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Make the Unknown Your BFF

Unknownbff copy


How we perceive the unknown determines
how available we make it to ourselves as a resource in the creative process. The unknown - or "fertile void" -
is the place of pure creative potential,
 waiting to be formed and shaped into being. The void is there, always waiting to co-create with us.

By learning how to befriend it, it can become your most trusted, generative, generous, co-creative partner in any endeavor. You can access deep, novel, and surprising levels of your own unique creative brilliance.

To befriend the unknown:

• Change the lens you see for seeing it. See it like a fertile, alive garden to be cultivated.

• Embrace it as your co-creative partner.
• Start consciously engaging it in low-risk ways until you get more comfortable with it.
• Allow yourself to be an explorer on a expedition without pre-conceived
  expectations of what should or will emerge. Trust yourself and the process.
• Give the unknown space, time and attention to get to know it as you would with
  any new relationship you valued.
• Allow yourself learn its "language." It speaks to your whole brain and your body.
 In addition
  to words, it can also speak in images, feelings, energy, sudden insights and connections.
• Be open. Have fun with it. Play with a variety of creativity tools, techniques
  and approaches to engage it without needing it to fit any expecations.


The more of your brain and senses you engage, the easier it becomes to connect with it and experience it as a life-giving creative force. Let it be messy and uncomfortable. Play with it withouht judgement! As with mastering any new skill, navigating the unknown is an ongoing process. It gets easier over time.


The more you work and play with the unknown as your co-creative BFF, the more confident you become in the creative process…and in your own unique creative expression. And the more creatively vibrant and alive you become...and the more you express your creative uniqnueness in the world!

This was taken from the chapter I wrote for the "Sparks of Genius" daily thoughts to go with the Genensis of Genius Book in 2013. More at http://consciousshift.me/day-5-4-making-unknown-bff-michelle-james/

By Michelle James©2013


The Creative Source

NY14
image from www.dreamstime.com

My short reflection on, and homage to, the Creative Source
--the creative, life-giving, mysterious, generative
source within us
that gives birth to
all things creative and emergent--

as we enter a new year...filled with new potential,
dreams, directions, expressions and creations.
...


Inside us there is a spacious fullness, a coherent wildness...
The kind of power that doesn't always display
its full plumagein grand revelry.

Instead, one of swimming silently-boldy
throughout the ether waves

Creating its own energy currents...
Calling, leading, guiding, emerging.
It is the source, within, of full-on aliveness,
generativity, creativity,  

and your pristine uniqueness.

Creative source energy moves and meanders and twists
and turns and spirals into itself through our Selves.   
It is spiraling dynamics embodified.
It is hide and seek, the seeker and the sought,
yearning and satiation all at once.  
It beckons, but does not beg.  
It captivates, yet holds no captives.

It thrives on your realness to reveal its true nature.
It is ever-generous and forgiving.
It mourns and rejoices simultaneously,
as it unites and differentiates...and unites again.
 
The creative source is
bonding, binding, bounding, boundarying,
unbinding, unwinding, unraveling,
restructuring, reorganizing,
deconstructing, disorganizing,
pattern breaking and new pattern making.

It is both the riddler and the riddle...
The one-eyed gypsy dance of converge and diverge,
where what is isn't, and what isn't is.
(The other eye faces inward).
It leads the inside-out, outside-in dance of creation.

The creative source is at once yin and yang,
gentle and strong,
humble and bold,
nurturing and activating,
behind-the-scenes and front-and-center...
throwing streamers, lighting sparklers
to celebrate your uniqueness.

But it will settle for nothing less.  
You must be you.
Stay in your ground and
no one, no thing, no way
can make you less than!

The creative source is mutable, fluid,
stable, hard, soft,
transactional and transformational.
It is honoring, sobering, intoxicating,
lifting, holding, releasing.
It is un-languaging and re-languaging.
First, it asks, break some rules.

The creative source can draw forth
the whirl in a dervish,
the bloom in a passion,
the fruition in a dream,
and the purpose in a soul.

It is serious, but does not take itself seriously.
It comes alive with play and fun and the delightful unexpected.
It gets top billing at the Cosmic Comedy Club:
"Take my life...please."

The creative source is not asking us to be filled,
but rather to feel - and engage - how full we already are.
Here. Now.
It is the inflection point where the past, present,
and future meet and tryst...
and, as if by magic, a new creation is born!

The creative source catalyzes resplendent
deepening, ripening, opening, furthering,
recognizing, rearranging, aha-ing, relationshiping,
connecting, embodying, and aligning.

Birth, death, rebirth-
the spiral unfolds.
Truth bursts forth,
shakes itself off,
and settles in to, ahhh,
its own rightful space.
Higher order has organized
and breathes a sigh of relief.

The creative source is in itself a parallel universe.
It is human and divine,
generous and claiming,
shielding and revealing,
It is large and small,
epic and mundane,
reality and fantasy,
universal and unique,
gathering and fraying,
stillness and cultivation,
mystery and revelation.

It offers us an inner authority,
a knowing, and a beacon
to sustain and inform us
amidst fears and doubts,
hardships and crises...
our own or others.

It is the place within us  
where life is ever-seeking and
ever-generating more life...
filled with infinite creative potential
just waiting to be cultivated.
It contains the meticulous balance
of flow and stucture for all of our creations.
 
Just show up, let it lead.
It will meet you at your dance.
It's game.
It will swing you and dip you,
into your very Self.
It will kick up your heels
yet be there, sturdy and steadfast,
to catch you.
It will meet you in your pain
It will meet you in your joy.
Just show up - fully - from wherever you are.
It wants and needs to partner with us.

The creative source is not the answer,
it contains the question to the Universe,
"Who am I?"
It is a knowing, a wondering,
a paradox, and a circus.
YOU are the main attraction.
Step right up.
The world needs your uniqueness. :-)

The creative source is both speaker and listener--
the hearer and the heard.  
It washes through the crevasses
of dried up hope and habit
until it becomes fertile,
alive, breathing potential.
I am. We are.

It allows the unique Being in me
to be with the unique Being in you.
Namaste.

With deep appreciation of your magnificent creative uniqueness
...and the celebration of what only YOU can create and offer in 2014!

Happy New Year!

Warmly,
Michelle

By Michelle James©2013