owl in flight

Writing or creativity of any kind is a mysterious process, a journey into deep and unchartered waters. What you need is a compass… the Tarot.

Category: Writing

Are You Ready to Harvest?

At the beginning of this month is the holiday of Lammas, or Lughnasadh (named after the Celtic god of skilled workers and craftsmen, Lugh), a holiday that celebrates the growth and harvest of the grain, especially in the form of bread and grain. This holiday is the first of several

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Spontaneity: A Necessary Quality for Creativity

Spontaneity, the hallmark of childhood, is well worth cultivating to counteract the rigidity that may otherwise set in as we grow older. ~ Gail Sheehy ~ The fun stuff comes when someone is not so strict on sticking to the script. You’re allowed the spontaneity, and great moments can happen.

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Writing Lessons from Shoveling Snow

Recently, our area was hit by a snowstorm that dumped two feet of snow on us. A typical later winter storm, the snow was heavy with moisture. It’s great for packing and building snowmen but not so great for clearing off sidewalks and driveways. I’d planned to attend a writer’s

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Rest Your Creative Mind–It’s the Season

True silence is the rest of the mind, and is to the spirit what sleep is to the body, nourishment and refreshment. ~ William Penn ~ I get a lot of the ideas when I’m resting – either when I’m meditating or getting some kind of work done on my

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Empathy–The Gift of Story

I believe that stories are incredibly important, possibly in ways we don’t understand… in giving us empathy and in creating the world that we live in. ~ Neil Gaiman ~ Even though it is a new year, the struggle to live with and make sense of the world and its

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Liam Neeson as Muse…in a Dream

We are never more fully alive, more completely ourselves, or more deeply engrossed in anything, than when we are at play. ~ Charles E. Schaefer ~ Recently, I had one of those dreams that makes you pay attention, even though this one was more fragment than a full dream. You

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Are You Dirty Dancing with the Muse?

One of my all-time favorite movies (in fact, I confess to watching it at least a dozen times) is Dirty Dancing, written by Eleanor Bergstein, directed by Emile Ardolino, and starring Jennifer Grey as Francis “Baby” Houseman and hunky Patrick Swayze as Johnny Castle. There are so many reasons to

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Creativity Means Broken Rules

Recently, Bob and I spent a weekend in Virginia with our grandsons and son Stephen and daughter-in-law Mindy. The two boys, Andrew and Ryan are now 5 ½ and 3 ½ and our interactions with them has changed. Instead of bouncing, lifting, carrying, swinging and all those other physical actions

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‘Tis the Season to Thank Your Muse

My theory is you shouldn’t apologize for believing in an idea-channeling muse. You should just be sure to feed her. ~ Laurie Seidler~ Whenever I teach dream work to writers or others, I remind them to practice gratefulness for their dreams and dream messengers by taking some kind of immediate

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