Finding Your Deep Creativity (in Three Easy Steps)

 Dear Lincoln, I personally liked Sally's (name right?) suggestion to concentrate on going deeper, below the level of regular mind. I think the mind is like a fountain constantly unfolding from "spirit" which is probably energy-based and then bubles or flow out into a more matter-based dimension, constantly incarnating or creating. To change the center to a deeper point in the fountain or "flare" . In a book I am working on, I use the metaphor of a solar flare, instead of the traditional fountain that flows deep and wide - the solar flare just is a modern update of the old idea of a fountain, as solar flares happened to be discovered more recently, by science. With the flare metaphor, the sun is analogous to the Source, God, etc.

  Either metaphor - fountain or flare - causes us to see self in terms of inside-out or unfolding. Creative centering, then would be a mental process of "floating deep" toward the base/origin of the "ever-unfolding" flare. Wouldn't have to elimate the busy thoughts at all. Would just need to focus the mind's eye at a point deeper in the unfolding. The busy thoughts would then seem more transparent - as when we focus on leaves or sticks at the bottom of a puddle or pool, instead of focusing on the surface of the puddle/pool. 

    I have no idea what might work for you. We all get stuck. And we all have different ways to get un-stuck. Here is a little personal story of my shifting from my own creation to a sense of a deeper, more real, Source. Hope you find the story useful. It is an excerpt from Allsville Emerging (in process of being published). 

 excerpt: 

                                                      The Right Light

    A few years ago, on New Years’ Eve , I took a risk with my supervisor, Harry. I gave him a very wordy treatment note. He has repeatedly urged me to simplify my writing, and to avoid over-thinking. However, I felt the need to thoroughly describe the session events and my thoughts about the therapy. I wanted to use this writing process as a means to critically examine my own therapy skills, and as a means to solicit feedback from a respected psychotherapist. I decided to take the risk of submitting the three-page therapy note, thinking that the paper was an honest reflection of where I am psychologically and technically as a psychotherapist. I had decided that I needed to be "me," rather than to posture myself for my supervisor. 

   The risk was amplified by my own transference issues with Harry. I have seen signs of my transferring emotions toward my father onto Harry, who, as someone who is older and is my boss, was perceived somewhat as a "father figure." While childlike reactions on my part are not appropriate to a professional adult-to-adult relationship, this transference does offer me a valuable opportunity to learn how to relate more effectively with my "inner child" - to give it an appropriate voice and to nurture it (rather than indulge it) and to appropriately channel it. Better to admit this personal limitation of transference issues, and to work through it, than to cut off a real part of my self (my "spirited" inner child).     Accordingly, I decide to undertake the growth journey by sharing my best and brightest therapy experiences/ideas with Harry. 

     My spirit was lifted when Harry (despite his criticizing some minor concepts and wordiness) applauded my digging into therapy in such a focused manner. He also challenged me to consider video-taping future sessions if the inmate client consents. I was pleased not only with the receptive and supportive response from my father figure, but with my own assertiveness and ability to face my fears. 

    The impromptu supervision session occurred right before quitting time. I took home an improved self esteem that seemed more authentic than usual. In retrospect, I think that I noticed this realness against a background of phony self esteem that I had developed as a self-perceived misfit from late childhood. I had apparently hidden the "real me" much more than I previously suspected. 

    I recall a song I had written a few years ago. Although the song’s line, "Hidden Identities, unspoken fantasies, buried beneath a cold floor of stone," was in reference to another character, it was largely a projection of my own defense mechanisms. Now, however, I was primed for a breakthrough. I was to break through the "floor of stone." 

    Despite the fact that the temperature was below ten degrees Fahrenheit, I was determined to perform my scheduled run when I got home. My new-found confidence helped strengthen my resolve to bravely face the bitter cold. 

    I enjoyed my five mile run, consisting of fifteen laps around the "circle." My leash-free dog, Honey, ran faithfully alongside me. The repetitious route allowed me more chances to observe certain scenes, in such a way that I noticed things that I initially missed. Toward the end of the run, my attention was drawn to two images. 

    First, I took pride in watching my brilliant star to my right as I passed by. Then I noticed a second compelling image, at first only out of the corner of my eye. I spotted a full moon to my left. Each lap drew my attention closer and closer to the moon. An idea came to me. "Over there is the natural light. The fancy star is just a symbol, an artificial replication of the real thing." I began to realize that this shift in attention from artificial to natural reflected my own shift away from narcissistic attachment to my own thoughts. I was moving gradually toward an awareness of an emerging truth. I was beginning to feel a connection with something much greater than the familiar "me." I sensed its presence to be emanating from the image of the moon. 

    At the end of my run, I paused to meditate on the moon. It was fairly bright at first, enough to hook my interest, but nothing spectacular. Clouds rolled past, blocking the moon and its light from my vision. The clouds were like my recent waves of darkness, only now I could see them pass by fairly quickly, as though from time-lapsed photography. I remained still, patient. If others had seen me, they would have probably wondered "Why is that fool just standing there doing nothing?." Even having such a thought was an indication of being way too concerned about what others thought of me. Despite that fact, at this moment I decided that I just didn’t care. I detached from the effort to appear differently than I really was, and I jumped right into the authentic experience.  

    Soon, the clouds perfectly framed the moon. The light was unbelievably bright - the brightest light I’ve ever experienced. It was of  similar beauty as a scene I observed about two years ago when a patch of afternoon sunlight was spied under some trees. The pure gold glow was like none I had seen before or since. I felt it was a sign of the beauty of my then recently deceased close friend and next door neighbor, Bill. He was visiting me in a different form. 

    The present light was clearer and brighter than the previous golden glow. I was almost knocked over from the intensity of this light. As soon as I saw this "sign," I knew it was what I had been waiting for. Fully satisfied, I instantly walked away, with the image emblazed in my memory. 

    Then my attention flowed to my father-in-law’s little memorial pine tree - a much smaller, yet somehow greater, version of the big pine where I had placed the star. Bud was an unpretentious man whose greatness was largely attributable to the fact that he didn’t have to be great. He was simply a good man who cared for others and who showed a consistently positive attitude. I was blessed to be able to share this sentiment with him in a poem several months before he died. He was deeply touched, and thanked me with a hearty hug. Now, as I gazed at the little pine aglow in miniature white Christmas lights, an inspiration for healing came to me. I sensed the need to have a family memorial service to reflect on the beauty and meaning of "Grandpa’s" life. 

    Honey followed me into the house. I announced, in an excited and serious voice, that everyone needed to come with me to see something. My wife, Becky, and my young sons perked up, put on their coats, and followed me outdoors. I teasingly led them in a meandering path around several trees, only to return to the little pine we had just passed. We then articulated grandpa/Bud/dad’s qualities which we would like to reflect more in our own lives during the New Year. 

    The activity brought us close together in love, and helped us heal from the grief of losing grandpa Bud. I also sensed genuine pride emanating from our little family. The empowerment and healing resulting from this brief ceremony was as unbelievable as the brightness of my preceding vision of the moon. The process of acting through had proven to have strong mood-elevation effects, not only for myself, but for my whole family. 

    What I think happened during this acting through experience was an improved discernment of my spirit. The star had represented my own limited version of spirituality or God. I had invested so much effort and had squeezed so much meaning from that star symbol that I had contaminated its true meaning, and was creating, in effect, a graven image by becoming a little too attached to it, too limited by it, and too ego-involved. I had allowed myself to become trapped by my own thoughts and projections. 

    The moon represented my awareness of the God-as-process, the I Am That I Am, which is infinitely bigger and more powerful than my own thoughts and projections. Once I opened up to the natural light, I realized that I was part of that larger process. I had shifted from part-mind to whole-mind activity. 

    The encouragement by my supervisor may have helped me realize that there was more to me than I previously  thought. This helped lower my ego defenses and it gave me the courage to face a bigger truth. Endorphins released during my run may have also assisted in this new spiritual discernment. The acting through experience of responding to the right light had combined many factors and had "worked" for me on many levels. 

DESCRIPTION OF DEEP CREATIVITY
Deep creativity is a name for the deliberate creation of new forms that, when contemplated (by the creator or by others) open a window to intuition of our silent, formless depth.  It's the steadying of attention, the integration and transcendence of experience (ref: "Form is emptiness; emptiness is form"). 

We distinguish "deep" creativity from "superficial" creativity by both the process and the outcome.

The primary characteristic of deep creativity is unified intention.  "Unified intention" means non-distraction, coherence, cohesiveness of directed attention.  It is the creation of a "space of attention" into which a new creation impulse may emerge. 

The tangible form we create in such a space of "coherent attention" ("dhyana" or absorption of attention) reveals, when we place our attention upon it, two "layers" of existence in addition to the tangible manifestation, itself:  1) a subtle communication of a feeling intuition and 2) silent empty space (without center or boundary) perfectly coincident with manifested fullness, our own essential self-nature.

The evident characteristic of superficial creativity is the lack of cohesiveness or of intuitive depth; it lacks simple integrity and communicates scattered attention.  Most creativity and "art", stemming from mental ideation rather than intuition, falls into this category.

When we create from a deep place, we are engaged in a process of deliberate feeling-attention, with intention poised for new intuition.  Deep creativity is not "random" creativity, but deliberate, coherent creativity, not synthesizing from existing parts from a mental place of "good ideas"; deep creativity manifests "something from nothing" using the creative medium to make something more than the mere sum of parts -- a holon, not a pile.  We create from source; we create as source.  The distinguishing characteristic of such deep creation is a sense of wholeness, of singleness, of unified integrity that gathers and steadies attention in contemplation.

THE STAGES OF DEEP CREATIVITY
We start by directing attention into what we intend, holding attention there in a disposition of expectation with creative intention poised, as a cat stalks a bird.  We are, at once, open, receptive, and poised for activity.  This is "active samyama" -- the contemplation of an object (even the emergence of a subjective object -- a creative impulse) until its essential nature is perceived.

As perception of that essential nature emerges, we experience an "originating intention" -- creative insight that can be enacted deliberately as an act of creation.  Still in subtle form, an originating intention has sufficiently developed (in a kind of intuitive gestation) when creative energy (attentional force) congeals into a coherent intention characterized by sufficient energy -- creative thrust -- to bring it into tangible form. 

We then create that originating intention into form by acting deliberately upon a creative medium -- a creative process that might be termed, "tangification" -- the act of making something tangible (ref:  Y.Y. Meru -- "Mastership" and "Attunement").  To do so requires sufficient mastery of attention, intention, of our own actions, and of the medium in which we are creating to create deliberately.  In a way of viewing it, creativity involves bridging between subjective interiority and objective exteriority, the capacity to view manifestation from both viewpoints, simultaneously.  The simultaneous fidelity of inner and outer and the difference-in-appearance of inner experience from outer expression make all creativity an act of paradox (ref:  Da Free John -- "The Paradox of Instruction").

In the case of this present writing, for example, the act of deep creativity required setting an intention -- to create an essay on deep creativity, the time needed to formulate an expression that fulfills that intention, recognition of what that expression would be, and sufficient mastery of language to implement that intention; in other media, other kinds of mastery pertain, but the same requirements for creative intuition and adequate mastery of the medium of creation apply.  The combination of an originating intention and mastery of the medium make possible a creative act with a high degree of fidelity between originating intention and tangible result.

Once a creation has been brought into (or taken) form ("tangified"), it is available for contemplation.  Contemplation of the tangible creation reveals the degree of its fidelity with the originating intention, allowing for refinement of the tangible expression.  Sufficient fidelity between subtle perception ("originating intention") and its tangible creation, such that the subtle and formless layers may both be intuited, constitutes a successful "deep creation."

Once the tangible expression has been brought to a high degree of fidelity with the originating intention, its place within the milieu of already-manifested-actuality may be seen and understood by means of observation of that milieu, and reflection and consideration of the place of the "new creation" within that milieu; once that reflection has reached maturity, we may offer that "new creation" for integration into that greater milieu.

Then, we may begin the process again in a cycle of awakening, differentiation, integration, and transcendence.

For audio examples of deep creativity, click here.