Hello friends,
Tess here.
I'd like to offer you a little combination of a short talk on creativity and creative process and how meditation relates to that,
And then a little meditation to guide you into some creative flow.
As you may know by now,
The meditations I offer you here are the ones I need myself,
So this is for me and for you.
Normally I am very focused creatively on my writing,
However lately,
Because I have some other things going on in my life,
I have been a little distracted.
When talking about creativity and meditation,
I think it's useful to bring up dreams.
Dreams have been an important part of my creative process from the beginning.
And I had a dream recently that I'd like to share with you,
If you'll indulge me.
It was a very annoying dream,
Which often turned out to be the really juicy ones.
In the dream there was a clown running around my house,
And I was very upset because I didn't know what this clown was doing there.
I shouted at the clown,
Hey who are you,
What are you doing here,
And he ran off and I was quite irritated.
So I decided to do a Jungian method of active imagination,
And this is a meditation that is offered here on the podcast.
You can look it up.
It's a style of activating your imagination that Carl Jung found useful and it was actually the wellspring of his amazing book called The Red Book,
Which was an illustrated journal of his inner life.
It's extraordinary.
I decided to do active imagination with this clown,
And I went into my subconscious using this method.
I beckoned the clown to come and show himself,
Which,
No,
He was too material,
He did not wish to be seen,
However,
He left his clown shoes on my doorstep for me.
I looked down at them,
I understood that I was to step into these shoes.
They looked less like clown shoes than a kind of magician's shoes.
As soon as I stepped into them,
I understood why the clown had come to me.
I understood the clown had come to teach me to juggle,
To juggle writing while also attending to family matters,
While also attending to some construction going on in my house,
A literal juggling,
And the clown had come to show me that the secret here is play.
Yes,
Juggling requires focus and balance,
Which we explore a lot here in meditation,
But also a light spirit,
A spirit of play and joy.
That was the invitation of the clown.
So I'd like to extend that invitation to you here.
Whatever is going on in your life,
Whatever you're juggling,
Whether with work or your creative life or your relationships,
To juggle it with a sense of lightness and play and curiosity.
In Hinduism,
There is a term called lila,
And lila is divine play.
It's actually a multi-layered word that has many facets to it,
But one aspect of it is play between the relative and the absolute.
The relative being your 3D physical life,
The things you have to attend to,
Your incarnate self,
Your personality,
Your life here in this physical time-space world.
And the absolute being the eternal,
Your eternal self,
Your soul,
Your timeless self,
Your connection to all of the cosmos.
The play between those two,
The dance,
That's lila.
And I know I,
For one,
Often am caught up in the relative so that I'm barely even noticing the absolute.
So my invitation here to you is to notice that other part of you,
The part that is not connected to your name or your age or your profession,
The part of you that is your soul essence that has been with you all along.
Just wherever you are,
Be comfortable in your seat,
Balanced and relaxed,
And let yourself feel into that core essence.
It might help to take a full breath,
Completely filling your lungs,
And exhale deeply,
A long,
Delighting,
Relaxed exhalation,
Letting go of anything you've been carrying from this day.
Lila is about letting go,
Lightening,
Lightening into the dance.
I invite you to picture a place,
Perhaps in nature,
Real or imagined,
Where you feel completely free,
Where you feel a sense of wonder,
Where you can let the beauty around you in.
Whether a forest or a seashore or a mountaintop,
Whatever it is for you,
Let yourself be fully there,
Unencumbered,
At ease.
And as you look around in this beautiful place,
Notice what arises.
If anything moves,
Follow it,
Be curious.
If an animal appears,
Notice,
Follow.
Let your imagination carry you wherever it wants to go.
You might capture here a little glimpse of your muse.
It might appear in color or sound or shape,
Movement,
Even words.
And without any pressure to produce anything or have a particular outcome,
Just let your imagination play with this landscape in your mind.
Let this be fertile ground for your imagination.
And into the soil of this landscape,
You might plant a seed,
A seed that will sprout and germinate and pop up and grow into something you cannot yet imagine.
So with no expectation,
Push that seed into the soil.
Ower it gingerly,
Water it,
Give it your blessing.
And then as you get ready to return to your relative world,
To the person you are in this day,
Offer this landscape,
This seed,
Your blessing,
And beckon it to grow and to surprise you sometime in the next days or weeks and vow to be alert to it however it appears as an idea or an image or a creative spark.
Dance with it.
Let yourself be surprised.
My friends,
I wish you great creative joy.
I wish you divine play.
I wish you lila.
May you and all beings be safe and free and protected from inner and outer harm.
May you be contented and at ease.
May you be healthy and whole to whatever degree possible.
May you experience ease of well-being.
May all beings be at ease.
May all beings be at peace.
May all beings be free.
Happy creating,
My dears.
