Exercises
1.Have you ever felt that something outside of you (like “The Force”) ever helped you, especially when you were creating? Explain an example or two.
2.Explain an experience or two when you have been in “the Flow State.” How did you get there? Can you think of a personal ritual that will help you get there again?
3.Try some form of meditation, concentration, or visualization. Write a report of the results.
4.Use this method when you are creating something. Center yourself, and then relate to the center of “what is trying to happen though you.” Report on the results.
5.Use the Jungian technique of Active Imagination to dialogue with parts of yourself, such as the Inner Critic, who seem to be blocking your creativity. Estés explains how:
Preferably, sitting up, relaxed . . . [I] imagine . . . what the Critic might look like . . . Now I decide I have to ask him for some information . . . I’m going to ask him why he comes to me like this; what does it mean that he’s dressed like this . . . The first thing that comes to my mind (and this is how active imagination works: the first thing that comes to your mind, even though your ego might try to negate it) . . . [is] ‘You need to be more earthy.’ So I say to him in return, ‘Well, why do I need to be more earthy?’ . . . He says, ‘You’ve had some ideas lately that are really not in the direction where you’re best.’ . . . . . . He’s saying, ‘I really would like you to do what you’re really good at.’ . . . Okay, I have a piece of information now . . . When you do active imagination, you do the same thing. You start out with an idea, a question, an issue, and ask one of the inner characters that lives inside you to come to you and help you or talk to you . . . Ask a question like, ‘Who are you? What is your name? That’s a good place to start. What have you come to tell me?’ If there’s an adversarial relationship, you can say, ‘Why are we enemies? Why are we not cooperating? Is there some history here that I don’t know about?’ And then the first thing that comes to your mind is the response. It’s like a real, true conversation, only with yourself, parts of yourself that are autonomous . . . in and of themselves. Their value systems may be different than yours. Even their way of speaking may be different than yours. The point is, that they are very rich in information, and this is how we make a transformation and an amalgamation of ourselves and our inner complexes. We do that by talking to them. Jung said that active imagination was even a more profound way of knowing the unconscious psyche than dreams because you’re awake when you’re doing it; you’re conscious. . . . The only problem that people talk about, that they have with active imagination sometimes, is that they don’t believe what they’re seeing, thinking, or sensing. They say, ‘I think I’m making it up; I think I’m making the answers up.’ . . . They probably are not. The rules of thumb I have is, If the responses make sense to you and are enriching for you, then let them stand as is, regardless of where they might be coming from . . . Lots of times in active imagination, more than just dialogue occurs . . . It’s not only information; it can be a sensation of rest, peace, and reconciliation.216
6.Have you ever experienced the value of incubation or dreams in creativity? Explain some examples. If you like, do a bit of research on the subject and summarize what you’ve found.
7.Start asking for creative help before you fall asleep, and keep a notebook of your dreams. Write a brief report on anything useful that may have come to you in this way.
8.Have you ever experienced or read about synchronicity? Explain specifically. The idea comes from Jung’s psychology; if you like, do a bit of research on it and summarize what you’ve found.
9.If you’re working on a creative project right now, ask for feedback from someone whose advice you trust. What adjustments will you make? Write a brief report on the results.
10. List some of the puzzling or unclear ideas in Chapter 3. Ask questions about them.
11. Explain what you think is most important in Chapter 3.
12. React to some of the ideas in Chapter 3. Debate, support, analyze, and/or reflect.
13. Give evidence from your own life or background experience about the ideas in Chapter 3. (Don’t repeat what you have written in another exercise.)
142Swami Kriyananda, Crystal Clarity: The Artist as Channel (Nevada City, California: Crystal Clarity, 1987), 59, 74-75.
143Isaacson, Einstein, 14— quoting “science historian Gerald Holton.”
144Stephen Covey, First Things First (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1994), 210 and 215.
145Swami Kriyananda, Art as a Hidden Message: A Guide to Self-Realization (Nevada City, CA: Crystal Clarity, 1997), 98.
146Bruno Nardini, Michelangelo: Biography of a Genius (Florence-Milan: Giunti, 1999), 11-13.
147Cited in Robert W. Weisberg, “Creativity and Knowledge: A Challenge to Theories,” in Handbook of Creativity, ed. Robert J. Sternberg (Cambridge, Massachusetts: University Press, 1999), 230-31.
148Ibid.
149Weisberg, “Creativity and Knowledge: A Challenge to Theories,” 230-31.
150Juvenile drawings, as cited in Weisberg, “Creativity and Knowledge: A Challenge to Theories,” 231.
151Howard Gardner, Creating Minds (New York: Basic Books, 1993), as summarized in Weisberg, 232.
152Weisberg, “Creativity and Knowledge: A Challenge to Theories,” 233.
153Ibid., 236-37.
154Ibid., 238-41.
155Paul McCartney says that his best ideas come to him when he’s not trying. He composed “Yesterday,” in the Guinness Book of World Records as the most recorded song of all time, by rolling out of bed one morning with a tune in his head. The melody was so perfect he went around for days asking people if they hadn’t heard it before. He couldn’t believe it was his. In a 1977 interview with Melvin Bragg, preserved on a recording, McCartney explained his songwriting method as a process of opening up and allowing an outside energy to flow through him. He said, “It’s like it comes in out of the blue. . . . I’ve always felt it’s not me doing it really.” McCartney made the same point in September of 1986, when he was inducted into the Guinness Hall of Fame, a special honor for those whose records are not likely to be surpassed in their lifetimes. I watched the ceremony on TV when I was in Liverpool (an interesting synchronicity).
156Isabel Allende, “Isabel Allende,”