If This Archetype Chooses You – You are hurting. If you can no longer feel pain, you are numb. Every religion and philosophical system must account for the misery we see around us – storms, flood, volcanos, disease, human frustration and animal predation.
Creatives Get Used to Loss – Do your dream explore inner and outer pain? How much is fear, how much is anxiety, how much is collective unconscious and shared human history? We fear there is no possible paradise where everyone can be happy all at once. How do we educate ourselves to surf this intolerable dilemma?
Pain is Joy’s Shadow – Joy is an excess of feeling and so is suffering. When we long to “numb out”, we numb everything. If we live our lives in fear, we avoid the potential excitement of holding our breath on the edge of discovery.
Creatives Dare to Feel it All. Bravely we take on the feelings of the entire planet to show that we can’t be destroyed by them. Creatives explore and expand the edges of perception and assessment. Philosophical coping mechanisms can be Buddhist – “It’s all illusion”;“ Practice taming the wild mind”; or religious – “Suffering brings us closer to God in developing compassion for all creation” and “Birth pangs are necessary to bring new life.” Any way we can keep our mind and soul responsive and deepening benefits the whole planet.
Don’t Surrender to Learned Helplessness – Too much suffering breeds inertia. We stop even trying to better our human situation while attracting predators to such easy prey. Even worse, we become predators ourselves, bragging to the godless that we are the new potentates. Cruelty breeds endless cruelty. There must be a way to step off this treadmill – there’s enough suffering going around without manufacturing more.
Creative Daring Frees the Universe – Imagination itself comes from discomfort, even misery. We see a need to expand our mental repertoire, to magically increase the very dimensions of thought that seem to imprison us. As a species we have broken through this many times. Further epiphanies await.
Models & Mentors – “You will heal and you will rebuild yourself around the loss you have suffered” – Elisabeth Kubler-Ross
“How lucky I am to have something that makes saying goodbye so hard” – A.A. Milne
“Only people who are capable of loving strongly can suffer such deep sorrow, but this same necessity of loving serves to counteract their grief and heal them” – Leo Tolstoy
“What we once loved we can never lose for it becomes a part of us” – Helen Keller
“Death is not the greatest loss in life, the greatest loss is what dies inside us while we live” – Norman Cousins
#Haiku: Profit/Loss Analysis
Does autumn lose summer Warmth or Gain snow-blanket? Peonies decide.
If This Archetype Chooses You – You are about to undergo a major transition. Are you a SciFi fan? Do you dream of bionic humans? Robots? Cryogenics? How about caterpillars becoming moths and butterflies? Acorns don’t look like oak trees, pollywogs don’t resemble frogs. It is quite common in nature to evolve into some unexpected form. What a metaphor for us, as Ovid’s Metamorphoses postulated centuries ago. We speculate about humans becoming invisible, disguising themselves as bats or wolves; Greek gods “became” swans and bulls to further their purposes. Our imagination is rich with all these possibilities, as is our literature, theatre and film. At a funeral, we look at a bird invading the church is a whole new light. Is it a message? An incarnation?
Your Possibilities are Infinite – Every time you buy a bottle with an animal on the label you are calling on the powers of that creature just as your ancestors did. We suspect consuming even the “idea” of a creature might confer their powers. We also heard the legend that when a human husk breathes its last, the soul escapes and may reincarnate in heaven or even in another life as something entirely different, perhaps without blemish, wholly beautiful for once and for all.
Creative Power – Who’s your power animal? What supernatural gifts do you desire? Give yourself the freedom to think about the talents you yearn for and the purposes you’d put them to. You can define yourself this way, experiment and play. You might not wish to be a dragon every day of the week, but once in a while it could be fun. How can you cultivate these gifts, desires and yearnings in your present-day life? Don’t these dreams make you a bigger, more important creative, even if nobody knows? What if they did know? How might you tell them and who would you tell?
Creative Danger – We don’t want to jump off buildings pretending we can fly. We’re expanding our psychic repertoire, not trying to escape into fantasy. The most commonly yearned for gift is omnipotence. But think how terrible life would be – not just for others but for YOU if your whims and fantasies were never checked? Often our wish is that we be spared the pain of growing up. But who wants to remain a toddler forever? As we get older we are REALLY coming into our own and knowing and sharing our true self. A joy not to be missed. Pity the toddler who prays to fly through the air so he doesn’t have to learn to walk and risk falling down.
Models & Mentors – “Nothing gets transformed in your life until your mind is transformed” – Ifeanyl Enoch Onuoha
“Every success story is a tale or adaptation, constant revision, and change” – Richard Branson
“Perfection is constant transformation” – Nia Peeples
“The secret of change is to focus all of your energy not fighting the old but building the new” – Socrates
#Haiku: Being Is Relationship
Electric seeks Charge; Transformer – You’re my lock on Immortality
If This Archetype Chooses You – Suffering isn’t eternal. Your ultimate ecstasy is guaranteed. But what is your definition of paradise? Some people want to see their enemies suffer. That’s what the view looks like – in hell. But if you wanted to find your own bliss, where would you look? Dreaming of a tropical getaway? Is your definition of heaven raised consciousness or lack of consciousness? Would you want to know what is happening in the world or would you want to be removed from the world? Can you really be happy if you know there is suffering anywhere?
If There Is a Hell, Multiverse Declares Its Opposite Must Exist - As we mature, we can choose to either elevate or denigrate our consciousness. We are creating “heaven”, or “hell” – our choice. Which direction are you tending? Which direction do you want to go?
Are Creatives Heaven Material? When we are young, we obsess about whether we are really liked or loved, whether we are really “popular.” As we get older we slowly realize that people like/love to the extent of their own spiritual and emotional ability/depth. Shallow people offer very shallow love – nothing can take root there. It can flip in an instant. They “forget” because there’s nothing there. If the whole purpose of life on this planet – a struggle by any standard - is for humans to become more closer to God then we are being challenged to create the kind of emotional and psychic depth that sees ”inside’ - understands and accepts everyone’s struggle, everyone’s challenge.
Creative Challenge – Bliss is a scientifically provable psychic state of timeless ecstasy mapped by “alpha waves” which can be seen in the brain. This state is called “flow”. We drift outside ourselves and belong to the universe. It is the condition called “mastery.” This is such a happy state we long to cultivate and re-experience it, which we can do from immersing ourselves in art, meditation, love, sexual/emotional union, or deep thought.
Creative Soul – Non-Creatives bounce between a fussing self-obsession and living entirely in and through other people. The poor things. Neither condition is optimal, although there are times in our lives when these states are necessary or unavoidable. Why should we ever leave our paradise and re-enter their wretched world? Because transforming suffering into knowledge is the creatives’ superpower. Balance – sometimes called moderation – becomes the creatives’ operative methodology. Creatives learn to be IN the group, but we are not of “the group”. We do not subjugate our brain to the “group mind” but contribute our educated, enlightened brain-power to it. Creatives elevate the group with the our Soul power even when others try to drag it down through thoughtless replication of idiotic non-ideas.
Self-Lessness is A Terrible Fate - Some people choose to never develop an individuated self. They pass from group to group, trying to “fit in” and quell their inner voice that warns. “this isn’t right.” Creatives call attention to violations of our basic human mandate: developing a soul that is worthy of God.
Creatives are Individuals Who Become More and More Unique - You are on a hero’s quest: you are the hero and the quest is for your Soul. This is both an inner and an outer quest. We have responsibilities from birth onwards; when we come to consciousness we can clearly see we are our brother’s/sister’s keeper. We are our own keeper, too. Mistakes – sometimes devastating ones – are expected. It’s a dangerous world and we will meet more than one predator looking to make a meal of us.
Creatives Know Where They are Going – Elevate, denigrate or disintegrate. Your choice: every minute of every day. consciousness. “Heaven”, or “hell” – your choice. Which direction are you tending? Which direction do you want to go?
Creatives Know Bliss – Bliss is the haze that comes after successful efforts. Bliss is the creatives’ prize. It comes not only from doing well, but from intending to do well and shaping your soul and purpose and ideation toward Wellness.
Creatives Choose Heaven We must be wily as the snake and tender as the dove. Because in the end, it’s all about Love. The more you give, the more you feel. The more you give, the larger your capacity for ecstasy.
Models & Mentors – “Follow your bliss and walls turn into doors” – Joseph Campbell
“In a state of bliss – everything is love” – Deepak Chopra
“Joy is a connection to what matters – a sustained sense of well-being and inner peace” – Oprah Winfrey
“I need not sell my soul to buy bliss” – Charlotte Bronte
#Haiku: Bliss
You and I Merge; Evanesce; Solids Deliquesce: Fire, Air Acquiesce.
If This Archetype Chooses You – Contemplating Escape? Everyone has flying dreams! In those moments, we experience absolute power and potential, which is exactly what these dreams are about. We often wake from them with a feeling of disappointed sadness: “You mean I’m earth-bound? I want to go back!’
Creatives are Transformers – Your mind is a potent tool that not only solves “problems”, it transfigures them with transcendental thinking. Difficulties dissolve as the potential for revolution becomes clear. The Creative Oracle Flight Archetype asks us to “rise above” the problem and survey it from another angle. We soar over the difficulty! Our most transformative tool is the question: “What if?”
Ingenuity sees Connections where Others see Limits. Ingenuity relaxes by “tinkering.” Let’s become expert at cultivating the alpha brain waves to achieve “flow” – a condition of subconscious harmony where ideas spring up and potentialities thrive. “Flow” is true freedom.
Can You “Waste” Your Life Daydreaming? I’m one of those people who says “No”! But the mind is full of traps – cultural, educational and emotional – to keep us on a sabotaging treadmill of circular reasoning that gets us nowhere. Usually you can tell this is happening when you hear an intrusive “voice”: “You shouldn’t be doing this” “You’re an idiot” “That won’t work.” That’s not you talking, it’s the “Hidden Enemy” out to undermine your efforts to focus and connect. Without the confidence to dream, think and experiment you can’t become your best self.
Creative Opportunity – We need a supportive environment where voices saying, “You can’t do it” are drowned out by empowering affirmations. Some people use music to achieve this state, others use meditation. If the voices persist, you will have to focus on THAT as the problem and tackle them directly with a conscious daily practice of studying where they came from. Who are they? What happened to those people? Why did they attack you? Now that you are no longer a child you can usually see them for the tiny, disappointed, bitter little minds they were. These are not forces to emulate. Deliberately let them go. “I am sorry for you, but you have no power over me”.
When You Can’t Go Backwards or Forwards the Only Solution is Up – Creatives are accustomed to thinking outside the box because they long ago realized they would never fit the box society had chosen for them.
Creatives Invent – Creatives figure out brand new ways to do things based on innovative reasoning and creative solutions.
Creatives Adapt – Creatives have been strategizing in their Training Journals and mapmaking on their Vision Boards for so long soon they can do it in their heads, on the fly. We know Plan A will probably not happen, possibly not even B, C, or D but a combination of all these or something new entirely that comes to you suddenly, in the heat of the moment.
Creatives Amaze – Surprise is the entire art of War, says Sun Tzu. Learn to enjoy the unexpected. Don’t allow others to dictate your behaviors and modalities. Creatives are free.
Models & Mentors – “No problem of human making is too great to be overcome by human ingenuity, human energy and the untiring hope of the human spirit” – Bill Clinton
“Mathematical reasoning is the exercise of inspiration and ingenuity” – Alan Turing
“You cannot solve a problem with the same mind that created it” – Albert Einstein
“Those who do not think outside the box are easily contained” – Nicolas Manetta
#Haiku: Flight – Ingenuity
I can’t Becomes “I will”: Eyes closed, Dreaming: Fantasy prompts Invention
Time to consider your ideal partnership contract. What would it be like? Have you been dreaming lately about weddings? Love, proposals, marriage? About The One that got Away? About partnership enterprises in general – video gaming, tennis – where an Ideal Partner/Helper’s got your back?
Creatives can’t make it through life without a partner. We’ve got friends who come and go, sometimes special ones, but they’ve got obligations of their own. What if we had a Perfect Friend who made our Best Life their priority? What if we were not only willing to do the same for them but to promise this in public?
Everybody Deserves Somebody – We come into adulthood with strong memories of familial dependence. We are all attracted to caretaking behaviors and easily seduced by promises to read our minds and give us what we really want, even if we haven’t figured that out for ourselves. Then hormones click in and we discover Desire. Not only for bodies, but for Persons, Lives, Individualities. Other people are a spice, other people are a medicine, other people are a distraction – everything our lives appear to be lacking. What if we could combine all these needs together in one appetizing human package?
Creative Challenge – We rarely ask our friends to change their lives for us. They are VERY rarely willing to do so. But a partner is someone to actively plan a life with. You get to talk through all the Wants, the Possibilities, the Fears. Heady stuff! The challenge is to know Yourself well enough to make any sort of honest statements about who you are, who you CAN be and who you want to be.
Sometimes Allies Need a Long-Term Contract – Lives are uprooted. Possessions are shared. Long term strategy results in map-merging to create a new – but more exciting – map. If you’re a giver, learn your limits. Because takers don’t have any.
Someone Needs to Take Your Back – As the great mystic Emmanuel Swedenborg pointed out, each one of us is only half an angel. You need someone to cover the things you can’t cover. And if you were planning to start a creative family, you need more than a partner, you need a spouse.
Spouses Teach Honesty – The person who knows you best doesn’t put up with a false front. You literally force each other to get to the root of emotions and behaviors that will open up your psyches not just to each other, but to the world and to yourselves. The spouse who falls in love with you and forgives you finally allows you to fall in love with and forgive yourself.
Staging, Experimental Life Lab and Boot Camp – we get to try out our ideas on each other. The Beloved Other is a Mirror and a Coach. The purpose of existence, the purpose of YOUR existence – suddenly becomes clear.
Creative Danger – A substantial number of partnership contracts fail. We all know this but we keep trying. Then there are the partnerships that evolve into Something Else, a Financial, Real Estate or Caregiving unit that is very necessary but also pretty far from what we had in mind originally. Our challenge remains the same. Is it possible to both know and be known? Can we find our Soulmate? Does such a creature exist? Is it possible to evolve with another soul to a higher plane of SuperSoul? Disappointment and betrayal are all too often the apparent outcomes.
Creative Opportunity – Soulmates DO exist! They DO evolve. We WILL change our life for another and they will change, blend, merge with us. Any interaction with another requires communication, boundaries, honesty, planning and “rules”. I put rules in quotes because a good partner keeps “transforming” the game and we keep transforming ourselves to meet it. The best way ever to honestly know yourself is to keep conscious, subconscious and unconscious in alignment. Purposeful dreaming, journaling and planning is the best way to achieve that goal! Get out your Training Journal and start with absolute honesty, realizing that tomorrow you may see things differently. Accept it!
Models & Mentors – “It’s not lack of love but lack of friendship that makes for unhappy marriages” – Friedrich Nietzsche
“What counts in making a happy marriage is not compatibility but how you deal with incompatibility” – Leo Tolstoy
“A happy marriage is a long conversation which always seems too short” – Andre Maurois
“The secret of a happy marriage is finding the right person. You know they’re the right person if you want to be with them all the time” – Julia Child
#Haiku: Marriage: Partnership
Merged. Eyes when I can’t see – Two extra hands; Relay race – Inspiration.
If This Archetype Chooses You – How are you at delegating? Do you often dream of Getting Help? In this fantasy, you are engaged on any difficult task and Some Competent Dreamboat shows up to assist. Do you dream of villages and businesses that run seemingly effortlessly – everyone like the mailman, the crossing guard, the fruit seller, the fireman – setting about their Daily Chores like characters in a children’s book? We’re all nostalgic for that Perfect World of cooperation that never in fact, existed or can exist because we are all the stars of our particular story. Exactly as it should be. But you, right now, need cooperation and luckily, as it turns out, everyone needs cooperation to survive.
You Don’t Have to Do Everything – It’s an enormous relief when you first realize you’re not responsible for everything. Children are very solipsistic thinkers – they “assume” magical responsibility not just for parental divorce but for World Wars. But we are tiny cogs in a huge enterprise. Every task we assume is part of something much bigger. We are surrounded by helpers, if we could only see it.
Creative Challenge – In life we have Group Tasks and Individual Tasks. The challenge is to figure out which is which. Social pressure tends to ‘erase” the importance of our personal, individual tasks because the daily round is so overwhelming. Yet we must cling determinedly to our Personal Goals of Maturation, Mastery, Learning, Finding Meaning & Bliss, Growing Love. Cooperation surrounds us in all these challenges if we could only access its benefits.
Know the Game – Unfortunately capitalist societies are based on competition and scarcity. Politics maneuvers us into seeing others as competitors for scarce resources, instead of willing hands helping us build. No wonder Main Street is falling into disrepair, volunteer activities go begging and community resources are depleted! Without a sense of community we can’t see each other as anything but rivals. When looking for co-operators it is wise to re-visit our previous Wisdom warnings about avoiding people who seek not helpers but hostages.
Avoid Spirit Crushers – Memorize these threatening warnings of an approaching hostile takeover. Don’t ask for anything from these people. We can’t repeat these dangers often enough: Write these down!
• 1. Manipulation: Toxic people often use manipulation to get what they want from others. They may guilt trip, threaten, or lie to manipulate others into doing their bidding.
2. Emotional Abuse: Toxic individuals may use emotional abuse to control and dominate their victims. This can include name-calling, belittling, and constant criticism.
3. Lack of Accountability: Toxic people often avoid taking responsibility for their actions and may blame others for their own mistakes.
4. Self-Centeredness: Toxic individuals are often extremely self-centered and may prioritize their own needs and desires over those of others.
5. Lack of Empathy: Toxic people may have difficulty putting themselves in other people’s shoes and understanding their feelings and perspectives.
6. Passive-Aggressiveness: Toxic individuals may exhibit passive-aggressive behavior, such as giving the silent treatment or making sarcastic comments.
7. Inconsistency: Toxic people may be inconsistent in their words and actions, and may promise one thing but deliver another.
8. Disregard for Boundaries: Toxic individuals may disregard others’ boundaries and may continue to push for what they want even when told “no”.
9. Gaslighting: Toxic people may engage in gaslighting behavior, which involves manipulating someone into doubting their own perceptions or memories.
10. Physical Aggression: In extreme cases, toxic individuals may exhibit physical aggression, such as hitting, pushing, or kicking.
Stay Away!
Creative Opportunity – If you manage to avoid the above, you will meet Your Best Friends Ever! People who really have ideas and ENJOY HELPING. This is even more important than Getting “the job” DONE! Because Cooperation often redesigns the job in a positive, healthy way. Real friends last for life and they change YOU. Reach out for advice and cooperation to all who treat others with respect. You won’t be successful ALL the time – no one is – but you will learn so much in the course of finding out How to Live In the World and Who to be.
Creatives Know How to Lead – Creatives understand strategy and dividing tasks into steps. Creatives see into the heart of personal and personnel problems because they have confronted their own issues of courage, baggage, physical challenge and fear.
Creatives Know How to Play Their Position – For my part to work, your part needs to work. Division of labor knits efforts into a harmonious whole. Everyone gets a chance and everyone is satisfied with the result.
Creatives See the Entire Field – We know how to change course to give our best efforts their best chance. We know when to retreat and regroup. We understand the psychological build-up and the necessity of down-time, debriefing, and re-supplying. Everyone must feel that they are of value and no effort is in vain.
Models & Mentors – “The only thing that will redeem mankind is cooperation” – Bertrand Russell
“Coming together is a beginning, keeping together is progress and working together is success” – Henry Ford
“If I have seen further, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants” – Isaac Newton
“Alone we can do so little. Together we can do so much.” – Helen Keller
If This Archetype Chooses You – List your resources and prepare for a surprise. They’re always more out there than you think.
Do you dream of wealth? Storehouses of goodies? Digging in the earth and finding treasure? Gold at the end of the rainbow? These are “resource” fantasies. In Creative Oracle, the “Earth” archetype represents resources because Earth is the source of everything mortal that is valuable to us. Where we are born determines the very language we will use to quantify, remember and share our world.
You are a Wealthy Heir – We are all born into fabulous possibility. However, the fear of emptiness and the dread of exclusion also start immediately. Focusing on the wealth we DON’T have prevents us from identifying the resources we possess now.
Creatives Are Anointed – We are creatives BECAUSE we recognize the sacredness of the every day. One day while swimming, sailing, sunning, soaring or dreaming WE FELT THE UNIVERSE LOVE US BACK. We were anointed creatives in Her honor on that day.
Let’s Figure Out What We’ve Got Going for Us. Health? Youth? Sight? Hearing? Intelligence? Talents? Love? Education? Family? Community? Faith? Roof over head? Food on Table? Money coming in? People we can depend on? Is there a patch of sky where we can see the stars? Is there a patch of ground where we can see the flowers?
Sheltering & Mustering Resources is Key – “A horse! A horse! My kingdom for a horse!” says Shakespeare’s Richard III. But he doesn’t have a horse and his kingdom is lost. “A stitch in time”, etc. etc. Strategy is nothing without resources and resources are nothing if you waste them.
Creatives Nurture What They Love – Creatives care for their equipment, their animals, their people and their environment.
Creatives Cultivate and Improve – We bring gardens where once were deserts, we bring children where life was future-less, we speak to animals and we communicate with trees.
Creatives Celebrate the Spirit of Life – We don’t mark joy with “getting wasted.” We nestle instead in the beautiful cradle of the universe we have helped to provide.
Creative Danger – There’s no question all our benefits can be improved upon. They are also subject to depredation, depreciation and degradation. It is a positive force to desire improvements, but it is dangerous to turn “wants” into rage.
Creative Opportunity – Often the one difference between happiness and misery is gratitude. Are you grateful for all you have been given? Do you feel lucky or fortunate in any way? To put things in perspective, lottery winners one year out are usually NOT AS HAPPY as those who have been in a serious accident one year previous!
The Secret is Perspective. The lottery winners thought a pile of money would “solve” everything, the accident sufferers thought they were destroyed forever. Lottery winners learned how wrong they were about what they needed, while accident sufferers were focused on what they still had and what new caring relationships came into their lives. Begin to cultivate a practice of gratitude. It starts with a “Thank You.”
Models & Mentors – “Preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we’ve ever known.” – Carl Sagan
“I only feel angry when I see waste, people throwing away things we could use” – Mother Teresa
“Earth provides enough to satisfy everyone’s need but not everyone’s greed” – Mahatma Gandhi
“The Earth has music for those who listen” – Shakespeare
“Earth sustains us and we must sustain her” – Chief Dan George
#Haiku: Delayed Gratification
Lifetime threat dodging and Garden planting Grants pleasure Embracing Now
If This Archetype Chooses You – Creatives represent Truth – whatever that is. It’s constantly shifting, which is why we need Art. We need to be, and to see, a thousand stories just to understand ourselves. Whn you dream of a fully lit landscape, do you bask in warm rays or feel trapped by skin-scorching light? As the Sun archetype in Creative Oracle represents Truth it also sheds light on our efforts to locate, explain and exploit that mysterious force.
Creatives Are Bullshit Detectors – Throughout life you will encounter people searching for weapons and tools. They will try to make a weapon and a tool out of you. This is why understanding the back and forth nature of partnership is so key. When you are searching for a Teacher you are not searching for a Master. Use Truth to divine the difference.
You Are a Truth Diviner – Truth is complex. Truth evolves to match our understanding. Dream are incontestably “real” but do they represent “Truth”? Can something be true one day and untrue the next? (see Ambivalence.) Is the storytelling child narrating “the truth”? Are myths true? Is the Bible true? Yes to all these questions. But No, also. Because the most important fact about truth is that, like us, it’s either progressive or regressive. You easily recognize this in your own life. Something that was true of you twenty years ago is no longer true. You have changed. Understandably, in a climate like this, people thirst for Unchanging Truth, and there are a few examples. Benjamin Franklin offered Death and Taxes, Jesus said evil can’t win, and Buddha said life itself is an illusion.
It is enough to make us think that language is a poor descriptor of experience. The important variable in all this is we, ourselves – humanity. We are the eyes that think, the brain that evaluates, the mind that remembers. You are constantly developing Creative Skills – Truth Seeking, Truth Telling and Truth Divining – and you are developing definitions. Congratulate yourself. Support yourself and others on this noblest of enterprises. Because to die in the Truth is to pass into the Light.
The Truth Matters – Lying is the biggest red flag, and the question always is, why? Can your interlocutor not bear the truth or do they not know the truth? Do they attempt to fool others to take advantage? Law asks the question: who benefits? How would they take control if you accepted their falsity?
Accept the Physics of Reality – Does the Liar promote growth and health, or suffering and squalor? Followers may be sickening and dying slowly, but you can quickly see that in the Liar’s universe, the benefit of others is never as important as leader gratification.
Understanding Emotional Health – Challenge is necessary for growth. The fact that subjects are uncomfortable is usually a good reason to take a long look. Effort is important but not to the point of depletion. Who maintains the resources that refresh the spirit?
The Creative Is Worthy of Support – Rest, health, nourishment, fellowship and learning are the riches of the universe that should be available to all.
Creative Challenge – It’s so relaxing when you finally see the Truth. Suddenly you’re in the gulf stream, swimming WITH the tide! This is why fans love mystery stories – they explain what was REALLY going on and you see all past events in a new light with a new meaning. Our daily life seems to request of us one hideous compromise after another until we wake up one morning feeling that we are lying to everybody – ourselves included. The Creative’s Challenge – should you accept it – is to bring your life more in harmony with what you currently know to be true, all the while seeking a higher elevation of The Truth.
Creative Danger – Nobody likes a hard-ass. Is your quest for truth turning you into a rigid, mean-spirited drill sergeant? I used to be authoritatively told that the mysteries I loved weren’t any good, that no way was Raymond Chandler as good as John Steinbeck. Worse, Emily Bronte wasn’t as good as Philip Roth! Ugh! I did appreciate that what was “true” for others was NOT true for me but unfortunately for me, THEY did not appreciate that. So, be humble. You can never see (or reveal) all the Truth. It will evolve as you will. You are “perfected” when you are received into Bliss. You’re not required to believe in Bliss, by the way. Bliss believes in you.
Creative Opportunity –Truth, like everything interesting, meaningful and worth doing, is a PROCESS. Welcome aboard! We’re all passengers on this exciting thrill-ride! So buckle up! Assemble a team! Get out your journal! Let’s begin!
Models & Mentors – “The truth will set you free. But not until it is finished with you.” – David Foster Wallace
“In a time of deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act” – George Orwell
“Speaking your truth is the most powerful tool you have” – Oprah Winfrey
“Truth is like the Sun. You can shut it out for a while, but it ain’t going away”
Elvis Presley
#Haiku: Lady Samurai
Loyal Poise; Courage in Truth Compassionate Respect Honest Honor
If This Archetype Chooses You – His or Hers? Creatives Express All Genders. Are you an empath? Do you identify easily with multiple avatars? Are you happiest with fluid roles in a relationship? Do you dream of the fetish trophies of gender; makeup, wigs, shoes, sports equipment? Do you have frequent “freedom” dreams: flying, swimming? Waking up damp, pulses pounding?
Love Opens Creatives – Empathy Ennobles Creatives – IS there an “opposite” sex? Deep empathy makes us worthy to be our own romantic partners, the subject of our lifelong pursuit. This is nothing but the honorable, deepest desire to truly know oneself AND others; to master selfhood and compassion before leaving the planet. C.S. Lewis says we are not a Body with a Soul, we are Souls with a Body.
Creative Strategy Requires “Becoming” the Other – Strengthening our imagination, we see through the barriers raised by the fearful and the pugnacious. What is “winning”? Empaths double – triple – multiply our vision, our power, and therefore our souls.
Don’t Fear Gender – Creatives who perform “gender specifics” are limiting themselves. Creatives who look for opportunities to expand their reach encompass the powers, the delights, the ecstasies of all humans. What we absorb, we reflect.
Creatives Don’t Fear Physicality – We express ourselves with this gloriously gifted, given body, coming through this gloriously gifted, given world. We expect, even worship, Transformation. Woody Allen says bisexuality doubles your chances to get a date on Saturday night. Anything wrong with that? Creatives never “force” themselves to perform sexually; that is subjugation.
Creatives Move Slowly to Absorb, Interpret, Comprehend – We desire to see, to know, to experience everything. Always move as slowly as you feel comfortable with, keeping all options and emotions alive. The “sexual revolution” was a lot of fun, but it was spoiled for many by a witless prejudice against “reserve.” Revulsion, instinctive distaste and doubt tell us plenty. We are on this earth to hone our “gut” instinct as well as our sensitivities. Gavin de Becker, danger specialist, reminds us that fear is an insight, an intuition, a God-given “gift.” Honor it.
Creatives Educate Themselves on Risk – Dangerous “bad sex” stories start with substance abuse, usually undertaken with a nervous desire to get into a more relaxed or even transcendental state; but all it actually does is skip over the “informed consent” that is such an important feature of identity and will. Predators with a need for speed drug their prey! Afterwards the complex feelings of violation and shame can take a lifetime to deal with. These facts mean we must study “trust” BEFORE we study sex. What is trust? Safety? Honor? Let’s work on those issues while we develop a free space to evolve, experiment and grow.
Creatives Seize Opportunity – Fresh interpretations of “gender“ make this a glorious time to be alive. I can recall when gender was a prison sentence of compulsion and rigidity! Now it is an invitation to live more fully, to experience oneself and others more richly, to participate in that fruitful, heavenly life for which we all yearn.
Models & Mentors – “The great gift of human beings is we all have empathy. We can sense a mysterious connection to each other” – Meryl Streep
“Leadership is about empathy. It is about relating to people for the purpose of inspiring and empowering their lives” – Oprah Winfrey
“The capacity for empathy leads to a genuine encounter I which heart speaks to heart” – Pope Francis
“I believe empathy is the most essential quality of civilization” – Roger Ebert
“Empathy has no script…there is no right way or wrong way…there is only listening, emotionally connecting, communicating the incredibly healing message ‘You’re not alone” – Brene Brown
#Haiku: Ambisextrous
Fresh birthed – Splash Into you Drenched, Once Halved, now Wholed – Doubling multiplies Us
If This Archetype Chooses You – You are standing on the edge of possibility. Imagination tells us what COULD be. Potential alerts us to the possibilities. In the multiverse, physicists assure, everything is happening somewhere. The stick-colored, dead-seeming chrysalis contains nature’s most beautiful sprite, the butterfly. The invisibility of potential discourages predators by daylight, but at night, the chrysalis opens and we are free.
Remember: You Contain Multitudes – You orchid is still asleep What kind of flower will it be? You are the apex of your family tree. Walt Whitman is describing us, as well as himself, when he says he contains “multitudes”. Be wary of the “restrictions” others place so confidently upon you. Question them. Be the first in your family to — do something. Because you ARE the first in your family to be you. You are unique. In day dreams and night dreams, on conscious and unconscious levels, you explore all the odds and contingencies.
Don’t Be Sidelined – People we love, need and admire, keep trying to pin us down. They want to get to “know” us so they can “rely” on our sameness. They want us to stay where they left us, like a coat or umbrella. We willingly place limits on ourselves, just to be accepted. But you are unrestrained in your wild and dreaming imagination.
Preserve Your Inner Wildness – Think of the story of Max, who voyaged overnight to play with the Wild Things until he finally decided he wanted to return to his safe, warm, familiar bed. Every action you perform, every thought you think, suggests and then creates its opposite or “shadow” as Jung would say. Free yourself to consider all the alternatives. Then Creatives fly above them.
Creatives Are Warmed by Inner Fire – Creatives don’t listen to the limitations others have set on them. Who would believe that dried up chrysalis is going to turn into a magnificent butterfly? Yet it will. You have the butterfly within you. When you concentrate, you can feel its wings stretching and expanding.
Can We Lose Ourselves? Will we become Peter Pan who was replaced and now can never come home? Fear is a valid reaction when danger is about. But danger is triggered by lack of escape. Keep all your psychic escape hatches open.
What Fable Do You Cherish? We tell ourselves stories. Harry Potter, Narnia or Marvel? Expand it outwards. Insert yourself. So many discoveries have been made from and through fantasy fan fiction they are too numerous to mention here. But allowing yourself to dream is key. Imagine you are outfitting your inner butterfly. What colors? How about all colors, constantly changing?
Creatives Are Quick-Change Artists – Creatives might become a butterfly or a snowflake or an orchid or some new form that hasn’t been created yet. Creatives are avatars. We keep ourselves in peak readiness to accept the universal challenge. We realize life is a dance, we can adapt to its steps and offer steps all our own.
Creatives Protect Their Potential – Others will constantly try to constrain and define you and herd you into their enclosure. Don’t go. What you will become is not up to them, it is not even up to those who mentor and love you. It is up to you.
Creatives Protect the World’s Potential – The young, the aged, the helpless, the teacher, the crossing guard, the medic, the harvester – these are people who shepherd the universe into a positive becoming. They are occupied with vital work and can’t protect themselves or those they help. Life’s creatives will protect them. The forces of destruction are all around us, the universe can’t afford to waste a scrap of its positive potential.
Models & Mentors – “The only person you are destined to be is the person you decide to become” – Ralph Waldo Emerson
“Consult not your fears but your hopes and dreams. Think not about your frustrations but your potential. Concern yourself not with what you tried and failed but with what it is still possible for you to do.” – Pope John XXIII
“Our essential nature is one of pure potentiality” – Deepak Chopra
“Accept whatever comes and meet it with the best you have to give” – Eleanor Roosevelt
#Haiku: Chrysalis – Potential
Unrecognizable: Disguised – Prototype Unbeing Becomes You
Alysse Aallyn 