Category: Creativity

Your Medicine & Magic

Writing is my medicine, my magic. 

It is the tool through which my challenges and muddled thoughts alchemise into alignment, clarity, and wisdom.

Speaking the words doesn’t have the same effect for me – with the right person, it can be helpful to a degree, but the clarity fully crystallises only when my words are expressed in written form. 

It works best when I share it. My most potent words refuse be hidden in my journal. I no longer question the urge to share – I just know it’s a given, a force that effortlessly moves through me. To not share would be a challenge – it would require effort to halt the impulse. I used to do battle with my ego, who would tell me I’m an attention seeker, a show off, an exhibitionist. But the urge always won out anyway, and the replies from those who read suggest that my sharing is of value, is meant to be. 

My take on this: God is using me. The urge comes from Source. The felt impulse is God’s way of communicating with me, encouraging me to do that which is in alignment with Source energy. The love that the Universe is comprised of, wants to expand. And the more I align with the Source within me, the more the words flow. 

I’m learning to own it. 

That God uses me as a vehicle for the expansion of the universe makes me no more or less special than anyone else.  

We are all of God, and so the intelligence of the universe flows through us all. We all have our own unique medicine and magic. 

This Source of which we are all a part, is in constant communication with us, encouraging each and every one of us to embody our gifts. Even if you don’t believe you have anything special to offer, you do. There is medicine and magic within you, and it is unique to who you are. 

That thing you love to do. That thing that makes you smile. That thing that lights you up. That thing that you get lost in for hours. That thing that feels like home. That thing you find yourself absentmindedly gravitating towards. That thing that comes so easily to you. That thing that takes effort and practice and persistence, but that you joyfully persist with. Perhaps even that thing that you kinda suck at, but you love so much that you revel in sucking at it.

Even if you believe that none of this is part of you’re experience … there is something. You’ve simply lost your way, forgotten.  You’ve fallen out of alignment with your soul. It’s possible (and probable) that your “thing” is right in front of your nose, but you’ve fallen out of alignment to the degree that you’ve become blinded. You can’t hear the whisperings of your soul over the raging of your ego.

When you learn to find alignment with your soul, you can’t help but hear the messages that Source has been whispering to you all along.  With alignment, you recognise what it is that lights you up, feels so good, and contributes to the healing of the world. 

You were meant to thrive. When you feel good, that’s God’s message that you’re on track, because you’re in alignment with with Source instead of resisting God’s will. 

You possess medicine and magic within you. Own it, and thrive. And in doing so, you allow God to work through you. 

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Emerging from Inspiration Hibernation

Inspiration. She is a capricious phenomenon.

The way Elizabeth Gilbert describes it in “Big Magic”, is that we are merely hosts for ideas to come to. Inspiration is a sign that an idea has found us, and wants us to work as the vessel through which they can be brought to life. If we choose not to take action on an idea, it will depart in search of a more suitable host. Or, if we deliberate for too long, the idea will get impatient, and again, depart in search of a more motivated host, and we discover that the inspiration is no longer within us.

I’ve been finding myself increasingly subject to this phenomenon lately. Just days ago, I awoke after a night filled with wonderful dreams and ideas, spent the early morning meditating, and felt a marvellous sense of inspiration to birth my words into the world and express the delicious joy that was brewing within me. Then … daily life interrupted my little bubble of bliss. I was busy, distracted, occupied. There was nothing terrible about this – it’s just how the day panned out. When I eventually got back to contemplating the idea of publishing on the blog … crickets.

So. Frustrating. Not to mention, disappointing.

Where my heart had been full to the brim with enthusiasm, bravado and inspiration that morning, it was as though all those ideas had quite literally packed their bags and departed in search of someone who was ready to action them sooner.

I go through many moments when I’m lit up, engaged and moved to share. One of my soul essences is a lion, and he has a loud and powerful roar, a message that he intends to be heard. I know that there are things within me that must be expressed, and I know that it is my destiny to do so. I often feel these idea bubbling beneath the surface, waiting for me to find the time and energy to release them out into the receiving ether. Sometimes, when the bubbling builds to boiling point, I find a way to get the job done – the inspired idea explodes forth in the form of a lengthy blog post that has consumed me as I write it, and I experience such gratification and relief in birthing it out of my head into cyberspace. But, more often than not, I allow fears and circumstances to get in the way, muffle my roar, and convince me that I don’t have the time to devote to such a frivolous endeavour. As such, so many of my ideas and musings have departed: the bubble dies down until I’m left with stone cold nothingness. It’s an interesting situation, because it’s so easy to sit idle and accept that now isn’t my time, that I’ve got other responsibilities to attend to (read: distract me), and yet I feel this constantly recurring urge, as inspiration returns with new ideas, forgiving my past inactivity and bringing me new opportunities to bring them to life.

It’s not working well for me. I don’t want to suppress this inconvenient energy. Because although many of my ideas may depart, in my experience, I suspect that at least some of the really inspiring ones haven’t really departed – they’ve gone into hibernation below the surface of my consciousness. I suspect this because, when I suppress and muffle my inspired ideas, I feel jammed up and confused. When I fail to express these ideas, they get stuck, muddled around, and lose their meaning and potency, and I wind up feeling lost. I know they’re inspiring, but I can’t quite remember what they are or why they inspire me any more. The message, if delayed, doesn’t always depart me in search of a speedier vessel through which to be expressed, but instead gives me the benefit of the doubt, and takes a nap while I dilly dally, taking up valuable headspace. Don’t get me wrong, I’m grateful that they’re hanging around instead of abandoning me, but when I continue in this fashion for too long, the pile of snoozing ideas start overcrowding the available neural space in my head, and I can’t work out what’s what any more. I know that the correct order of things is to allow the ideas to come to me, flow freely through me, and out into cyber space.

I know this is important, for two reasons:
1. If I continue getting jammed up with sleeping ideas, I’ll loose my marbles.
2. When there’s no more real estate left in my mind, the ideas won’t even bother trying me out, they’ll pass right on by.

So, inspired by a recent interview with Seth Godin, I’ve decided that the time is now. There’s no need to write my magnum opus each time I publish. I just need to allow this space to be my vehicle for expressing my inspired ideas. I have a feeling that as I do so, those sleeping ideas will awaken, and I will again have the opportunity to bring them to life. Then, the path for fresh new ideas will be cleared.

This lion will roar.

Image credit: by Eric Kilby, used under license.

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The Spider

The spider has a job that she must do to ensure her survival – she must spin webs.

When the time comes for this job to be undertaken, she simply does it. She doesn’t contemplate it, plan it, worry about it, think about whether there are other tasks that she’d rather be doing, wonder if it might be better to put it off until tomorrow, or worry about how the finished product will turn out. When the moment arrives to spin a web, she mindfully sets about spinning a web, without being distracted, without wondering whether it will live up to her expectations or the expectations of others. She doesn’t contemplate whether that which comes naturally to her will be deemed the right thing to have done by others. She just does it. She spins her web with focus and intent to create that which comes naturally to her. She works with persistence, and if something should unexpectedly interrupt her, it is dealt with, after which she dutifully returns to the task at hand.

When her work is finished, the spider doesn’t stand back and critique her work. She doesn’t fret over whether others will judge her work favourably. She immediately moves on to whatever it is that her instincts direct her to next. If her work is destroyed by unforeseen circumstances, she doesn’t spend an instant grieving over the loss of her creation that she poured so much time and effort into. She moves on and does what needs to be done. She creates another web.

There is something to be learnt from the spider and her web spinning. We humans are naturally creative beings, and there is so much potential within us, waiting for us to let go and give birth to the creations that we were made to transform from potential into existence. We spend so much time and energy thinking, wondering, contemplating, worrying, analysing, assuming, and judging. All this mind work imprisons our potential, stifles it. It holds us back from birthing our creative projects. When we do manage to wade our way though the quagmire of mental mess, our creations fail to be born into the full expression of their potential. There is pure magic and magnificence lying dormant within a creative idea. A creative idea holds the possibility of beauty, joy, wonder, brilliance. The practice of mindfulness releases us from this prison of stifled creativity. When we disidentify from the ego, and model the spider’s approach to spinning her web, a world of glorious, fully expressed creativity falls effortlessly into our laps.

The mind isn’t all bad. Luckily for us humans, we also have the pleasure of enjoying and fully appreciating the beauty that has been created in the world.  What a true blessing.

Image credit: spider web by x76882, under license.

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