© 2012 by Joyce Mason
All Rights Reserved
You may have been told,
like I was, that the Sun rules Leo and the 5th House of children and
creativity. This isn’t hard to buy.
After all, the Sun represents our unique Self, and we shine through our creations.
After six decades of expressing
creativity from crayons to blogs, books and beyond, I think there’s a lot more
to it than being ourselves in our most inimitable way—or replicating ourselves
in a biological way. I think creativity is both personal and interpersonal—and very
outerplanetary. Creativity taps into One Mind and everything that’s not new, as
in that old adage, “There’s nothing new under the Sun.”
While nothing’s new as far
as the basic materials of creativity are concerned, the way we recombine them
is often highly original. While we’d be hard put to find an idea that hasn’t
been thought of before, we surely will find many new ways those ideas have been
pieced together to fulfill a need, solve a problem, bring us joy, give us a
laugh, or touch us with beauty.
An example from the more
ridiculous end of the sublime/ ridiculous continuum is the Chia Pet. Who’d a thunk it? Chia
Pets make people laugh or groan or at least ask what the … ??? You just can’t
be neutral about them. First sold in 1977, unbelievably, Chia Pets were still
selling over a half million a year as of 2007. Enjoy this original Chia Pet commercial.
Aries and Tauri, take note. They come in rams and bulls! (Or at least they did
back then.) You even can buy a Chia of President Obama on Amazon or eBay. Could
anyone dispute this is possibly the world’s most creative combination of
pottery, plants, and the human desire for pet companions? (I’ve never wanted a
pet President, though. Have you?)
Creativity comes from a
swirling kaleidoscope of ethereal ideas, everyone’s space junk and genius,
floating in the dimension of our connected minds. Some astrologers assign
creativity to Mercury, others to Uranus. To me, it’s obvious that creativity
has no one planetary ruler.
I completely understand why those advocating Mercury as creativity’s ruler came to that conclusion, though, because creativity, above all, requires an open mind. That’s how we tap into the Big Think Tank in the Sky.
I live to create. If I’m
not being creative, I’m dying. Since I retired from my government job almost
seven years ago, I’ve had the good fortune to be able to live my creativity
nearly 24/7. (I’m also counting my active dream life, where my subconscious
goes hog wild mixing experiences and feelings to produce some night movies that
are even stranger than Chia Pets.)
The longer I live in the
center of my whirlwind imagination, the less I feel that I create on my own. I
have heard the concept of co-creation with God or the universe for the last 35
years, since I officially “got metaphysical.” Yet, I never really understood in
such a visceral way what it means till now. In fact, I’m not sure I create at
all. Creations come through me. I birth new creations by tapping into the
Cosmic Altogether. It feels very Lunar and Neptunian. And Uranian. Plutonian,
and considering my bent toward that savvy centaur, Chironic.
Creativity is too big a concept to fit into a single planetary ruler. It’s universal energy, bigger than the sky.
I’ve written before about
a sense that I have Manicotti Mind. You know, one of those big tubular pasta
shells. It’s like this tube sits in the middle of my head, and it’s the base of
a funnel through which I get information. Surely, I’ve got Uranus sending some
signals, maybe through my dental fillings. And if you aren’t Plutonian, you
can’t deal with the death-birth-and rebirth that all creativity demands of us.
Example: The typical scene in the movie of the frustrated writer, back in the
olden days of typewriters. He or she just can’t get it right, rips the paper
out of the carriage, balls it up and throws it in the trash. If she’s really at
wits end, she stomps on it or kicks the garbage can.
This may be hard to
believe, but I never recall suffering from writer’s block—ever. (If anything, I
need help turning off the faucet.) The expression itself, writer’s block, tells
what needs to be healed—a blockage. (Time for Chiron!) While I know that actual
manicotti is best served stuffed with delicious ricotta cheese and drowned in
marinara or meat sauce (I was raised by an Italian mama, after all), the
metaphorical tube in Manicotti Mind must remain completely open.
The belief that you have to fill the empty page solely from content that you draw out of yourself is the cause of writer’s block.
When you open to let to
the entire cosmos whisper in your ear and stuff ideas into the noodle in your
noodle—or even send wires over your dental work, anything is possible! Even
these last few paragraphs.
Creativity requires a lot
of Jupiter, too. You’ve got to be willing to make a fool of yourself—and to
laugh at yourself. Some of the best things you’ll ever write, paint, sing,
dance—name your medium—will come from being crazy, wacky, and telling Saturn to
take a powder. Saturn can come back when he’s done playing fuddy-duddy and is
ready to help you where he counts most—in bringing your creations into usable
form.
Chiron remains a Saturn-to-Uranus
bridge in this case, too. Chiron can help you translate some of the
farthest-out ideas into something that the middle of the bell curve can
understand, if that’s your audience. And if your audience is on the other
extremes, he’ll show you how to simplify or leave the material uncut for people
on the cutting edge.
The best writing exercises
I’ve ever done are called Brain Warmers. Brain Warmers are a kind of morning
coffee to wake up the creative juices and get them flowing. They can be adapted
to any medium of self-expression. Brain Warmers more than let Pandora out of my
creativity box; they blew up the box.
Brain Warmers
- Take any book, newspaper, magazine or printed material. At random, open any page and point at a word. This is your first word. Write it down. Omit articles, prepositions, conjunctions and all “little” words. Stick to nouns, adjectives, and verbs—but primarily nouns. You’ll need at least one noun, and you may choose to do only nouns. Another option: use a Random Word Generator.
- Repeat process until you have written three words.
- You will be writing a paragraph that includes these three words. The first word must be in the first sentence. You can modify the form of the word to fit your context. Example: I drew preservation from my Sabian Symbols book. If preservation doesn’t work right, preserving or a variation of form is OK, but stick as much as possible to the original.
- Set a timer for 1.5 minutes. Write fast and without worry about who will see it or how it comes out. Just let ideas flow. Edit nothing.
- When the alarm goes off, STOP. You can finish your thought after you reread your paragraph, if there’s a sentence that’s not yet completed.
 |
| Undressed and Unrehabilitated |
The mannequins were in various states of undress. I don’t know why it bothered me. I guess it’s because I’m a rehabilitated nudist. I just can’t bare seeing others romp in the all together, even if they’re just big, inanimate dolls. I guess I’m tired of the intimation, even to myself, that I might be a little “preverted,” as my friend Nancy used to say. Still, I have to admit, I’m happy I’ve decided to go back to clothes. I like fashion. We’re back to the mannequins, aren’t we?
Given I’m a Virgo, the
chances of my actually ever being—or having been—a nudist are nil. That’s what
makes brain warmers so much fun. They can be total fantasy, silly—and no one ever
has to look at them but you. They open the channel for creativity, and the
carryover is contagious to your writing.
You could do the same
thing as an artist: find three words and include them in a sketch concept, or
write a story first and draw or paint that scene. As a dancer, dance the three
words or a story you derive from them. A singer can work their story into
lyrics. An instrument musician can use the words to stir up a song or choose
three random notes and work them into a theme. What this exercise does is show
you how to remix those fragments from One Mind and make something new from
them.
I’ve already talked about
Sun, Moon, Mercury, Jupiter, Saturn, Chiron, Uranus, and Pluto. I can’t leave
out Venus and Mars. Creativity is an expression of love (Venus) and many say
Venus rules creativity. She certainly inspires us. Also from Venus’s realm: to
touch and relate to others is a large part of why most of us create. Mars gives
us the passion and desire to deliver our creativity and the juice to run that
sky-to-earth interface creation requires. Creativity can take a lot of energy,
and managing creative energy without burnout is a constant challenge for me—and
a whole other article.
Creativity is a dialogue between your uniqueness and the unlimited potential of the universe.
Finally, all this dancing
with idea fragments must come through you. You’re the other end of the funnel,
the end of synthesis. You will express your creativity in a way no one but you
can do. It’s a dialogue between uniqueness—yours—and the unlimited potential of
the universe. Creativity, in my experience, includes all the planets, given
back through your shining Sun and all the unique astrological Mandala of You.
Anyone can be creative. As
with any other skill, creativity takes practice to do it well. It takes a
willingness to give Saturn the boot when he interferes, and any of the other
planets when they’re ornery, and a commitment to embrace them, quirks and all,
as part of the process.
Creativity is simply the cosmic
life force, brought down to Earth, through you.
~~~
~~~
Mannequins © marcoguidi - Fotolia.com
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