The 12 Secrets of Highly Creative Women. Gail McMeekin

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       Taking Time to Capture Your Ideas

       Creating a Sanctuary

       Inventing Rituals

       If you have a passion for something, it has an energy to it.

      —JUNE LEVINSON, CERAMIST

      It all begins with attraction. Creative inspirations seduce us with the power of a magnet. They lure you, charm you, tempt you, and captivate your attention. Whether it's an idea, a notion, a hunch, a whim, an impulse, a thought, an intuition, a sensation, or a feeling, an inspiration can be any stimulus that pulls you into your creative self. Like passion, creative attractions can be tantalizing. Uniquely yours, inspirations invite you into the world of creative possibility. How do you respond when an inspiration beckons? Do you accept the invitation or discount it? By honoring a personal impulse and following where it leads, creativity is born.

      Cultivating Attractions

      In my correspondence with cantadora, Jungian analyst, and author Dr. Clarissa Pinkola Estés, best known for her blockbuster book, Women Who Run with the Wolves, I asked her to describe her creative awakening. She replied, “I was born awake in this one way. In my opinion, anyone born in a creatively awakened condition deserves both congratulations and condolences.” To the question, “Where do you get your ideas,” she responded, “I do not have ideas. Ideas have me.”

      Imagination is the highest kite we can fly.

      —LAUREN BACALL, ACTRESS

      Inviting your creative inspirations into your consciousness alters the course of your life. Being willing to be creatively awake is a choice and not always an easy one. If we choose to invest in our creative self, challenges lie in wait. If we follow our inspirations, we align ourselves with our life-force and pursue a path that emanates from our very being.

      Inspiration is not just the domain of the ingenious. As innovation consultant Pam Moore says, “We all have the software to be creative; we've just forgotten how to use it.” By keeping our intuitive channels and our senses open to discovery, we can capture our unique inspirations. However, that's easier said than done. In the madness of this frantic workaholic era, it is far too easy to rush by the roses and never see the world around you. Too many women are overwhelmed by the awesome responsibilities of home, work, and relationships, and have lost touch with their creative voice.

      In order to relate to your environment and capture your innocent thoughts or visions, you need to listen, observe, and stay centered. This capacity to linger in the unknown and see what happens is the passage to your creative self.

      Practicing Play

      In addition to receptivity and time, we must also grant ourselves the freedom to play creatively. Painter Michelle Cassou, founder of an original approach to creative painting described in her book, Life, Paint, and Passion, and cofounder of The Painting Experience Studio in San Francisco, urges aspiring creatives to “recover the capacity to invent that you had as a child.” In fact, as a young Frenchwoman, Michelle searched unsuccessfully for the right art school and was even advised to give up painting. Luckily, at the age of nineteen, she discovered the Free Expression School in Paris for children ages five to fourteen and wept with delight. Forsaking traditional art school, Michelle simply painted with the children for three and a half years, basking in their freedom and lack of judgment. As a result, she unlocked her own creative potential. Today, her collection of paintings is breathtaking, and she continues to paint prolifically. When she moved to America, she opened the Painting Experience, workshops where she offers the richness of uncensored expression to all participants. Had Michelle ignored her attraction for painting and had she not surmounted the obstacles in her path, including the academics telling her to quit, she would have forsaken her true work and her inner self.

      We owe most of our great inventions and most of the achievements of genius to idleness—either enforced or voluntary.

      —AGATHA CHRISTIE, MYSTERY WRITER

      For June Levinson, bliss is getting down and dirty with her beloved clay. For years as an art dealer and more recently as owner of the Levinson Kane Gallery on Boston's famed Newbury Street, June succeeded at the business of art. She became a dealer because she wanted to collect art and didn't have enough confidence in her talent as a painter. But ultimately she couldn't hold back the artistic sense within her. After closing her gallery, she began beading, making necklaces and other jewelry, easily selling them to friends despite her determination to keep her art fun and not turn it into a business. She then discovered that she loved making the beads herself, which led her to the wonderland of ceramics.

      June has been both a friend and a fellow explorer of creativity. She has a daring about her as well as a grounded practicality that is refreshing.

      I'm still fascinated by the surprise of images. . . .

      —ANNIE LEIBOVITZ, PHOTOGRAPHER

      These days she is luxuriating in the opportunity to study ceramics at the Radcliffe College Ceramics Studio, meet interesting people, and express the artist within her, instead of promoting the artwork of others. Without all her previous responsibilities, June delights in being a beginner, “I have a lower standard for myself in ceramics than I did as a painter when I compared myself unfavorably to great artists like Robert Motherwell. When I made my first bowl, it was cockeyed and off center, but I was so excited. I brought it home and said to myself, ‘The popcorn won't mind.’ I use it all the time. I'm more forgiving of my results now. How censorious can you be about a bowl? On the other hand, I look at it and say there's all the wonder in the world in a little bowl.” June's utter joy in the process has unlocked a whole new focus for her life. Like her grandchildren, with whom she takes exciting adventures, June's playful jubilation with ceramics has reconnected her with her own childlike wonder.

      Challenge: PERSONAL ATTRACTIONS

      Reserve for yourself at least fifteen minutes of quiet time every day to simply listen to your thoughts. Find yourself an impenetrable hideout (you can if you really want to) and relax into the silence. Allow your inspirations to flow into your awareness. Leave your internal censors at the door and accept whatever shows up. Sometimes ideas that seem silly hold great wisdom. What inspires you? What do you feel excited or passionate about? What kinds of books or magazines do you read? What kinds of people do you most like to talk with? What kinds of interests or projects are you drawn to in your leisure time? If you went back to school, what would you most like to learn about? What do you fantasize about? What are your aspirations?

      What kinds of activities stimulate your creative expression? Do you long to paint, write, build, organize, sing, or play something? Select a method for capturing your images, such as writing, taping, drawing, role-playing. Save any thoughts or feelings you want to, but honor them all. Note everything and anything that comes to mind. What is your intuition urging you to explore or experience? Let this exercise be the beginning of a creative journal, idea book, or collage. You will be surprised at the wisdom in your own internal guidance. This daily date with your creative voice could change your life. Trust your process.

      Creativity is not a driving force. It happens. It creates itself and you have to be open.

      —MAYUMI ODA, ARTIST AND WRITER

      Communing with Your Senses and Nature

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