Relaxing and playing allows the floodgates to open and you are illuminated with new and unique ideas. Reading is another favorite past time and as words and thoughts are consumed, new innovative concepts emerge.

Napolean Hill, who wrote the 1937 classic Think and Grow Rich devotes an entire chapter in Laws of Success to imagination. Hill explored the scientific basis for the concept of the LAW of ATTRACTION as well as a common sense  explanation for how like attracts like and how this actually works in the real world. Next, he focused upon improving the way Infinite Intelligence is accessed through the imagination. Hill created methods to unlock ideas hidden in our subconscious minds and developed other methods that allow the possibility that ideas may be accessed from outside sources.

Hill described two kinds of ways to use your imagination. One was called “synthetic”imagination which is actually more effective if described as synthesized imagination. This approach uses all of your life experiences, knowledge and allows new combinations of former knowledge. Inventors like Thomas Edison used this approach when as he discovered 10,000 ways to not create a light bulb with consistent efforts, he finally found a new combination of knowledge that made his efforts a success. Creative imagination is the second approach and this one employs the contact made with Infinite Intelligence and allows us to telepathically access information from other people’s minds.

Hill goes on to say that his term Cosmic Habit Force is WHY his methods work. Infinite Intelligence is HOW it works and Imagination is WHERE it works. Without totally understanding all of this new terminology, my confidence increases as in my own life experiences, the kind of fun activities that I engage in allow a simultaneous opportunity to have solutions present themselves as these activities are enjoyed. It also is in alignment with the idea that what you resists persist. Once you are relaxed and no longer pushing against things in your life, things tend to be released.

Other methods include a consistent practice of meditation will give you a “tapped in, tuned in and turned on” access to Source with ideas flooding your mind with a  Divine intervention.This can also be called “intuition.” Recording your dreams will have those messages and symbols become clearer to you while solutions are presented to a challenge that you went to sleep thinking about. This new epiphany came to me as I refused to spend all day plugging away at projects—instead I made the decision to enjoy my life more. Each day do more of the things that I love. You can imagine my surprise when I realized the  incredible benefits of such play time. Julia Cameron in The Artist’s Way gives credence to these same ideas when she encourages you to enjoy an artist’s date with yourself each week to replenish the creative resources that may have been depleted in your busy and overworked lives. Cameron says,

” Creativity is God’s will for us and should be practiced like any other spiritual practice—a day at a time.”

Discovery of this truth and way of being and continuing to pursue the avenues that open up for me can only catapult me into  new and exciting arenas that teach me more about myself and life. Continuing down this kind of path can only reveal truths and like honesty in a relationship, will only take me deeper.

” I have always known that at last I would take this road, but yesterday I did not know that it would be today.” Narihara  (excerpted from Christina Baldwin’s Life’s Companion)

Recommended Readings:

1. Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill

2. Life’s Companion by Christina Baldwin

3. The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron

In my last post, I mentioned that I was feeling the “urge to purge.” For any art teachers out there, you know that is a rare sensation as we usually were on the hunt for new still life items or interesting and unique things to use in decorating our classrooms, homes or garden rooms.

However I have found that clearing out stuff and making room for new things can do a lot to lift your spirits. When we make art, we sort and choose. Now I will be the first to say that during the process as you turn your house upside down, that can be more than a little bit distressing. When it is all said and done, now that’s a very good feeling.  I  will confess that I have always been a “ pack rat,”  and finally I am ready to unpack many unused items. After the clearing out, I will attend more estate sales and auctions and seek out some new  unusual and unique kinds of items.  What I have discovered is as I move through the layers, there is a system of organization underneath the top layer of stuff. It is getting some things out the door to make room for an organizational system that works for you now with what you are doing in your life.

Yesterday for example, I took the leap and purchased a new IMac computer with a huge 27″ screen. I am more than anxious to get it set up and running and have spent two days backing up the information on the two 300 GB hard drives. It gave me an opportunity to organize and discard duplicates and unused, outdated items. It will be fun to continue organizing all the information and even get creative with the new applications to see how I can create some new things as I gain the skills.

It is a new year and a perfect time to streamline each of our lives. I read somewhere that the state of your environment is a reflection of your state of mind. I wouldn’t want you to pop in on me in my office with boxes and disks and cables laying everywhere. Oddly enough, I feel invigorated and excited about the new possibilities that can result from my ongoing intentions to “lighten up.”

Happy New Year and may you also be inspired to “create the space in your life for miracles,” as Michelle Passoff says.” by freeing yourself from too much stuff.” I have a ways to go and it’s a start.

“Once there is nothing to improve upon in the physical environment one can set about improving on oneself.” Henry Miller

Recommended Readings:

1. Lighten Up: Free Yourself from Clutter, Michell Passoff. Offered in this book is a look at how stuff robs you of energy and when the stuff is eliminated, your free to create miracles.

2. Clutters Last Stand, Don Aslet. This book provides a whimsical approach to junk with a junkee’s exam to see if you classify as a “ junkee.”

Art is considered the first language. During my teaching life in both art and eventually art with technology, I had a poster with a child scribbling saying that art is/was our first form of communication. Those fortunate enough among us that both read and write use this form of communication daily. We use everyday aesthetics in our lives—in marriage, friendships, chores, and in most everything we do. We use our thoughts, our creative ideas in preparing our meals, rearranging our homes, dressing each day for work or play. We do the same kind of problem solving as Beethoven, the difference is that our symphony is our life. Whenever we set things apart and tend to them in a special way, we are creating something new.

Although teaching art and technology was my life work in the public eyes. My greatest work of art has been my life. Now in my  fifth year of being out of the public school system as a classroom teacher,  I realize that more than ever. We can create each moment to make things more beautiful, more tasty, more appealing to our senses.

More than ever, I am enjoying savoring each opportunity for creative change. My friends and family have always kidded me because when I clean house inevitably, I will rearrange a room or two—if not the entire house. It makes cleaning a lot less repetitive. It  also adds so much fun to the  living in your home when your environment reflects personal changes, creative additions and can be found in good order.

” Every action, every moment,every step is filled with the work of art.”

Lately, my resolve has been to eliminate extra things from my environment, pass them on to someone else who can appreciate them. It seems like the perfect time of year to be thinking about new spaces and places and ways to live in your own life. What do you do in your life that reflects your creativity?

“We are traditionally rather proud of ourselves to have slipped creative work in their between the domestic chores and obligations. I am not sure we deserve such A-pluses for that.” Toni Morrison

Let me hear how you have added some zest to your day to day living with a punch of creative work in between the things you must do.

Wishing you a fulfilling and creative New Year! 2010—the year to begin…