Creative Codes

Creativity is a phenomenon whereby something new and something valuable is formed. The created item may be an intangible, such as an idea or a scientific theory or a musical composition or a joke. Or it might be a physical object, such as an invention or a printed literary work or a painting. It’s the use of our imagination in the production of an artistic work.

A deeper question I invite you to ask is how do I create things that are valued by and impact other people positively?

We want to create new things that have an impact, and express higher possibilities. That is the great work of our time, it’s the great work of what it is to be a creator of the future, and I believe this is what we’re here for. So, how do we consciously midwife the unmanifest possibilities into being in a way that has value and has impact?

Sensory Acuity

Creativity is something that emerges when we have the receptivity to the full spectrum of possibilities. We first want to begin to source a palette to create with. An artist, when they’re creating a painting, they create a palette and they bring together their materials. The very raw materials of the process of creation is something that’s called “sensory acuity,” and this is something that’s cultivated. It’s really cultivating the capacity for images. When we talk about imagination, it’s receiving inspiration through our senses as new possibilities, images, sounds, feelings, tastes, smells, touch, being able to move and know in the future, being able to sense into the past. We want to open up our senses so that we can start to feel, and so we can start to generate creative ideas on multiple channels. Sensory acuity is one of the first things we’re going to cultivate.

Context

The next thing is to bring in an awareness of the context that you are creating inside of. The most powerful creative ideas are sourced from our relationship and our awareness of who is the recipient of what we are wanting to bring forward. For a lot of us, our senses are closed down, and we’re in our mind trying to think about things, and we’re not energetically or even intuitively connected to who we’re serving, and who we want to create something for.

Create a Container

Creativity emerges in a container, and the awareness of the context that you’re creating inside of creates the container.

The Entelechy

Once you create the container and you’ve activated your senses, you can then begin to sense the unrealised potentials, there’s a Greek word, the Entelechy: the unmanifest potential that’s wanting to emerge here. This is the great secret of high creativity, that it’s not an idea that comes from our mind, it’s a sensing into a potential that’s there that we can midwife, that we are receptive to. With the kind of creativity that has immense value and impact there’s something there that is its own essence and potential that exists, that you can then be receptive to and start to midwife and start to bring forward and start to sense.

Grit

From there, the final piece in terms of bringing it forward is it’s grit. It’s not magic, it’s grit. It’s sensing it, and then it’s bringing the discipline of a process of workshopping and playing with ideas until you feel like you come across something that has resonance. Most of us, when we create something, there is a dark, cold, black, empty space that we will reach after we get through maybe three or four ideas, and it feels like, there’s nothing left. But when you keep going through the void of that, on the other side of that, that’s often when you get your best ideas. A book by Adam Grant called Originals where he speaks a lot about grit, and how you can’t even begin to get something good until you have done it at least 20 times, and you have written at least 20 versions of it. This is the unglamorous part of being a creative, where you’re practicing the craft of what it is that you’re bringing forward, and you’re developing your skills to be a powerful midwife, and develop your craft.

The Practice of Cultivating of Sensory Acuity

First think about something that you would like to have more creative ideas around.

I want to invite you to take a moment to imagine yourself seeing awe-inspiring images in your vision. See if you can imagine yourself standing on a cliff top, and seeing a vast ocean at sunset. Let’s see if you can feel the wind going through your hair in the scene. As you inhale, imagine that you’re smelling the salty, briny sea air, you’re feeling a little chill, and you’re hearing the sound of the waves crash. You turn around and there’s a bowl of strawberries right there, and you’re biting into a strawberry in the scene. You’re feeling the presence of a higher power. Again, the crashing waves, the beautiful, expansive ocean and sunset, the smell of the brine air, the feeling of the chill and the cold fresh air, your hair blowing in the wind. Then imagine now you’re teleported to an ancient temple. You’re standing in this ancient temple, seeing this incredible scene of old stonework, and an old altar with old books with dark lighting, and you’re smelling this musty smell of dampness like no one has been in there. Suddenly you hear, Tibetan bells, Tibetan gongs starting to ring.

Then imagine you’re being teleported from this scene to the most incredible concert throughout history. It could have been to one of the great bands that you love, imagine going out and being in the front row of this concert, hearing the sound of the music through the amplifiers, feeling the energy of the crowd around you in your body, seeing the sight of this band showing up with some fireworks behind them, feeling the vibrations of the sound. So, we’re practicing going into these scenes, and we’re practicing expanding our ability to imagine visuals, sounds, smells. In the rock concert, imagine that you’re smelling the sweat of the whole crowd, see if you can get that. Can you smell the sweat in this musty auditorium?

Every time you’re imagining something like this, and you’re putting yourself in a scene and you’re imagining it, you’re cultivating this sensory acuity.

So coming back to the thing that you want to create, imagine that you’re holding it in your hand. Imagine that you’re holding the thing that you want to create in your hand, whether it’s a book, whether it’s a project, whether it is a meal that you want to envision, or it might be an experience that you want to create with a loved one, imagine holding it up in your hand. And, as we’ve practiced this, beginning to see possibilities, hear sounds, smell the potential of this project. What does it smell like, what does it sound like, what images begin to become evoked? What does it feel like in your body, if you imagine holding it fully formed?

So we want to open up all channels from which to begin to sense and source the things that we want to create. We’re going to bring in all of these pieces, and we’re going to bring them all together at the end, toward some things that are concrete.

We want to cultivate and begin to create. It’s a wonderful practice to do if you’re dancing and moving and breathing. Do this as a practice, where you’re dancing to some music and you’re imagining a scene, and you’re hearing some sounds, and you’re imagining smells, and you’re tasting tastes, and you’re feeling what it would feel like to be in different scenes. Put yourself in scenes that also are awe-inspiring to you.

The Practice of Creating a Container

So now that we’ve activated our senses, we want to create a container around the thing that we want to create. What creates a container is your awareness of the context. So I want to guide you through this to see if you can begin to energetically create the container around what it is that you want to create.

1. Sense into who you are wanting to create this thing for. Who is it that you are wanting to appreciate and receive and experience value from what it is that you’re bringing forward? Imagine that person or group of people there, imagine them standing there in front of you.

Taking a moment to imagine them there in front of you. And with each breath, imagine an awareness of yourself and the gifts that you’re wanting to give, and feeling an awareness outward, where you’re still connected to yourself but you’re expanding your awareness out to become aware of them.

What’s going on right now inside of them? What are they feeling, what are their unmet needs, what is the potential inside of them that has yet to be realized, and what’s happening in their life right now?

Becoming aware or becoming curious. If you don’t know the answer, allowing your awareness to extend into them as you are curious, and wondering: I wonder what they’re experiencing right now, I wonder what they most need right now? The wondering opens up the container, the awareness of them, I wonder what they’re feeling, I wonder what they’re needing, I wonder what is the potential that they’re seeking? What is the potential or the unrealised possibility that I am wanting to catalyse or ignite or bring forward?

See if you can take a moment to feel what that is. See if you can take a moment to feel, using the skills of your empathy, your intuitive sensing to feel the possibility inside of them that you are wanting to ignite or you are wanting to bring forth or you are wanting to support them to create or experience. See if you can feel that inside of you. Breathe into it, you’re feeling what is the potential inside of them.

2. Become aware of where we are in time and what’s happening in the world right now. Are we in winter or are we in spring? What are the circumstances that are surrounding this person? Where are we, as it relates to the time of year and the location, and the larger context in which this is happening?

See if you can take your awareness to that, and feeling the potential, being aware of where we are in time, being aware of what is around this other person in terms of the possibility that they feel, in terms of their circumstance. Because it’s a different thing if it’s January, and it’s the beginning of a new year, and they’re ready to move into action, than if it’s November and we’re moving into the holidays.

Grounding it in time, it’s a different thing if there’s a lot of political unrest in the world than it’s a time of great prosperity. So, all of these things start to create a container. Like, where are we in time, where are we in location, what is the unrealised possibility, what are the deep unmet needs that this person has? You’re holding that, and ultimately, you want to bring awareness to all of these things, and come back into this felt sense of feeling their possibilities.

What you’re doing is you’re bringing awareness to:

The other person,

Where we are in time,

The larger circumstances in the larger world.

If you’re writing a book, you’re imagining the person who’s going to read the book. If you’re creating a film, you’re imagining the audience. If you’re wanting to prepare a beautiful experience, you’re sensing into what’s happening inside of this other person.

Take a moment to write down any notes that you have of things that really stand out, or what you really felt when you were connected to what these potentials were inside this other person.

Creating with the Entelechy

The next thing I want to guide you into is to be able to sense into and be receptive to the entelechy. The entelechy is a Greek word, and it means the unrealised potential or blueprint of something. The entelechy inside an acorn is an oak tree, the entelechy inside of a rose seed is to become a rose. If it’s a book, if it’s a program, if it’s a product, it has an entelechy, it has something that is a quality of its blueprint and essence in the unmanifest before it comes into the world.

Think about the preconceived ideas you’ve had about what this course is going to be, or what this book is going to be, or what this program is going to be, or what this, experience that you want to create for someone is going to be. Become aware of what your preconceived ideas or your assumptions have been up until now.

1. Imagine that they’re all on a movie screen in front of you

2. Let that go. See if you can shake when you’ve done that. By becoming aware of them, we can put them to one side. Make a movement to put them to one side. So we’re letting go, and practicing letting it go.

3. Imagine in the centre of this container that you have created is your project or your book or your program or whatever it is that you want to create, imagine it’s there, fully formed in the thing that it’s going to be to create the most value.

And asking from a place of deep receptivity: What is the universe’s idea for my creation? What is the divine idea of this? What is the universe’s idea of itself as this book, project, work, art?

Then do not go into thinking about the answer, go into being receptive and open to images, to feel and sense images, sounds, feelings that come from asking that question, what is the universe’s idea of itself as this book or this project or this work?

I want to invite you to take a moment to move and breathe, and live into this question, and then bring your senses and be curious, open and receptive, and start to imagine, images, sounds, feelings.

Be in a field of limitless possibility, where you’re not evaluating any of these ideas currently. You’re generating possibilities in this field of limitless possibility, from this place of sensing and feeling the entelechy, of being in the container where you’re aware of who you’re serving, you’re aware of what you have to offer, and you’re asking this question.

From this place of real curiosity that’s the most powerful place of discovery, where we’ve let go of our fixed ideas, we’re not rushing to conclusions, we do not know, but we are wanting to know. This thing has its own life!

So now you’re in a relationship with the thing that you’re creating, it’s almost like it becomes a beloved.

You begin to access and source an intelligence that transcends and includes your own mind.

Deep creativity really comes from a source that is out of your local mind, a space for you to source the deeper levels of your own intuitive knowing. The deeper levels of your own unconscious intelligence and wisdom happen inside of questions.

What are the ideas that feel like they resonate?

What are the ideas that you want to develop?

What are the ideas that you want to test?

What are the ideas that you want to pursue?

And notice out of that which are the ideas that you want to bring forward?

Shaping the Potentials into Form

Taking down any notes and finishing up this section, we’re going to move to the next part of this, which is very much then about shaping the potentials, or the ideas into form.

This is the craft of creativity. This is where we start to mold and shape and we start to bring ideas into form.

We want to be developing our craft: it might be a course outline that I would create, or for a talk: it might be a speech outline, or for a piece of writing, it’s going to be something that I need to write. It’s essentially a stream of consciousness to get out a draft of your outline.

Anne Lamott calls it “a shitty first draft,” meaning you stream consciousness, then move into starting to write down the bones or an outline to start to bring it into form.

When you start to bring something into form, it’s not going to match the magical feeling that you felt with the entelechy. Workshopping your craft is that process of refining it and polishing it and bringing it into form until you have something that deeply resonates. We need grit to stay with that process until you have something that feels like it resonates with the feeling that you had for its possibility. Keep going way beyond what’s comfortable to be able to generate a solution and an idea of something that you’re going to select.

Let’s begin to workshop these ideas!