Cultivating Creativity in the Pisces New Moon
Starting Seeds and Soil [Wisdom Workshop Newsletter #40]
Hello wonderful people,
Happy almost New Moon in Pisces ! and welcome back to the Wisdom Workshop Newsletter : a selection of quotes, links and invitations to emergent learning.
This is issue #40 on beginning to cultivate our first creative innovation workshop : we are collecting seeds, conditioning soil, and embracing beginner’s mind. 🌱
💎 Quotes I’m Considering
“Beginner’s mind is starting from a pure childlike place of not knowing. Living in the moment with as few fixed beliefs as possible … tuning into what enlivens us in the moment instead of what we think will work. And making our decisions accordingly. ”
― Rick Rubin, The Creative Act : A Way of Being
“The truth is, most of us discover where we’re headed when we arrive.”
―Bill Watterson, creator of Calvin and Hobbes
“Our current notion of self-optimization contrasts starkly with the much older idea of self-cultivation. Prominent in the ancient literature, both Asian and Western, self-cultivation evokes a slower, less dramatic mode of developing our good qualities, an approach that is incremental and sustainable.”
― Anna Katharina Schaffner, The Art of Self-Improvement
“Do I contradict myself?
Very well then I contradict myself,
(I am large, I contain multitudes.)"
― Walt Whitman, in Song of Myself
🔗 5 Books For Embracing Creativity this Spring
📚 The Creative Act : A Way of Being by Rick Rubin (2023). Great open-anywhere and read a few pages. Encourages a slow and inspired approach to ourselves and our creative practices.
📚 Wired To Create : Unraveling the Mysteries of the Creative Mind by Scott Barry Kaufman (2016). A fun exploration of ten habits of mind that creative people have, from imaginative play to solitude and more. Pairs well with Schaffner.
📚 The Art of Self-Improvement : Ten Timeless Truths by Anna Katharina Schaffner (2021). Schaffner is a cultural historian who turns a critical eye towards current profit-driven regimes of self-improvement. I’m loving this book.
📚 Writing Down the Bones: On Freeing the Writer Within by Natalie Goldberg (1986). Classic of Zen and cultivating freewriting practice. Trust your original mind and write what’s most alive. Sensitive, fun and stylistic.
📚 The Artist’s Way: A Spiritual Path to Higher Creativity by Julia Cameron (1992). Perhaps a little woo-woo for some, this is a cult favorite for a reason. Combine daily “morning pages” and weekly “artist dates” can be magic.
🎥 Also recorded this as a Top 5 Creativity Books YouTube Video …
💎 Fun with ChatGPT: Imbolc to Beltane and the Psychology of Creativity.
✍ Invitations to Write, Collect, and Cultivate
Key Ideas for Beginning from The Creative Act : A Way of Being by Rick Rubin (2023) discovered through random bibliomancy.
We're in a "Seed Phase" (143-144):
"In the first phase of the creative process, we care to be completely open, collecting anything we find of interest. We're searching for potential starting points that, with love and care, can grow into something beautiful. At this stage, we are not comparing them to find the best seed. We simply gather them."
✍ What seeds are you collecting this season?
"Collecting seeds typically doesn't involve a tremendous amount of effort. It's more a receiving of a transmission. A noticing.
As if catching fish, we walk to the water, bait the hook, cast the line, and patiently wait. We cannot control the fish, only the presence of our line."
✍ Where and when will you practice noticing your seeds? How will you collect them?
Rubin continues: "Collecting seeds is best approached with active awareness and boundless curiosity."
On "Beginner's Mind." (120-123):
"Beginner's mind is starting from a pure childlike place of not knowing. Living in the moment with as few fixed beliefs as possible. Seeing things for what they are as presented. Tuning in to what enlivens us in the moment instead of what we think will work. And making our decisions accordingly."
✍ What enlivens us in the moment? What decisions might we make to live there?
Key quotes and ideas in the “Introduction : Messy Minds” in Wired To Create : Unraveling the Mysteries of the Creative Mind by Scott Barry Kaufman (2016)
Kaufman writes:
"Creativity is not merely expertise or knowledge but is instead informed by a whole suite of intellectual, emotional, motivational, and ethical characteristics. The common strands that seemed to transcend all creative fields was an openness to one's inner life, a preference for complexity and ambiguity, an unusually high tolerance for disorder and disarray, the ability to extract order from chaos, independence, unconventionality, and a willingness to take risks."
Contradictions and paradoxes live inside many creative processes. Kaufman quotes Frank X Barron, psychologist and creativity researcher:
"The creative genius may be at once naïve and knowledgeable, being at home equally to primitive symbolism and rigorous logic. He is both more primitive and more cultured, more destructive and more constructive, occasionally crazier and yet adamantly saner, than the average person."
✍ How can I embrace my own multitudes, paradoxes, and complexities? How can I make room for a deeper self-understanding and self-expression?
"People who set aside a special time and place in their lives for creative thinking and work ... also tend to score higher on measures of creative potential."
✍ What special times and places might I set aside for creative play? When? Where?
"Those who derive enjoyment from the act of creating and feel in control of their creative process tend to show greater creativity than those who are focused exclusively on the outcome of their work. As with happiness, it seems that the more you strive for creativity, the less likely you are to achieve it. Creativity can't be bottled and sold, or tapped into at will -- it works in seemingly mysterious and paradoxical ways, and rarely at our own convenience. But learning to embrace and enjoy the creative process itself--with all its peaks and valleys--can yield immense rewards."
✍ How might I focus on process more than outcomes? How can I embrace and even enjoy the peaks and valleys?
Positive psychologists (like Csikszentmihalyi and Seligman) focus on "nurturing what is best in ourselves." They've shown how creativity can contribute to our happiness and well-being, and perhaps, how creativity might illuminate our particular paths to growth, actualization, and transcendence.
✍ How can my creative practices nurture what's best in me? How can what is best in me nurture my creative practices?
Key quotes and ideas in the “Introduction” in The Art of Self-Improvement : Ten Timeless Truths by Anna Katharina Schaffner (2021)
Schaffner writes that "the desire to improve ourselves, to learn and develop, is an ancient impulse, manifest in our enduring quest for self-knowledge, and for guidance on how to live well." And yet, this deep desire to make the most of ourselves is today often exploited by a profit-driven self-help industry that "promises instant transformation with no effort."
Schaffner urges us to examine the metaphors of improving ourselves. We may not be a kind of "HR problem" of temporal accounting needing to be “managed.”
We may not be a machine that needs “optimizing.”
"As complex and constantly evolving organisms that interact dynamically with our environment we actually share very little with machines. We are embodied, embedded, and encultured."
So we need to mind our metaphors. "Other much used metaphors in modern self-help include the idea of life as a journey, a work of art, a battle, a jungle, a game, and a competition.... the choice of metaphors reveals how we see ourselves and our purpose.
✍ What metaphors do I use for thinking of the self? What does the self as a work of art afford us? What are the advantages (or disadvantages) of this metaphor?
Schaffner continues:
“Contrasting with more contemporary notions of self-optimization, ancient thinkers preferred to write about "self-cultivation," which "evokes a slower, less dramatic mode of developing our good qualities, an approach that is incremental and sustainable. It encourages us to nurture our virtues patiently and calmly, as we would nurture seedlings in a garden. The ancient self is often represented in botanical terms, as something that needs to be carefully nourished so that it may grow and blossom. We might be urged to prune and gently guide it. We must find the right climate and soil for ourselves to flourish."
✍ What virtues do we want to nurture ? What can we do to nourish our natural growth and blossoming? What can we do for the soil?
🍎 Now Enrolling
New Moon in Pisces is a great time to start something new!
Want to kick-start some good-life practices?
Just reply to this email to let me know you might want to join our Cohort 13 of our not-self-authorship workshop on Writing the Good Life.
Starts Wednesday, February 22nd at 7pm MST. We’ll meet weekly for seven weeks. Stoked on the timing of this one!
~~~~~
✌ Thanks for Reading
Hope to get to see you soon,
Sean
🎵 This week If you’re in Fort Collins, Colorado -
Saturday, February 25 at the Forge Publick House | 21+ | 8-10pm
🎉 We got new masters from our mastering engineer this week!
Out this spring and summer! Follow us on Spotify
😊 Thank you for your referrals and shares and replies…. I appreciate each of you!