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Creativity
| Inner
focus |
stomach |
| Outer
focus |
astral consciousness |
| Color |
indigo |
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From the Editors
Report from Northridge, California
Dreams of Creativity
Why the Stomach?
Book Recommendations
Creativity in the News?
Who’s Who in Creativity
Annette’s Poem and Prayer
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From the Editors |
This month we are featuring CREATIVITY, one of the Containing Principles (numbered 10-19). We associate the word creativity with exciting, vital projects like works of art, which we attribute to inspiration "from above" coming to individuals. Spiritually, however, Creativity is associated with the astral realms, the arena of out-of-body experiences, psychic intuitions, and telepathic communication -- a more "horizontal" domain, connecting human beings. How do we resolve these apparently contradictory notions?
Creativity is indeed part of the weaving of the "container," the domain where upper and lower worlds can meet. The challenge of the Containing principles is the tendency of the ego to rule in the human realm. The artist symbolizes that problem: s/he struggles with the ego's control over the making of a piece versus "letting go" and being open to whatever develops. One must learn mastery of skills and knowledge of forms, but then allow the creative forces to flow through. This lesson is, of course, relevant to manifesting all the principles, but is especially pointed here.
If you would like to discuss the ideas or teachings in this newsletter, please post your question or comment at http://www.generositydreams.blogspot.com/. We look forward to hearing your thoughts.
Robin Moore & Tamar Frankiel, Editors
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Report from Northridge, California |
This month's principle is Creativity. Here is a teaching from one of our dream sisters: |
belie
Humans seem to have an innate urge to manifest new things. The ability to remain always curious and questioning, to see things in fresh, new ways, is a marvelous talent that the human species brings to the world.
But the spiritual principle of Creativity is both more subtle and more profound than an act of artistic or intellectual inventiveness. It also involves an awareness of, and respect for, the interconnectedness of all creation, whether or not that awareness operates on a conscious level. Creativity without this awareness and respect lacks wisdom, and may result in more of a burden to the world than a gift. Viewing such a dubious creation, one might say it "turns the stomach," an implicit recognition of the not-so-subtle wisdom of the stomach, the internal focus or "voice" of this principle.
In my life, I experience Creativity through the energy of Saturn. This calls me to find ways around or through the "rules" of form - what usually looks like limitations. I'm sure it's no coincidence that I work in a field (Probate and Transactional Law) that is overflowing with rules! In order to serve my clients, I have to know and understand both what they are trying to accomplish and the rules that will be applied to them. Then I must find a way to work with, around, through, or in the spaces between those limitations in order to fulfill their aims -- for instance, to create an agreement between two or more people to work together to reach their goals.
More and more, I run into people who want to work in new ways in the world to serve its many unmet needs. They tell me they struggle with "the old rules" in order to do so. I see the principle of Creativity vibrantly alive in all of this.
--Nancy Rayman
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Dreams of Creativity |
We
can learn about the principles by examining our dreams.
Here are two dreams of Creativity:
I was best man at Keith Olbermann's wedding. The day before the wedding, we were having a friendly softball game. He got mad at my friend Julie and kicked her out of the game. She was really hurt. I went over to talk to him, taking her side. He said she had hugged the first baseman, and hugging is absolutely not allowed in softball. She had to leave. I didn't know how to address that.
Later I was talking to another friend.
She asked me if I were wearing enough spandex; I said I thought I was. She said, "You don't look properly supported." I understood then that she was speaking in code. She meant spiritual spandex -- and she meant I was vulnerable to some dark energies. She put her hand on my stomach, realized I was wearing a sports bra, nodded, and walked away.
How interesting that this dream about softball raises the same issue as Nancy's essay - how to work with the "rules." This wasn't planned by the editors!
The references to the stomach and to dark energies -- possibly astral realm forces -- hint to the principle of Creativity at work. "Olbermann" may allude to Olber's Paradox, namely, Why is the sky so dark at night (since it contains an uncountable number of brilliant stars)? Creativity is a realm of mystery.
"Best man" and "first baseman" suggest that Creativity is very important to humankind - to be our BEST selves and stand on a firm BASE. The concern expressed in the dream is that we aren't supported enough. We need "spiritual spandex," tightly woven yet stretchy and ex-spandable - and a sports (support) bra, also a firm yet flexible garment..
I'm in a dungeon and I'm given one last fling, to go out and drive a red Corvette. But as soon as I turn the corner I have to drive through rushing water coming down from the side of the castle. It must be above my tires - it's going to ruin my car. At the next corner are more obstacles; I can't see how I'm going to finish driving around the block. A young man is with me - one of my captors - he's the actor who played the imaginary friend in A Beautiful Mind. He seems to offer a way out but I know it's a trap. I decide to stop this dream.
Immediately I have another dream of intrigue in which there are games to play - I remember a card game where the guy is dealing in a very odd way: 3 stacks in front of him, deal one card down, one card up, cut the deck, deal a little more, remove part of the deck. Is he dealing or doing some trick? I still don't have any cards.
Many people ask about dreams where they are trying to escape or find a path through many twists and turns. Such dreams may allude to Creativity because they are asking the dreamer to see a situation from new perspectives, figure out new ways of putting things together. In the dream above, the dreamer experienced frustration because she couldn't get the picture -- "I can't see," "it's a trap," "I don't have the cards." She can't quite imagine the next resolution. Even though the dream was frustrating, still her mind was exploring solutions and possibly downloading information she'll use at a later date.
To find Creativity in your dreams, look for references to the stomach or solar plexus, for symbols of dark-realm mysteries like cloaks, mazes, or magic, for the colors indigo or rose quartz (luminous pink).
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Why
the Stomach? |
The stomach pours enzymes onto our food to digest it thoroughly. It's a cauldron brewing a chemical stew, out of which emerges a restorative potion. This is a metaphor for Creativity - which nourishes humanity when the mixture is right.
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Book and Web Recommendations |
Bang! , by Linda Kaplan Thaler and Robin Koval
This innovative book is full of extraordinary and non-traditional insights about communication. Advertising executives Thaler and Koval share dozens of their secrets to true creativity. Among them: forget everything you think you know; stay in the here and now; always take the road not taken before; and be fearless. This book summarizes concrete, real-world secrets of creative thinking as well as creative risk-taking in the marketplace.
Business as Usual, by Anita Roddick
Dame Anita Roddick is arguably one of the most creative minds on the planet. Starting with a few beauty recipes she gathered from indigenous women, a passion for making a positive contribution to the world, and a desperate need to support her family, she almost single-handedly birthed the "green" movement. This book tells the story of building the Body Shop empire, and it is full of invaluable advice for entrepreneurs. I can't say it better than she: "My vision, my hope is simply this: that leaders will come to see their business as incubators of the human spirit, rather than as factories for the production of more material goods and services." Roddick's vision certainly parallels ours at Generosity Incorporated.
--reviewed by Connie Kaplan
The Man Who Read God's Mind , by Walter Isaacson
This biography of Albert Einstein (Midheaven in Creativity, Sun in Randomness, Moon in Ecstasy) is described as the most comprehensive English-language biography of the great scientist. Einstein did not learn to talk until a late age. His mind was operating at a nonverbal level in which his "daydreams" reflected a language of imaginative thought-forms. He could sit at his desk in the patent office and imagine riding a light-beam with an energetic connection that informed his theory of relativity. This book illustrates that Einstein meets Matthew Fox's definition, quoted in The Invisible Garment, of a creative person as one "who has first seen . . . connections at some almost unreachable level of awareness." --RM
Recommended Web Page: www.consciousmedia.com
This web page features audio interviews with a wide range of authors, scientists, philosophers, and cutting-edge thinkers. It also recommends films, radio, and video that indicate where the principle of Creativity is showing up in the world.
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Creativity in the News |
Ask
yourself regarding the following stories from recent
news items: Is Creativity appearing in its common meaning,
or in its spiritual meaning as a basic principle of
form?
- Headline: After Katrina, a lesson in business, hope
March 29, 2007 - Ann M. Simmons, Los Angeles Times. With the assistance of the Idea Village, a nonprofit that has provided scores of local businesses with technical support, 15 Stanford MBA students have adopted several enterprises, among them a local bookstore. Their mission is to show the businesses ways to grow and sustain in post-Katrina New Orleans, using creative business and advertising strategies suited to the locality and involving the neighborhood.
Headline: Researchers Explore Scrapping Internet
April 13, 2007 - www.msnbc.msn.com. The idea may seem unthinkable, even absurd, but many believe a "clean slate" approach is the only way to truly address security, mobility, and other challenges that have cropped up since UCLA professor Leonard Kleinrock helped supervise the first meaningless exchange of test data between two machines on September 2, 1969.
Eds: The creation of the Internet certainly brought a new form of communication into the world. The Internet is an outward manifestation of the interconnectedness of all Creation, so the Creative process which brought it into being revealed a truth. It seems to have come out of the astral realm which rests on the interconnectedness of human consciousnesses.
How might the process of "rebooting" suggested in the article involve a different process and kind of thinking, especially when the end goal of security is in mind?
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6.
Who's Who in Creativity |
Famous
people through whom Creativity came to life – these
have Sun in Creativity:
- Werner Heisenberg, 1901-1976
One of the founders of quantum mechanics, after whom is named "the uncertainty principle" which states that one cannot ascertain the velocity and location of a particle simultaneously.
- Louis Armstrong, 1905-1971
Charismatic jazz trumpeter and vocalist who, in the 1930s and 1940s, helped transform jazz from a folk art to a major American musical form.
- Alexander Graham Bell, 1847-1922
A professor of elocution and music, Bell was interested in helping the deaf -- both his mother and his sister were deaf. His work on transmitting sounds at a distance led to his developing the telephone in 1876.
- Werner Erhard, 1935-
Founder of EST, the Forum, and related transformational programs designed for self-improvement. Erhard has Sun and Moon in Creativity.
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Annette's Poetry |
Annette Hulefeld, a dreamer from Chicago, has written poems
and prayers for all the thirty principles.
Here is her contribution for this month.
Creativity
If you look into the core of DNA --
into the heart of cellular memory --
you'll see this
amazing
compassionate
imagination --
a
creativity
that is driven
to create new worlds,
new realities, new frequencies
new everything.
This describes my mind --
it is
innocent, mystical, amazingly curious.
Without Fear
I trust Life experiences
At times I wear
an invisibility cape
exploring the unseen realms of astral consciousness.
I seek to eliminate error
in beliefs resonating with the past
before
they manifest into form.
I'm an easy child to entertain,
play is what I see before me,
what is unseen behind me.
Life is a theater of possibility.
Every scrap of paper, chair, towel, toy piece, blanket or dream
is a friend
waiting to be uniquely created
into greatness.
ahulefeld '06
Creativity Prayer
I dream
people of the Earth
drop copper pennies
silver dollars
into a deep, endless-bottom bucket
Soon
shelters are built,
housing the homeless
food is plentiful
filling the bellies of starving children.
I dream
I see the Moon
drop shiny steel scissors, fabric and thread
into a deep, endless-bottom bucket
Soon
bright colored cloth dances in the wind
covering the naked in colors of Earth's gardens.
I dream
I watch a shooting star
drop a pink crystal ball
into a deep, endless-bottom bucket.
It shatters.
A big bang blankets the skies
in shimmering droplets of Love.
Soon
hearts of darkness burst into circles of light
hearts of despair sprout joy
reality dissolves in endless
magical
wisdom.
ahulefeld 07 |
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