’t worry about it. Instead focus on what it feels like to be there. What sounds, scents, tastes are involved. Use all your senses. The body can’t distinguish between a real experience and something that is imagined so this is a great way to give yourself a mini vacation without leaving home.

The thoughts that come to you are more valuable than the ones you seek. – Joubert

Some years ago I read a wonderful book by Matthew Fox, titled, Creativity: Where the Divine and Human Meet. In this book Fox, a former Catholic priest who had been censured by the Church for putting forth a doctrine of original blessing as opposed to original sin, suggests that when we are creative we become co-creators with creation. I had been involved in creativity for a long time by I read his book; first with dance and photography and then a couple of decades spent writing so I knew immediately the truth of what he was saying. I remember the first time I really got on a roll with my writing and I knew that something good was coming out of my pen, I actually stopped and looked around the room to see where it was coming from because I knew it wasn’t exactly coming from me. Since then I’ve come to the sense that it’s Spirit or my Higher Self working through me and I’ve been able to integrate working with these mysterious forces as I write.

In fact, the word Muse has its origins in being intiated into the mysteries. And its important to understand that this connection is available to everyone not just a select few who are somehow born with this special gift. It is also not restricted to the arts. The gift of creativity is woven deep into our being. Everytime we solve a problem we didn’t “think” we could solve we are drawing on this invisible resource. We experience it in cooking, gardening, decorating our homes, raising our children, healing, teaching and business when we get the inspiration to do something in a new and expanded way. When we tap into this ability it feels great, it feels divine. Regardless of where this creative inspiration comes from I’ve found that the more I show up to the practice of writing or anything else, the more I have a feel for working with this creative flow. It’s like a muscle that gets stronger with use.
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Joan King, a neuroscientist who has studied brain activity describes in her book Cellular Wisdom, “While such brainstorming [found in creative flow] is occurring, more and more neurons and neural pathways are being activated in the neural net. Consciousness acts like a spotlight, shining here and there, making connections, illuminating thought and memories, trying out possible solutions. As the process continues, more and more neurons are recruited, activating more of the great intermediate [neural] net.” The key here is to stop thinking with your linear mind and let the creative imagination really run. Our “small” linear mind has to get out of the way to let the “big” mind make its leaps and forge its connections.

Consider all the ways you are already being creative and what it feels like. Is there a sense of excitement and expansion when you exercise your creativity?. What would it takes for you to build more muscle in this area? I think the changes and challenges in the world today are actually calling forth this ability in each of us. They are asking us to embody our creativity in every area of our lives and in our contributions to the world. The beauty is that creation is waiting to help. We just need to show up, let go and step into the flow of being a co-creator. Our willingess is our invitation.

What is imagination but a reflection of our yearning to belong to eternity as well as to time. – Stanley Kunitz

Einstein said, “Imagination is more important than knowledge”. In my writing classes, I say “your imagination is smarter than you are.” Imagination is the way we access our deeper mind; the 95% or so that we don’t use in our ordinary lives. It is the place where you shed your ego, where sparks fly and time stands still. It requires a bit ofsolitude and idleness. It asks that you slow down and sit still with your mind clear and expectant.

Here’s an exercise to play with to help you tap into your imagination. Sit quietly for five minutes following the flow of your breath and calming your mind. Then be open to what your imagination has to say to you. Do a ten minute freewrite as if you were taking dictation from your imagination. Or you could ask what it wants from you and then answer the question yourself in a freewrite where you let your mind run. The more you play with your imagination the easier it is to access it.

As I witness the growing Occupy movement that through peaceful means is focusing on the need to transform systems that really are not working for the good of the whole, I have been thinking about how important it is to combine this effort with the use of the expanded awareness of the imagination to envision what we desire the changes to look like. Imagination after all is a force that can take us places we have never been before.

Barbara Marx Hubbard, the 81 years young founder of the Foundation for Conscious Evolution, thinks the movement, “is planting seeds of the evolution of democracy itself, a democracy that expresses the hopes and aspirations of the people, for the common good.” This grassroots movement is questioning the existing structures that are all top down hierarchies: like corporations, organized religions, and nations states. It’s obvious that these systems are in need to repair and restructuring, the question is do we want to allow the changes to occur by default or do we want to hold a vision for the new earth and create from there.

In her recent newsletter Barbara Marx Hubbard, quoted Buckminster Fuller, the great “design science” evolutionary and futurist as saying that “we have the technology, resources and know-how to make of this world a 100% physical success for all people, without destroying our environment.” We need to come up with better designs for social systems, governing, economics, health care, transportation. How do we create better designs.

This leads me back to the imagination; this incredible ability we all have to be alchemists, to create something from apparently nothing. We start playing around with an idea and let our subconscious mind or imagination run and different possibilities come to us after we have let it go and are out for a walk, in the shower, washing the dishes, driving to the store or staring out the window. From this place we can come up with creative solutions and new structures that are inaccessible to the rational mind. As Einstein said, “Logic will get you from A to B and imagination will take you everywhere.” Use of our imagination fuels innovation.

Each one of us can contribute our unique gifts to this visioning and help to create the world we really would like to live in. To begin we start holding an image of what we want that world to look like. For a bit of inspiration I’ve included the lyrics to the John Lennon song Imagine, which I think carries the Spirit of the changes that the heart of the Occupy movement is asking for.

Imagine there’s no Heaven
It’s easy if you try
No hell below us
Above us only sky
Imagine all the people
Living for today

Imagine there’s no countries
It isn’t hard to do
Nothing to kill or die for
And no religion too
Imagine all the people
Living life in peace

You may say that I’m a dreamer
But I’m not the only one
I hope someday you’ll join us
And the world will be as one

Imagine no possessions
I wonder if you can
No need for greed or hunger
A brotherhood of man
Imagine all the people
Sharing all the world

You may say that I’m a dreamer
But I’m not the only one
I hope someday you’ll join us
And the world will live as one

- John Lennon

I call innovation one of the “i” words, like imagination, inspiration, intuition and illumination, it is a process that rises from an expanded state of awareness. I’ve long thought these five words should replace the three “r”s as the focus of our schools.

Innovation is defined as introducing something new, be it a new idea, method or device. I remember hearing an interview with Steve Jobs where he described inventing the floppy drive; the way he spoke of trying lots of different strategies before it finally worked.

Malcolm Gladwell, author of the Tipping Point, has identified two types of innovators. The rare conceptual innovators like Picasso who burst on the scene in the early 1900s and revolutionized how we think about art. And the much more prevalent experimental innovators like Cezanne, who worked endlessly by trial and error to find the look that captured his vision. Picasso dazzled the European art world as a young man with his sudden passion to show a new way to do things; Cezanne’s masterpieces did not come until he was in his 50s and then they came in a rush when 40 of his most famous works were produced in a few years.

I think it helps to understand how innovation works. Like creativity in general I think it helps to understand that it is a process that often involves trial and error as well as a learning curve. So many think that this is the domain of a select few rather than a possibility for everyone. Now more than ever we need people willing to exercise their natural ability to innovate. And it is not restricted to the arts. The development of microlending to help people in the third world to because self reliant is an innovation

My friend Melissa recently sent me a synopsis that a friend of hers had written after attending a Bank of America forum that featured a conversation with Malcolm Gladwell, author of insightful books about the times we live in including Tipping Point, Brink, and Outreach.

Apparently Gladwell is working on a new book about entrepreneurial success — why so many try to be among the 10% of new ventures that succeed. He described that perseverance and belief are more important than talent or luck. He noted that while most people believe the rock band Fleetwood Mac burst on the seen in the early 70s with two monster-hit albums, he points out that the first of these was actually the 16th the band had recorded. These musicians simply never gave up and kept trying various ideas until they found the sound and rhythms that worked.

As someone who has been a writer and writing teacher as well as a creativity coach for decades, I know that practice and perseverance are equally important in our creative endeavors. It’s an idea that I have to work to get across to students and clients, since especially with creativity people think that the work should come to them by magic and inspiration rather than by showing up to everyday to practice and see what happens. I suggest that they learn to fall in love with the process as I have done so that the act of writing is it’s own reward. Outside recognition in the form of publication or awards offers a momentary thrill, but it is the work itself that provides the deepest source of satisfaction.

Gladwell concluded that entrepreneurial success depends on the perseverance and desire of the contributor and the commitment and patience of sponsors. Unfortunately, Gladwell said, those two commodities are in short supply in today’s market. He expressed concern that the frenetic search for instant rewards is dooming those who seek it – as well as the country — to future failures.

I think the same impatience and misunderstanding about what it takes to succeed keeps people from really being able to tap their full creative potential.