The Divine Imagination: Inward Bound

2009-04-01T08:19:00.002-04:00

TAKING LEAVE
By Patresa Rollinger

She called. And like a child runs to its mother, I came.

“I have to go down to the lake.” I blurted as I pushed away from the dinner table. The urgency in my voice told my husband more than he wanted to know: that he would be packing alone for our impending move until I got back.

I grabbed my coat and hat as I ran out the door, across the deck, down the stairs and onto the trail that led downhill, between Manzanita bushes and newly budding oak trees, to the lake that bordered our property.

After twenty-nine years we are moving from our home in the country where we have lived on a ridge overlooking the small heart-shaped lake to the east and a sprawling valley to the west. It’s the best thing for us now that we are older and the children are gone. I hate the fact that we are leaving.

I slow down only when I reach the northwest corner of her shore – the place where I always stop to gaze out over her silvery dark water, to slurp up her beauty like a parched desert traveler. Tonight the wind ruffles her surface and rustles the tops of the bullrushes that grow along her edge. The “scree” of a red-winged blackbird pierces the softening shadow of dusk. Turning to my left I walk along the north shore to the east. When the trail branches I stay close to the shore to avoid the denser trees and bushes where mountain lions are known to lurk.
The east shore offers a rocky beach on which to sit as I watch what remains of the sunset. It’s rather ordinary tonight: no clouds, little color. But still, any sunset feels magical to me.

My heart starts doing strange things in my chest. It feels light and fluttery. Memories abound as my throat tightens and tears stream down my cheeks. What will I do without my lake? Where will I go for the care she gives me? Who will still my fears and worries and listen to my anger without judgment? Who will offer me solace?

I have struggled with these feelings for days as our departure date draws near. A very wise and trusted friend suggested I leave a tangible piece of my self behind at the lake. I was shocked. The idea never occurred to me. It’s not what I think I am supposed to do. Shouldn’t I to take all of me and mine away so the new owners can claim it as theirs without me/mine/us in the way? As if I could.

I always think of taking a piece of her with me, not vice versa. I am the one who is leaving after all. Why would she care? It’s nothing to her that I am here or there. She will go on just as she has with no thought of me. She won’t miss me. Isn’t that the existential crux of the matter: I come, I go, it matters not to her?

In my pocket I carry a heart-shaped piece of gemstone. It is something smooth to fondle when times get rough. It has been caressed much lately. I reach for it now, seeking the familiar weight of it as my living heart weeps. What if I leave this symbol of my heart here, in her care? She, who has unfailingly cared for me all these years, could hold it for me. She is a heart-shaped lake after all.

The heart in my pocket is heavy. It will sink like the proverbial stone. I take it out, letting it rest in the palm of my hand. It is silvery black just like the lake. Taking aim at the deepest part I throw it out to the water where it lands with barely a plunk and slips from view.
Take my heart, sweet lake. I give it to you freely. Take it all. Devour it and lick your chops! Beam all the love it holds and all the love of which it is capable to all who encounter you whether they sit by your shore, swim in your belly or view your heart from the sky. Guard it well. I do not know if I will return.
I love you deeply. I will miss you dearly. The memory of you will live in my heart. It brings me comfort to know that my heart will live in the depths of yours.

Be well, my love.

Creative Success: What Does it Mean? How Do We Attain It?

2009-03-30T17:18:00.001-04:00

I am offering a new TeleSeminar Series on the meaning of creative success. This is a four part series which begins on Thursday, April 2 and continues on the first Thursday of the month through July.
No matter how much the creative spirit calls and feeds us, we set impossible standard when it comes to measuring creative success.

Session One: You Cannot Be Truly Creative Until the Gypsy In You Dances!

Session one of Emily Hanlon's TeleSeminar Series on Creative Success is designed to challenge our definition of creative success. We will explore the pros and cons of outer world success and its seemingly constant companion, the beast named Failure. To this beast, no matter the accolades we receive, no matter the fame and fortune, enough is never enough. To this beast named Failure, there is always another mountain to climb.

After putting Failure in its place, we will explore creative success from the perspective of the fire in the belly and the hunger in the soul. Creativity laughs and cries, it dances and sings. It holds the power of the waves and sweetness of bird song. Join us in the creative dance!

The TeleSeminar comes with an E-Book: Calling Forth Your Gypsy, which will give you a different perspective on your relationship to creative passion even before we the TeleSeminar begins.

The teleSeminar begins at 1 pm, eastern time and runs for 75 minutes.

Explore Session One, The Gypsy Dances

Explore the Series

While Buying a Cup of Coffee...

2009-03-02T20:32:00.002-05:00

She was so pretty, so young. I envied her wake-up skin and uncombed hair that only made her more lovely.

I went to pay.
"Your name is Emily," she said. "Mine is, too."

I smiled in wonder.

She said, "When you opened your wallet to pay, I saw your name."

We laughed.

"Such a popular name now," I said. "When I was a kid, I was always the only Emily."

"I know." She smiled.

We laughed.

How could she know. She was so beautiful and young with her wake-up skin and morning uncombed hair. I missed my beautiful young self. Every morning I stare at my wrinkles and graying hairs that I can no longer count.

We chatted about being Emily. "The most popular girl's name for the last 17 years," she said.

17. She hardly looked more than 17.

I paid for my coffee and left. The yearning for youth and its beauty flowered like a dying rose. And I said, "What have I forgotten?"

The answered flowered like a lotus.

You are Emily.
She is you.
All is one.
You are she.
You are you.
You are old.
You are young.
You are dying.
You are born.

The flower grew beyond my being, embracing me.

And yet, my mind still yearned.

"I hide myself inside myself and then I try to find myself..."

2009-01-24T09:09:00.003-05:00

When I was a little girl, I loved this rhyme that my mother taught us. There were more words, but these are the ones that have remained with me all my life. I loved the idea of hiding myself inside myself. I remember giggling and giggling as the giddy ballerina in me turned round and round in circles singing this to myself...

Lately, the rhyme has been coming back to me with an understanding that became quite visceral the other day. I was walking my dog on a beautiful trail and paused on a bridge overlooking the reservoir. The sky was a brilliant blue. The branches of the bare trees held the stark beauty of winter; it seemed to me that the branches were reaching skyward in prayer. As I gazed out over the immense horizon of blue sky, glistening water and the sepia trees, I became aware that something had changed. Everything was clearer, more brilliant, more defined and the three dimensionality of the view seemed like a digital picture. An unexpected giddiness filled me and I called to Phoebe, "Let's go, girl!" We started to run and it was as though all of nature ran with me. I whizzed by trees as they whizzed by my. The sky was in front of me and the air beneath.

This is me, I thought, not knowing what I meant. I was flowering from within. Finding myself suddenly breathless, I was forced to slow and feared the moment had passed. But as I began to walk, the colors, the sense of depth and beauty within and without remained. Again I thought, This is me...I knew this feeling. I've had it before, but usually for just a few moments and then I am myself again. Gloriously, the timelessness and joy stayed with me for the entire walk and with it a deepening sense of having found myself — the me I had lost so long ago — and my childhood rhyme came back.

I hide myself inside myself and then I try to find myself.

Have I found me? I wondered, feeling the giddiness of my six year old ballerina self twirling inside me. I was the six year old and I was the grown up me, both of us laughing at the trees and feeling as if we could merge with the sky. I love you, me. Stay with me always. Where have you been, you wondrous creature? Oh, thank you, thank you, glorious me, for returning!

The walk ended and I returned to me who goes about life with all her hopes, plans, worries, problems, etc. But the awareness I had that day has remained and changed me in a most profound way. The awareness of freedom, love and connection to joy is me, the deeper, truer me, and is not something that can be taken away. It can't be taken away because it was not given, not by me or anyone else. This awareness is my beingness, and the well of my creativity. It is ephemeral because I am living in a body and weighed down by both my physical and emotional bodies. But what a great challenge that is! To be me. To be alive. To be on this adventure called Life.

Mother’s and Daughters… a Mother’s Passing

2009-01-01T10:13:00.000-05:00

My mother died in early December. She was 91 years old, living in a nursing home and slipping rapidly into dementia. On a late Wednesday afternoon, she was taken to the hospital with an infection that had came on quite suddenly. The doctors felt that without intervention, which she had made clear she did not want, she would die. Still, when I got the call, my first inclination was, I can't go to the hospital. Not tonight. Long Island is too far away and I am exhausted. I was exhausted. It all brought up too much "stuff" around my mother and our very difficult relationship.

I told my sister, I would come in the morning. My sister accepted my decision, but I knew she needed me. I heard it in her voice. I called her back and said I was coming. My husband offered to drive me to the hospital, but I insisted it would be better for him to stay home with the dogs... so we didn't have to worry about them. And I knew this was a time for me, my sister and my mother.

I drove to Long Island... at least no traffic on the bridge and Long Island Expressway at 11 o'clock at night! I no sooner walked into the ER and saw my mother and sister than I was relieved to be there... When I had last spoken to my sister, she told me that Mom seemed to be in pain and was having difficulty breathing; but the doctor had given her oxygen and morphine and she seemed calm. My sister and I stayed with our mother for several hours. By the time we left, she was very peaceful.

I stayed with my sister that night and we returned to hospital the next morning and stayed with her all day. Not long after we arrived, a Catholic chaplain named Michael appeared and asked if he could do anything for us. And we began to talk, and he was amazing... totally ecumenical, with a gentle and profound peace and ability to be with us on our journey. Although all three of us came from different spiritual traditions, we talked for hours about life, death, our experiences of divinity and the human and soul journey of life. We even talked about the Divine Feminine, a subject most important to me of late.

In the midst of this intense being together and sharing around the hospital bed of my dying mother, I realized, he was really working hard... and I mean this in the most powerful and loving way. Although the range of our conversation was far reaching, I saw how he kept on bringing the conversation back to my mother and to us, to her life, our mourning, her passing and our healing. He was shining the light on love and release, and on supporting our emotional and our spiritual journeys.

Suddenly I found myself crawling into bed with my mother and lying beside her and stroking her and telling her how much I loved her and how I know she tried her best, and stroking her and kissing her and calling her "mommy, mommy" and "Evie, Evie." I felt so close and filled with love. I was both a child loving mommy unconditionally and an adult whose heart yearned for freedom to let go the human drama and simply love my mother.

It was around this time, as the circle between my mother, my sister and I deepened, that she began to squeeze the our hands. My sister and I were both holding a hand, and each time we tried to let go, she squeezed us. As if to say, "Stay." And so we did.

After a while, I asked Michael if he could say a prayer. We all joined hands and my sister and I were holding onto my mother and he spoke so movingly. It was as if he knew our lives. And then, not long afterwards, he left. My sister and I spent some peaceful hours with my mother, holding her hands, talking, telling stories and remembering.

My sister returned to be with Mom the next day. I decided to go to a silent meditation retreat that she and I had both signed up for. I knew it was the right thing for me to go and she knew it was the right thing for her to be with our mother. We each honored the other's decision. I am so glad I went. Although I had felt at peace with my mother and free of the negativity that had hounded me for so many long years... the retreat was a gift for which I will be forever grateful. At first it was the peace of silence that nurtured me and the freedom from having to do anything or even speak to anyone. Then, around 7 on Friday night, my sister called to say that Mom had passed. Although my sister had been with her most of the day, as so often happened, my mother needed to pass when no one else was there.

I told one of the leaders of the retreat that my mother had just passed and that she was very old (91) and ill and it was a relief. I said she had gone in peace. She asked me what I needed and I said, if it was appropriate, a prayer with the group. She asked me my mother's name, how many children and grandchildren she had, and then said she would feel what was right. We hugged and I sat down.

I did not know if she was going to say anything, but she did. In such an incredibly loving way. She talked of a woman named Evelyn who had just passed. That she was the mother of one of the retreatants. Evelyn, she said, had three children and seven grandchildren and five great grandchildren. And then she said, "May her memory be a joy to everyone who knew her."

My first thought was, wow, fat chance. But my heart quickly came to the fore. Yes, I thought. There was pain and so much manipulation and misunderstanding. But there was also love. And she did love us as best she could. She loved to laugh and always talked about being happy... Let's just be happy, she would say to me. It was something I wanted also, to be happy with my mother. Yet all too often, that happiness vanished before it had a chance to take hold. Yet, I began to think, yes, there were happy times. So many of them. There were times when we laughed ourselves silly. There were times when we had wonderful conversations. When we shopped and gossiped and had lunch together. When my children we small and I called upon her. Yes, many times...

I thought too, that she was brave. She struggled for her voice at a time when it wasn't so easy for a woman to find a voice. She had a difficult marriage, but in her late fifties, at my urging, she went back to school and fell in love with philosophy and other subjects. She wrote papers that she showed me and she loved, loved, loved her professors. She had a hungry mind and she had worked so hard to make sure she, who had had one semester of college, would see her children graduate from college. After my father died, she pursued her love of travel with a group of widowed women. (My father steadfastly refused to travel.) They went to Elderhostels to travel and learn. She went to Canada and studied about Canadian tribes and tribal culture. She went to Italy. She fulfilled some of her dreams. She managed well without my father... theirs had been a very traditional marriage. He wouldn't allow her to work. He was the head of the family...

These thoughts went through my mind during the retreat and then, on Saturday, one the retreat leaders was talking about compassion and the Loving Kindness mediation that is part of the Buddhist tradition. I have to admit it was hard for me to listen attentively... I was very very tired and slept a lot. But suddenly I heard her ask us to think of a very difficult person in our lives, a person who had injured us, a person who we find it hard to forgive and she said, "If you had lived the life this person lived, if you walked in their shoes, might you not do the very same things they did?" Which is not, she reminded us, to take away from our hurt. It is a reminder that we are all humans trying to so hard to live life given our woundings, our inheritances and our karma.

I, of course, thought of my mother and the years of mother/daughter conflicts. There was so many, so very many that at times I thought she was little more than a festering wound in my life. But here I am, me, and I rather like myself as I get older. I like who I am growing up to be! Some of this is in spite of Mom and some of it is because of Mom.

About a month or so ago, I had gone to see her. She sometimes knew me then and sometimes didn't. I wasn't sure she knew me that day and the woman who cared for had wheeled her out, to walk with me to my car. And I said to my mother, "Do you know who I am?" And I smiled.

She laughed. "Of course, I know you. At least now I do. You're Emmy." And then she grew quite. She looked away. I thought she was gone, but she looked up and said with great sadness. "What was all the anger about? I don't know anymore. It was such a waste." And then she began to cry.

My mother was not a woman who cried readily.

Ditto, Evie.. What was all that anger about? It was such a waste. You tried, Evie, you tried your best given the shoes you walked in. Safe journey, Mommy. Be well. Be in peace.

Holiday Sale Thru December 15th

2008-11-30T11:02:00.003-05:00

Have you visited the Gift Shop of the Divine Imagination?

Now's the time. 20%-50% off books, teleseminars, jewelry, labyrinths, and more.

Check out the sale now!

2008-11-08T11:04:00.004-05:00

Series Begins on Thursday, December 11

For 35,000 years—millennia before Yahweh, Christ, Buddha or Mohammed appeared on the scene—the Goddess was worshipped as the primary divinity. She was everywhere: in the seasons, the tides, the sun and the moon, and the birth and death cycles of all living things. During the time of the Goddess, scripture was Nature and Nature was feminine. As we move into the dark time of the year and the promise of rebirth offered by the Winter Solstice and the holidays of hope and light, the Divine Feminine, our most ancient divinity is calling us to remember and return.

It was sometime between 3500 and 2000 BCE when the warrior tribes with their masculine gods and patriarchal societies descended on the rich lands of the Fertile Crescent where Inanna was the reigning Goddess. These patriarchal tribes first challenged, then attacked and finally crushed the Goddess, her beliefs and the ways of those who worshipped her. At best, women were stripped of their influence at spiritual and cultural levels; at worst, they were enslaved and demonized .(read about etymology of word "hag".)

Today more and more women, and men, are questioning traditional biblical teaching about deity. Although many people assert that God is beyond gender, long centuries of referring to "Him" as masculine and addressing Him as Lord, King, Father, etc have been a strong conditioning factor in our lives, whether we are "religious" or not. Sacred duties and religious rituals have been largely in the hands of men, and a priestly hierarchy.

Because history is written by the victors—the patriarchy—this image of a masculine God and his earthly spokesmen is presented as one prevailing since time immemorial; it is "natural" and enshrined in both Holy Writ and religious tradition. Nothing could be further from the truth!

Without the Divine Feminine as an integral part of our psyches, our hearts and minds, we are a world out of dangerously out of balance. For without the feminine to balance the masculine, the patriarchy has become a twisted task master who sees itself as the center of all life instead of living in partnership with the others, the earth and the cosmos. This world view, as we now know, has created disastrous affects on the earth itself and has led to almost constant warfare. Without the feminine, the masculine has no womb. Without the womb, there is little hope for compassion and creativity to take their place as two of the great triumphs of human history.

Over the next six months, I will be running a series of TeleSeminars on the Divine Feminine. Join me in this first in the series.

How has the loss of a Divine Feminine affected your life?
How would you be different if you had been brought up knowing that the divine has a feminine face whose loving arms protect you?
How might your life have been different if you were taught that the Divine Feminine promises joy, passion as well as compassion.
How might your life have been different if you knew that the constant changing rhythms of life and the flow of one form into another is what gives life its challenge, its fierceness and its beauty. And that this flow is divinely feminine.

"The Goddess in all her manifestations was a symbol of the unity of all life in Nature. Her power was in water and stone, in tomb and cave, in animals and birds, snakes and fish, hill, trees, and flowers. Hence a holistic and mythopoetic perception of the sacredness and mystery of all there is on earth."

~ Marija Gimbutas, archeologist
Read about Marija Gimbutas

Registration: All sessions are recorded. If you can't attend in person, you will receive the download.
Sign up for all six session and receive a 30% discount.
6 sessions: $84. CDs are $10 extra per session.

Each session: $20 with audio download,$30 with a CD

Read about Emily Hanlon www.creativesoulworks.com emily@emilyhanlon.com

Blogging Will Resume in October!

2008-08-08T07:20:00.001-04:00

Hi Everyone,
I have been getting ready for my retreat in Tuscany in September, Women, Creativity and the Journey of the Soul, and it is taking all my time. So no blogging, among other things... However, this blog is rich in articles, stories and information, so explore and enjoy...

More to come in October.

Emily

I Am Not I

2008-07-29T15:25:00.000-04:00

There is a very particular risk inherent in the creative process: when you take the journey inward, you discover that you are not who you think you are, or you are more than who you think you are. But sometimes these images reflected through the inner mirrors are so alien to our ego that they cause us to run. The trick is not to run, but to persevere. The image will shift, the fear will dissolve and the stranger seen through the creative mirror will become familiar and quite wonderful. These unknown parts of us will guide us through unseen doors, into unexpected landscapes.

A poem by Juan Ramon Jimenez speaks wonderfully to this point.

I Am Not I

I am not I.
I am walking beside me
whom I do not see,
whom at times I manage to visit
and at other times manage to forget.
The one who forgives sweet when I hate,
the one who takes a walk when I am indoors,
the one who remains silent when I talk,
and the one who will remain when I die.

How do we discover these who walk beside us and tend to be who we are not? How do we learn to lift the smoke screen?

First of all, I'd like to suggest that these ones do not walk beside us, but these unseen, unexplored voices live inside us.

There are different ways of exploring these inner selves, whom some call the dark or shadow side, hidden self or true self. Whatever the name, these are parts of self that have been secluded, usually in childhood or adolescence, when it seemed somehow dangerous to put them out into the world. We learn very early in life to pass judgments on those parts of self that don't meet with acceptance; in so doing, we doom our self to live through a small part of the totality of self while casting other parts into the shadows, where we keep them hidden and silent.

Carl Jung said that the unconscious is a great friend, guide and advisor to the conscious and that psychic wholeness comes from bringing the unconscious and the conscious into balance. He believed the primary way of doing this is through dreams. I believe that this communication is also part and parcel of the creative journey. The trick is in breaking through the stranglehold that the rational, conscious mind, the "I" we think we are, has on us.

As far as I am concerned, this is the most difficult part of the journey, quieting the inner critic so that we can go unfettered, without judgment and criticism, into the great sea of the unconscious. This breaking through is also the hook -- or perhaps it is more accurate to say that when we finally break through into the creative unconscious, we are hooked. For there we find the hidden selves who hold so much of our deep yearnings and explosive drive. They hold talents, wisdom and knowledge we never dreamed we had. For the fiction writer, our hidden, disowned selves often come through as powerhouse characters -- if we let them! In so many ways, these hidden selves are partners in the dance of creativity.

Being open-hearted makes us vulnerable....

2008-07-07T15:17:00.000-04:00

I am currently giving a TeleWorkshop called Tapping Into the Feminine, Connecting to Source: Wisdom as Nurturer and Warrior. The first session held last week was very powerful and we spontaneously came up with prompts to help us embrace the Divine Feminine. There were about five and the one I chose was:

Being open-hearted makes us vulnerable....

I am posting what I wrote.

Now as I am with that thought, Being open-hearted makes us
vulnerable....my first response is fear. Openheartedness seems utterly terrifying. Open heartedness to everyone? Is that what is demanded.

I think yes. That is what is being asked. And why is it so scary? I see, I think that I have work to do on my warrior. How right that feels. My warrior. It has taken on new meaning.The warrior who knows that my heart is good. The warrior who knows that I am safe. I am safe because there is a part of me that is embraced by the Divine Mother who, like water, can be gentle and kind as well as powerful with the fierceness of flow.

Like Kali, the Creator/Destroyer.

Like the cycles of life/death/ rebirth.

Always giving in... opening to the dying, the letting go.

It is fearelessness and an embracing of joy. The sheer joy of being. The child's laughter and lover of life. The vulnerable heart that holds the hand of the Divine Mother within.

A mother who protects.

A mother who is fierce in her love.

A mother who holds me without judgment of need.

The mother I year for is within me. She is my Warrior!

What does the above prompt open for you? Please post.
Also, if you would like to be on my mailing list to receive notice of future workshops, please email me.

I look forward to reading your thoughts..

namaste

Emily

Prompts on the Journey

2008-06-26T06:06:00.000-04:00

Mythically, where do I come from?
Who are my parents?
My ancestors?
My siblings?
With whom do I belong?

Write A Myth of Your Creativity

2008-06-15T17:28:00.001-04:00

Have you ever written a myth of your creativity?
Recently I did. You might try writing one of your own.
Please feel free to post it to the blog.
And if you would like to become a member of the blog, email me.

Emily's Myth...
In the beginning she came into the world dancing on the fiery spray of a dying star. She came and she forgot. Not right away, because the air of earth was vibrant, there was love in her father's eyes and warmth in her mother's body. The invisible was but a heartbeat away.

She came to dance, but the dance changed. She came to sing, but the song changed. She forgot she was a song of Mystery and love. Except in private times when the world outside slipped; she flew back into the light, and the mind of the child was filled with the song of remembering.

Forgetfulness is a mean depression, a prison where the self is lost, cold and alone under a well-worn cloak promising comfort and warmth.

"You are safe in me." And called her, "Dear One."

2008-06-10T21:09:00.002-04:00

This is a amazing video of women in western art through the ages...
Mesmerizing!

http://www.saatchi-gallery.co.uk/blogon/mtvideobox.php?video_id=78

Are you more than you think you are?

2008-06-01T07:59:00.000-04:00

There is a very particular risk inherent in the creative process: when you take the journey inward, you discover that you are not who you think you are, or you are more than who you think you are. But sometimes these images reflected through the inner mirrors are so alien that they first appear ugly, even demonic and cause us to run. The trick is not to run, but to persevere. The image will shift, the fear will dissolve and the stranger seen through the creative mirror will become familiar and quite wonderful. These unknown parts of us will guide us through unseen doors, into unexpected landscapes.

A poem by Juan Ramon Jimenez speaks wonderfully to this point.

I Am Not I

I am not I.
I am walking beside me
whom I do not see,
whom at times I manage to visit
and at other times manage to forget.
The one who forgives sweet when I hate,
the one who takes a walk when I am indoors,
the one who remains silent when I talk,
and the one who will remain when I die.

How do we discover these who walk beside us and tend to be who we are not? How do we learn to lift the smoke screen?

First of all, I'd like to suggest that these ones do not walk beside us, but these unseen, unexplored voices live inside us.

There are different ways of finding this inner self which some call the dark or shadow side, hidden self or true self. Whatever you call them they are parts of our selves that have been secluded, usually in childhood or adolescence, when it seemed somehow dangerous to put them out into the world. We learn very early in life to pass judgements on those parts of ourselves that don't meet with acceptance and, in so doing, we doom ourselves to live through a very small part of the totality of self while casting other parts of self into the shadows, where we keep them hidden, silenced in the dark.

Carl Jung said that the unconscious is a great friend, guide and advisor to the conscious and that psychic wholeness comes from bringing the unconscious and the conscious into balance. He believed the primary way of doing this is through dreams. I believe that this communication is also part and parcel of the creative journey. The trick is in breaking through the stranglehold that the rational, conscious mind, the "I" we think we are, has on us.

As far as I am concerned, this is the most difficult part of the journey, quieting the inner critic so that we can go unfettered, without judgment and criticism, into the great sea of the unconscious. This breaking through is also the hook -- or perhaps it is more accurate to say that when we finally break through into the creative unconscious, we are hooked. For there we find the hidden selves who hold so much of our deep yearnings and explosive drive. They hold talents, wisdom and knowledge we never dreamed we had. For the fiction writer, our hidden, disowned selves often come through as powerhouse characters -- if we let them! In so many ways, these hidden selves are partners in the dance of creativity.

The Skeleton in Your Closet: Embracing Your Darkside

2008-05-31T12:00:00.000-04:00

I sent my Soul through the Invisible

Some Letter of that After-Life to spell

And by and by my Soul returned to me

And answer’d ‘I myself am Heav’n and Hell.’

—Omar Khayyam, Sufi poet

As the poem by Omar Khayyam suggests, our power as human beings comes from the blending of the light and dark, the gentle and powerful. Power can be used to create or destroy. Destruction can be seen as positive or negative. Darkness can be terrifying or magnificent.

Your deeper self knows that creating is a constant dance between heaven and hell, yin and yang, intuitive and rational, head and gut and heart, and in that dance there is no right and wrong, no like and dislike; there is simply being and dancing the passionate dance. It is this shadow world of the human psyche that becomes the grist for the artist’s mill.

The Task of the Artist Is to Bring the Dark into the Light

If you have doubts, go to an art museum and look at the great works of art. The image of the brutally beaten, crucified Christ has captured artists’ imaginations for two thousand years. There is the severed head of John the Baptist and the agonies of the saints. There is great secular art: Poussin’s Rape of the Sabine Women, Goya’s Disasters of War, and Picasso’s Guernica are but a few that come to mind. Turn to literature: Macbeth is probably one of the bloodiest plays written. If you haven’t seen Roman Polanski’s movie version, rent it and have yourself a walk on the darkside equal to any Stephen King movie. Oedipus gouges out his eyes. Othello murders Desdemona and then commits suicide. Raskolnikov splits open his landlady’s head with an axe. War and Peace—the very title combines the polar opposites that must unite in the dance.

Myths and Fairy Tales Are Mirrors for Life’s Journeys

Turn to fairy tales and myths where the dark, fertile, churning underworld of the unconscious drives the stories and is home to its heroes and heroines; this is the archetypal Wonderland where all is birth, death and rebirth and the impossible is always possible. In the myth of Persephone, for example, Persephone is the young girl whom Clarissa Estes compares to our uninitiated creative self. Persephone must, if her creativity is to go beyond innocence, descend to the Underworld. In the myth, she is picking daisies and the earth literally opens and she is stolen by Hades, King of the Underworld, who is entranced by her beauty. Hades is the darkside rising up to give passion to the innocence of creativity itself.

Demeter, earth mother, Persephone’s mother and a powerful goddess in her own right, goes to Zeus and begs him to get her daughter back. Zeus says yes, but there’s a catch: If Persephone has not eaten anything in the Underworld, she can return to her mother. By mistake, however, Persephone eats three pomegranate seeds. Mistake? Let’s put it this way—would you want to go back to mamma’s house once you’ve tasted the joys of passion and reigned as Queen of the Underworld?

It is important to the understanding of this story not to mistake the mythical underworld for the Christian hell. The Underworld is not a place of retribution, and Hades is not a fallen angel. Rather he is God of the Underworld, the powerful place of death and birth. But Hades needs a queen; he needs the moist power of the creative feminine. So Persephone “mistakenly” eats three pomegranate seeds and must return to Hades for six months out of the year. Although Demeter mourns and the earth falls into the cold, barren days of winter, you can bet there are all kinds of happenings going on in the inner core of the earth where Persephone reigns as queen beside her dark, seductive lover. Need proof? Just look at the wild fertility of Spring, the product of their months together.

Explore Emily's Book, The Art of Fiction Writing

2008-05-17T18:04:00.000-04:00

On walking the path of relationship to self, creativity and the song of the soul....

"Creativity is faithfulness to the art of mirroring your secret individuality..."

John O'Donohue

Your Darkside Is a Powerful Part of Your Creativity

2008-05-06T08:00:00.000-04:00

Darkside has nothing to do with evil or morality. It has nothing to do with ethics or lack thereof. Darkside is a label attached to psychological material that lies in the shadows of consciousness and even deeper, buried in the unconscious. Your darkside material holds some of the most fertile ground for your creative expression.

You can call the darkside by a variety of names, including shadow material or disowned material, which means those parts of self that the Inner Critic, deeming them unsuitable for the face that you show to the world, has shunted off into the shadows. In so doing, the Inner Critic has forced you to “disown” what could be the truest part of you. For your disowned, shadow or dark side holds some of the most vital parts of what makes you you. In this light, then, you might call your darkside or shadow material your True Self.

This True Self holds a lot of your instinctive, primal material; it is the part of you that Clarissa Estes says has been “starched out.” It is the part of you that knows your creativity is the most passionate part of yourself. It is the part of you that knows how to get down and dirty, the part that has no interest in merely surviving but instead wants you to flourish like a rose bush flowering with mad abandon. It is the part of you that isn’t afraid to claim your body and the passions that lie within.

"One does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light but by making the darkness conscious."

~ Carl Jung

Message from the Muse

2008-05-01T03:38:00.000-04:00

—Carl Jung

From Meenu Mehrotra

2008-04-28T09:09:00.001-04:00

Hi Emily,

Your thoughts never fail to inspire me and make me feel very proud of being a writer.

Here's something I wrote for your Creative Soul Works blog and mirrors what this journey that I started 4 years back.

I am being born out

of myself

shedding my bark

revealing the new

fresh, the untainted

part of me

soft murmur of the wind

faint chirpings of the birds

gentle crashing of the waves

the stillness of the round moon

the shrieking darkness of the sea at night

the brilliance of the pale blue morning sky

the lingering presence of the mountains all around me

the blushing of the sky at sunrise...

I appreciate it more now

feel them with my soul

my inner self is blooming

unfolding

tossing & turning

to wake up

and

walk on a new journey...

--
warm regards
meenu

Writing from the Sunday Creativity Circle

2008-04-17T21:10:00.002-04:00

We journeyed to our "source", asked for images and let the images speak. Barbara Livingston's image was a swirling yin/yang. This is what the image wrote:

swirling down

swirling up

the direction does not matter

it is one and the same

breathe deeply

the mist obscuring the path

trust in the journey

the destination is not your purpose

you are not a visitor here

participation is necessary

the stillness is your guide

the questions need not be asked

their answers already written

The Door is Always Open

2008-04-12T10:37:00.000-04:00

By Kathy Tilghman Kluge

I don’t know how to speak about a lifelong pursuit of the creative writing life. I have been on this journey for many years, approximately 30. I have had many questions along this path, but the answer to a question that has always eluded me is this: how do I access more of my creativity? How can I become a better writer? It’s a mysterious question, granted, with probably a different answer for each writer who has ever written.

I want to know where to find my creativity and how to access more of it in order to write well. Where does my creative juice originate? Where can I tap into that flow? Is there a “creativity fountain” similar to the enigmatic (but nonexistent) fountain of youth located in a non-local, place? Once I find it, how can I revisit it and tap into its magic any time I want---forever?

I have searched for the answer to these questions in a myriad of ways including, but not limited to: taking creative writing courses, studying with writers, being a member of writing groups, attending writing retreats, increasing my vocabulary, buying voice activated computer software, buying shelves full of how-to writing books, barricading myself in my room to write, reading what other writers have done to increase their creativity and writing skills, and the list goes on ad infinitum. I have never found the answer to my questions: no book, writing friend, classroom, writing curriculum, course instructor, has ever been able to give a definitive answer to accessing the creative source dilemma.

However, while in a conversation about this question with another writer friend, an image came into my mind as we talked. The image was this: I am inside a room with four walls, a ceiling, a door, and a window. Someone has told me to figure out my own answer to the question while in this creativity room. Ideas emerged within me. I could dig myself out, pull the floor tiles up and crawl out, pick the lock on the door or window, or climb out the window, and escape to the vast sea of creativity below. I’m jammed inside this room with my books, teachers, writing mentors, friends, computer and software, and I ache to get out of the cramped space. I am too confined and I panic with claustrophobia. I work as hard as I can, for as long as I can, studying, reading, typing, organizing manuscripts, writing, rewriting, editing, rewriting, writing and writing more, until I’m worn to a frazzle.

Yes, over a 30 years, it’s frazzling to do everything I do (do, do, do, produce, produce, produce) and continue working in such cramped space. So, I dig in again, and dig and dig and dig, and study, read, write all the while, all the while gasping for air, for relief from the restricted space. I am desperate to open a window, escape the writing room before it becomes my writing tomb.

And yet, I know logically that nothing in the room--- its floor, walls, window and door can truly imprison me; but yet I scream because I know intuitively that creativity is supposed to free you, enliven you, and awaken your senses -- not superimpose artificial limits.

And yet, I mistakenly believe my own creativity has done this to me, but within me there is a spark of realization that I have set my own limit. Not knowingly, of course, but unwittingly, subconsciously, I have imposed limits on myself.

So, to be rid of the demons of self-imprisonment, I throw books on the floor, pound on the walls and scream, "Let me out, let me out, let me out of this room! It’s not working for me any more and all my creativity is leaking out of me." but nobody can hear me.

"Please, let me out," I beg to the Universe. Seemingly to no avail. But slowly my inner and outer storms quiet; it is the calm after the storm.

I look around the room and examine the door and the doorknob. I eye the messiness of the room that makes me want to flee even quicker. I pace the room like a tiger in a cage and accidentally bump against the doorknob, and I hear its faint click -- a click that urges me to turn the knob. I take hold and turn it and, to my dismay, the door yields.

Like that, I have opened the door that I assumed was locked during my entire “sentence” (no pun intended!) in the creative writing room and walked out a free woman---free to create as I want, what I want, how I want and when I want. The door had always been open.

Before I went on my merry writing way, I looked behind me to give my writing room crammed with the acoutrements of my former writing life a farewell glance. Before I leap into the free and open writing world before me, I remind myself that the door was never locked and that it was I who could have opened it myself any time I chose.

But one more thought crosses my mind as I jump free and it isthis: As I leave the room and its door behind me, I see that I never even needed the walls.

The Destroyer Within

2008-04-04T15:42:00.001-04:00

Artists are destroyers of nicely ordered systems.
—Picasso

Ever since I started collecting quotes on writing and creativity, the one by Picasso has remained the most provocative and, for a long time, the most confounding. Until one day it hit me: The nicely ordered system that the artist must destroy is his own. He must destroy the image of self given the stamp of approval by the Inner Critic. He must destroy the image created by dutiful obedience to the lists of Shalts and Shalt Nots. He must own his disowned material. He must walk into the shadows and embrace his darkside.

The Enemy Within

If you are a Trekkie, you might remember the very early “Star Trek” episode (#5) entitled “The Enemy Within.” Although dated—it was aired on October 6, 1966 (Stardate 1672.1)—it is a perfect example of Picasso’s quote and the core work of this book. I quote from the video jacket:

A transporter malfunction causes Kirk to be split into separate beings: one compassionate, the other savage. Spock and McCoy suffer along with their friend as Kirk confronts a side of his nature no man should see. His only hope for survival is to reunite his two selves.

Kirk’s savage or what I would call primal self gets split off. This is the enemy or beast within. This is the side of us the Inner Critic doesn’t want to let out. This side of Kirk is lustful, greedy, murderous; he incarnates all the deadly sins. But without his primal self, the “compassionate” side of Kirk begins to wither on the vine. He loses his ability to make a decision much less be in command of the Enterprise and, because of his indecisiveness, some of his crew are threatened with death. The compassionate side of Kirk, the Captain in Kirk, cannot function without his primal self. And the primal self, while at first roaming the ship and leaving havoc in his wake, also begins to weaken and soon is close to death.

While Kirk would like to let this side of him die, Dr. Spock points out that he cannot. He needs this part of him if he is to survive. It is this part of him, tempered with compassion and intellect, that makes him a leader. In a very touching finale, the two sides of Kirk not only unite but embrace one another, and the compassionate side of Kirk accepts his darkside with love. Only then can the real Captain Kirk step forward and take control of the ship once more. In essence, Kirk has to destroy his image of himself as a “good” man if he is to survive. He has to let his crew see that he, like all humans, has this self seething with all the primal instincts, and more importantly, he has to embrace, to love this primal self.

She Touched Me In Silence by Irene Kessler

2008-04-01T15:36:00.000-04:00

From the August Retreat: Women, Creativity and the Journey of the Soul: Embracing the Gift of the Shadow

She touched me in silence in the early morning dew.
She touched me at midnight in the moonlight glow.
She reached down to my core and found what was needed to make me whole once more.
She took me down the labyrinth path and made me whole once more.

Let the Gypsy in You Dance!

2008-03-29T14:59:00.001-04:00

You cannot be truly creative until the gypsy in you dances.

Clarissa Pinkola Estes

Imagining your creative desires is the first step on the journey to getting them. The pursuit is not an easy one. Creativity doesn’t just happen. Wildly creative people aren’t the beloved children of the Fates. creativity is hard work. It is risky business. Creativity is something we must choose every day of our lives.

Creativity is active and passionate. Creativity is about doing and feeling. The rich fertile ground where creativity is born and nurtured lies in the heart and the gut. Creativity rises from the unknown, the unseen, the forgotten. Creativity laughs and cries, it dances and sings, it creates and destroys.

Labyrinth as a Metaphor for the Journey

2008-03-24T17:03:00.001-04:00

In the ancient myth of Ariadne, her half brother, the Minotaur, half-man, half-beast, is imprisoned at the heart of the labyrinth and fed the brightest and most promising youth of Athens in sacrifice each year. It is Ariadne, muse and guide to truth, who gives Theseus the golden thread that leads into the labyrinth, where he slays the Minotaur and then follows the golden thread back into the light.

Each of us has a Minotaur caged inside us. We, too, feed this beast the best and brightest of our creativity. In the workshop, we will use writing and other creative methods as Ariadne's golden thread!

Using the image of the labyrinth is a bridge into the deeper mystery of self is a powerful creative experience that shifts our relationship to self and allows us to hear our true voice.

"Back into the labyrinth, where we are found or lost forever."
W.B. Yeats