The Muse is waiting just outside the wheel ruts of your everyday life and she’s whispering to you from the sidelines. Is there some way you can “take 5” from your hectic life and have a “huddle” with this cheerleader of creativity?
Absolutely!
Get out of your comfort zone and do something unexpected if you want to really connect with your creative muse and transform your life!
These four practices will help get into the creative frame of mind and then get the most out of it.
Notice The Messages
The first practice is to notice things. You need to start noticing the world around you in greater detail. Decide to start seeing the magic that exists in the little things and you will be receptive to the messages from Great Spirit.
Don’t get hung up on the concept of Great Spirit, it’s a metaphor for that which is larger than ourselves. Call it God or Nature or whatever. The point is, simply decide that messages from the realm of spirit are there– waiting for you to notice them.
When something really goes your way, notice how it flowed effortless for you, and then decide to interpret that as Grace. It could be as simple as noticing that you hit all green lights on a rushed morning to work.
Be both attentive and thankful for that gift.
An excellent practice to cultivate this is a nightly journal activity before bed. List at least one thing you’ve decided to interpret as evidence of Great Spirit’s Grace in your life that day.
The point is, you decide to see such things as blessings, and to experience your life as more fortunate because of it.
It matters not that it’s “just a coincidence”! The fact that fortuitous events are “just coincidence” is relevant only when you subscribe to magickal thinking with the purpose of avoiding or changing reality.
This is not a belief, it is a practice. It has a functional purpose, this form of magical thinking. When it’s done intentionally and proactively it cultivates a better attitude and happier experience of being in this world.
Trust Mysterious Attractions
This practice involve recording the things you notice as compelling. Honor the fascinations you have, they are little sign posts Great Spirit puts in your path to direct your attention.
Make a list of all your guilty pleasures. Don’t be shy!
We often don’t know why we love the things we do, but trust that there is some reason you love something or feel drawn to.
Even though it embarrasses my intellectual self, I love epic B- grade disaster films. Why such vicarious thrill at an asteroid coming to destroy civilization? I dunno, maybe I feel excited by confronting the impermanence of things we consider to be the most reliable, like our planet. Perhaps it thrills me to awaken to the importance of the “now”.
Engage In Inner Work
Journaling and creative collage are essential practices that slow us down and draw our minds inward, into contemplative observation.
Julia Cameron, in “The Artist’s Way”, recommends writing three “morning pages” a day. I know journal writing has been absolutely a foundation for my creative sanity.
I also do the creative collages partly for pleasure but partly because in retrospect I do see things in my collages that I wasn’t aware of while I did them.
Schedule Playful Adventures
Julia Cameron also recommends regular outings and activities that relate to your mysterious fascinations.
Maybe a museum exhibit catches your eye but you don’t know why. You’ve never been that interested in paintings before, but something about the description or the image or the headline of the event, is compelling in some way.
Go for goodness’ sake!
Maybe you see a class at your community center and it seems ridiculous. How can you possibly explain your desire to take a class that’s completely unrelated to anything you’ve ever done or been interested in before?
You can’t explain it, so what?
Connecting with our inner muse, our own creativity, demands that we venture out of our comfort zone and explore the world with a sense of play.
Do keep in mind the definition.
Play = unstructured and unproductive.
That’s pretty powerful and unconventional stuff. But it’s in the experience of play where our inner artist can speak most clearly to us.
Listen. ..then act on it.
