Books about Creativity

New Releases on Creativity

One click way to call up the New Releases on Creativity from Barnes and Noble.

Altered States: Creativity Under the Influence - Jim Hughes 1999

Amazon Synopsis: This provocative study takes readers on the ultimate creative trip, exploring in depth the heightened states of mind that give rise to art. The book considers how the components of creativity--awareness, energy, loss of self-consciousness--are affected by stimuli to the brain such as meditative rituals, alcohol, and drugs. The impact of altered states on Samuel Coleridge, William Faulkner, Jackson Pollock, and other creative giants is explored, as is the role drugs play in group creativity--jazz, blues music, experimental theater, film. Also discussed are pop icons such as Little Richard, Bob Dylan, John Lennon, Jimi Hendrix, and Jerry Garcia and the visionary, surreal quality often associated with their music, describing ecstatic experience or demonic worlds.

Art Heals: How Creativity Cures the Soul - Shaun McNiff 2004

Amazon Synopsis: The field of art therapy is discovering that artistic expression can be a powerful means of personal transformation and emotional and spiritual healing. In this book, Shaun McNiff, a leader in expressive arts therapy for more than three decades, reflects on a wide spectrum of activities aimed at reviving art's traditional healing function. In chapters ranging from "Liberating Creativity" and "The Practice of Creativity in the Workplace" to "From Shamanism to Art Therapy," he illuminates some of the most progressive views in the rapidly expanding field of art therapy:

• The "practice of imagination" as a powerful force for transformation
• A challenge to literal-minded psychological interpretations of artworks ("black colors indicate depression") and the principle that even disturbing images have inherent healing properties
• The role of the therapist in promoting an environment conducive to free expression and therapeutic energies
• The healing effects of group work, with people creating alongside one another and interacting in the studio
• "Total expression," combining arts such as movement, storytelling, and drumming with painting and drawing

Art Is a Way of Knowing - Pat B. Allen 1995

Amazon Synopsis: Making art—giving form to the images that arise in our mind's eye, our dreams, and our everyday lives—is a form of spiritual practice through which knowledge of ourselves can ripen into wisdom. This book offers encouragement for everyone to explore art making in this spirit of self-discovery—plus practical instructions on material, methods, and activities such as ways to:

• Discover a personal myth or story
• Recognize patterns and themes in one's life
• Identify and release painful memories
• Combine journaling and image making
• Practice the ancient skill of active imagination
• Connect with others through sharing one's art works

Interwoven with this guidance is the intimate story of the author's own journey as a student, art therapist, teacher, wife, mother, and artist—and, most of all, as a woman who discovered a profound and healing connection with her soul through making art.

The Artist's Way - Julia Cameron 2002

Amazon Synopsis: The Artist’s Way is one of the bestselling gift books of all time. Beautifully packaged with a slipcase and ribbon, this tenth anniversary gift edition is the ideal gift for loved ones engaged in creative lives.

Awakening the Creative Spirit: Bringing the Arts to Spiritual Direction - Betsey Beckman & Christine Valters Paintner 2010

Amazon Synopsis: The new resource is designed to help spiritual directors and others use expressive arts in the context of spiritual direction. It is the latest book in the unique Spiritual Directors International series, designed for professional spiritual directors, but also useful for clergy, therapists, and Christian formation specialists.

Breakthrough to Creativity: Your Higher Sense Perception - Shafica Karagulla 1968

Choice and Change: The Psychology of Holistic Growth, Adjustment, and Creativity – April O’Connell 1991

 

Concerning the Spiritual in Art - Wassily Kandinsky 1977

Amazon Synopsis: Pioneering work by the great modernist painter, considered by many to be the father of abstract art and a leader in the movement to free art from traditional bonds. Kandinsky's provocative thoughts on color theory and the nature of art. Analysis of Picasso, Matisse, and earlier masters. 12 illustrations. Read online or download free

The Complete Artist's Way: Creativity as a Spiritual Practice - Julia Cameron 2007

Amazon Synopsis: For the millions of readers who have experienced the rich rewards of following any or all of Julia Cameron's three twelve-week programs for creative recovery, here is a gorgeous cloth-bound edition that includes The Artist's Way, Walking in This World, and Finding Water. In her introduction, Cameron reflects on the artist's journey and provides deep insights into how readers may set about cultivating a more creative and spiritually rewarding existence by using the principles contained in these books.

Encompassing Cameron's most vital work from over the course of the last two decades, The Complete Artist's Way is an essential volume for Cameron's legions of fans.

This collector's edition features:

• a ribbon bookmark
• a cloth spine
• a printed case with debossing and foil
• elegant rough-front pages

The Courage to Create - Rollo May 1994

Amazon Synopsis: What if imagination and art are not, as many of us might think, the frosting on life, but the fountainhead of human experience? What if our logic and science derive from art forms, rather than the other way around?

In this trenchant volume, Rollo May helps all of us find those creative impulses that, once liberated, offer new possibilities for achievement.

A renowned therapist and inspiring guide, Dr. May draws on his experience to show how we can break out of old patterns in our lives. His insightful book offers us a way through our fears into a fully realized self.

The Creative Connection: Expressive Arts as Healing - Natalie Rogers 1993

Amazon Synopsis: Dr. Natalie Rogers has developed a process called the Creative Connection "RM" that interweaves all the expressive arts -- movement, sound, drawing, painting, writing, and guided imagery -- to tap into the deep wellspring of creativity within each of us. The aim is to reclaim ourselves and then help others reclaim themselves as actively playful, spirited, and conscious individuals. Rogers emphasizes the importance of psychological safety and freedom while using the creative arts. This reflects her extensive work with her father, Carl Rogers, and a deep belief in his person-centered approach to counseling.

Photos and art help demystify this process, and various exercises range from the simple to the complex. Natalie's practical suggestions aid counselors who want to add expressive arts to their regular sessions.

The Creative Habit: Learn It and Use It for Life - Twyla Tharp 2005

Amazon Synopsis: All it takes to make creativity a part of your life is the willingness to make it a habit. It is the product of preparation and effort, and is within reach of everyone. Whether you are a painter, musician, businessperson, or simply an individual yearning to put your creativity to use, The Creative Habit provides you with thirty-two practical exercises based on the lessons Twyla Tharp has learned in her remarkable thirty-five-year career.

In "Where's Your Pencil?" Tharp reminds you to observe the world -- and get it down on paper. In "Coins and Chaos," she gives you an easy way to restore order and peace. In "Do a Verb," she turns your mind and body into coworkers. In "Build a Bridge to the Next Day," she shows you how to clean the clutter from your mind overnight.

Tharp leads you through the painful first steps of scratching for ideas, finding the spine of your work, and getting out of ruts and into productive grooves. The wide-open realm of possibilities can be energizing, and Twyla Tharp explains how to take a deep breath and begin...

The Creative Journal: The Art of Finding Yourself - Lucia Capacchione 2001

Amazon Synopsis A recognized classic in the field of art therapy and creativity, this book is a perfect guide to discovering and releasing your inner potential through writing and drawing. It contains over 50 writing and drawing exercises to help you find and love one's self, get in touch with ones' feelings, and dreams.

It will also show you how to:

• Play with new media of expression (color, images, symbols)
• Sort out the seemingly random experiences in your life.
• Deal with creative blocks to get a clearer picture of your potential and how to use it.
• Define and implement changes.
• Enrich your relationship with yourself and others

Written for both novice and veteran journal keeper, as well as group leaders and counselors, it is a visually stunning book illustrated by the author, her students and clients.

 

The Creative License: Giving Yourself Permission to Be The Artist You Truly Are - Danny Gregory 2005

Amazon Synopsis: When Danny Gregory's life was turned upside down by tragedy, he learned to cope by teaching himself to draw. The result was a complete transformation of his life, his priorities, his career, and the way he saw the world. In handwritten chapters full of his lush watercolor illustrations, Danny now offers readers a program for reconnecting to their own creative energies, using drawing as an example. He gently instructs us in the art of allowing ourselves to fail, giving up the expectation of perfection and opening our eyes to the beauty around us. The result is the permission to express ourselves fully and take part in the creative process without fear. Artist or not, readers of all stripes will find inspiration in this unique and beautiful book.

The Creative Life: 7 Keys to Your Inner Genius - Eric Butterworth  2003

Amazon Synopsis: In The Creative Life, Eric Butterworth brings his spiritual insight to a unique exploration of the creative process. Within every person, he says, is hidden genius to which we give expression through commitment, discipline, and the enthusiasm that works with passion. Powerful and resonating with meaning, The Creative Life is sure to be a classic work of spirituality for years to come.

The Creativity Book: A Year's Worth of Inspiration and Guidance - Eric Maisel 2000

Amazon Synopsis: A complete creativity education in one volume. Everything you need to know to increase and unleash your creativity, by America's leading expert on the psychological side of creativity.

Whether you're a painter or a human resources manager, a novelist or an information services specialist, says Eric Maisel, whatever you do, creativity helps you do it better.

In this book, Maisel presents a complete one-year plan for unleashing your creativity. It uncludes two discussions/exercises per week, and culminates in a guided project of your choice--from working on your current novel to planning a new home business.

Creativity Unwrapped: A Spiritual Path to Making Money Making Art - Virginia Green 2008

Amazon Synopsis: Creativity Unwrapped is for the artists and healing artists among us who have actually finished something, or come close to it, and then put it away, unobserved. It is for those of us whose first really big canvas is rolled up under the bed. Those of us whose illustrated memoir of their experience of surviving breast cancer and how it drew their family together is sitting beautifully tied up with ribbon on the shelf. Those of us whose CD, well mastered and studio quality, sits in a box of a hundred in the garage. Those of us whose gorgeous head shots are in the linen cupboard behind the guest towels somewhere. The Artists in Waiting.

Creativity Unwrapped:

• Leads artists to understand the psychological strengths they already possess for promoting their creativity, and where they might need some help.
• Guides artists into a closer relationship with their audience in ways that will make their work more responsive without sacrificing creativity and innovation.
• Helps artists to discover their innate entrepreneurial abilities and use them to show their work.
• Teaches artists how to befriend a calculator, to build a creative business plan, to price their work, to design an idea that is inspiring and efficient.
• Gives detailed and practical information about advertising, networking, public relations, and other forms of communication, reminding the artist that everyone in these professions is an artist, too.
• Provides reflection on the value of play, rest, legacy, and giving back in the creative process.
• Incorporates a spiritual dimension into the artistic entrepreneurial process in an ecumenical and inspiring way.

Exploring the Levels of Creation – Sylvia Browne 2007

Amazon Synopsis: Have you ever wondered about life and Creation? Is there life after death? Why do we have to go through these trials and tribulations? Why do we have thoughts and dreams that run from the sublime to those that are nightmarish and bizarre? Why do goodness and evil go hand in hand in life … or do they?

The answers to these questions and more are brought to light by author and spiritual teacher Sylvia Browne.She once again shares her psychic gifts and years of research in order to enlighten us and give us more insights into God and the realities of life.

This time she tackles the structure of Creation by showing us that there is purpose and order in our sometimes seemingly chaotic world and existence. She outlines the structural levels of Creation of not only life as we know it; but the reality of the afterlife and the heretofore-unexplored structure of the Lower Levels of Creation. From the beautiful and perfect life of the Other Side to the wondrous, weird, and strange Lower Levels, to the everyday intricacies of life on this planet, Sylvia takes us on another journey of exploration and truth.

The Fiery Muse: Creativity and the Spiritual Quest - Teri Degler 1996

Amazon Synopsis: A young mother takes up meditation and discovers a hidden flair for art; a middle-aged homemaker opens to the voice of her inner spirit and develops into an internationally recognized poet; a down-and-out young actor incorporates his Native spiritual traditions into his work and eventually wins acclaim for both his acting and playwriting abilities.

Many people today find themselves on a spiritual path yearning for understanding of the mysteries of life and striving for a closer connection with the Divine. As part of the spiritual process, some individuals encounter powerful compulsions to express themselves creatively. And others experience an enigmatic, wonderful, and quite inexplicable increase in their creative abilities.

Teri Degler's personal and passionate exploration of the creative spiritual quest through the stories of present-day seekers is well supported by teaching from respected traditions such as Yoga, and balanced by the stories of historical creative geniuses, mystics and visionaries such as Rumi, St. Hildegard of Bingen, Walt Whitman and Johannes Brahms.

Also included are exercises in creative writing and visualization that offer helpful ways to find our own expressive abilities. By increasing inspiration and stilling the critical inner voice of resistance, we open ourselves to a more joy-filled existence.

Freeing the Creative Spirit: Drawing on the Power of Art to Tap the Magic and Wisdom Within - Adriana Diaz 1992

Amazon Synopsis: An art-as-spirituality sourcebook that integrates personal healing and renewal in a context of multicultural awareness, spiritual depth, and creative meditation -- for artists and non-artists alike.

Free Play: Improvisation in Life and Art - Stephen Nachmanovitch 1991

Amazon Synopsis: This book is about the inner sources of spontaneous creation. It is about where art in the widest sense comes from. It is about why we create and what we learn when we do. It is about the flow of unhindered creative energy: the joy of making art in all its varied forms.

Free Play is directed toward people in any field who want to contact, honor, and strengthen their own creative powers. It integrates material from a wide variety of sources among the arts, sciences, and spiritual traditions of humanity. Filled with unusual quotes, amusing and illuminating anecdotes, and original metaphors, it reveals how inspiration arises within us, how that inspiration may be blocked, derailed or obscured by certain unavoidable facts of life, and how finally it can be liberated - how we can be liberated - to speak or sing, write or paint, dance or play, with our own authentic voice.

The whole enterprise of improvisation in life and art, of recovering free play and awakening creativity, is about being true to ourselves and our visions. It brings us into direct, active contact with boundless creative energies that we may not even know we had.

Improv Wisdom: Don't Prepare, Just Show Up by Patricia Ryan Madson 2005

Amazon Synopsis: In an irresistible invitation to lighten up, look around, and live an unscripted life, a master of the art of improvisation explains how to adopt the attitudes and techniques used by generations of musicians and actors.

Let’s face it: Life is something we all make up as we go along. No matter how carefully we formulate a “script,” it is bound to change when we interact with people with scripts of their own. Improv Wisdom shows how to apply the maxims of improvisational theater to real-life challenges—whether it’s dealing with a demanding boss, a tired child, or one of life’s never-ending surprises. Patricia Madson distills thirty years of experience into thirteen simple strategies, including “Say Yes,” “Start Anywhere,” “Face the Facts,” and “Make Mistakes, Please,” helping readers to loosen up, think on their feet, and take on everything life has to offer with skill, chutzpah, and a sense of humor.

Inner Knowing: Consciousness, Creativity, Insight, and Intuition - Helen Palmer 1998

Amazon Synopsis: Inner Knowing illustrates that the human mind possesses the capability to consistently function at significantly high levels of perception, creativeness, and intuitiveness. Indeed, everyone has at one time in his life experienced a sense of mindful clarity that led to a Eureka! moment. In this latest addition to Tarcher's successful New Consciousness Reader series, Helen Palmer, author of The Enneagram, has compiled a collection of writings that explore such abilities and illustrate how they can be developed. Essays on exercising the mind, understanding synchronicity, experiencing "flow," establishing communication between the conscious and subconscious, utilizing the active imagination, listening to the body's feedback, and witnessing psychic displays of walking on fire, clairvoyance, and similar phenomena make up this enlightening, thought-provoking, and fascinating anthology.

Contributors include: Bruno Bettelheim, Jean Shinoda Bolen, Sylvia Boorstein, Pema Chodron, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, Betty Edwards, Erich Fromm, Daniel Goleman, Aldous Huxley, Carl Jung, Jack Kornfield, J. Krishnamurti, Philip Novak, Charles Tart, Montague Ullman, Frances Vaughan, Mark Waldman, and Roger Walsh. A sophisticated book representing the essence of the NCR series, Inner Knowing offers readers confidence in themselves as they reawaken subtle senses while learning to trust and utilize new ways of perceiving, knowing, and living.

Innersource: Channeling Your Unlimited Self – Kathleen Vande Kieft

Book Jacket: Channeling, the ability to make a contact with nonmaterial realities, has usually been associated with the few gifted individuals who practice it on a large scale - until now. Innersource teaches you how to connect with your higher self and your spirit guides, and to tap into the huge storehouse of power, information, and intuition that's available for the asking.

• Strengthen your psychic energies and meet your inner guides
• Gain valuable information through channeled writing
• Program your dreams to enhance your waking life
• Resolve conflicts in your personal relationships
• Use dozens of exercises - from meditation to visualization to affirmations - to dissolve problems, awaken creativity, and more!

Inspiring Creativity: An Anthology of Powerful Insights and Practical Ideas to Guide You to Successful Creating - Rick Benzel 2005

Amazon Synopsis: Inspiring Creativity is an anthology of essays by 22 professional creativity coaches. The articles explore a wide variety of issues that can help people undertaking any type of creative work. The back cover reads as follows: Whatever type of creative work you do – writing, painting, acting, dancing, composing, crafting, or inventing – Inspiring Creativity will transform your results. Written by 22 practicing creativity coaches, this anthology presents a fascinating array of thoughtful approaches, practical tips, and valuable insights to engage your mind and help you become a more productive, successful creator. You’ll learn how to give yourself permission to create, find muses to arouse your imagination, develop big ideas and techniques to work deeply, and find time to live your creativity every day. You’ll receive the encouragement and support you need to honor yourself and face the challenges of the creative life. Powerfully motivating, the 22 articles in Inspiring Creativity represent the collective wisdom of a diverse team of knowledgeable, sensitive coaches who stand ready to guide you to your full creative potential.

Inspiration: Your Ultimate Calling - Dr. Wayne Dyer 2007

Amazon Synopsis: There’s a voice in the universe calling each of us to remember our purpose—our reason for being here now, in this world of impermanence. The voice whispers, shouts, and sings to us that this experience of being in form, in space and time, knowing life and death, has meaning. The voice is that of inspiration, which is within each and every one of us.

In this groundbreaking book, Dr. Wayne W. Dyer explains how we’ve chosen to enter this world of particles and form. From our place of origin, in ways that we don’t readily comprehend now, we knew what we were coming here to accomplish, and we participated in setting this life process in motion. So why not think this same way? Why put the responsibility or blame on any one or any thing that’s not a part of us? On Earth we have the capacity of volition—we can choose—so let’s assume that we had the same capacity when we resided in the spiritual realm. We chose our physical body, and we chose the parents we needed for the trip. It doesn’t seem too great a stretch to move into the idea that we chose this life in concert with our Source.

Each chapter in this book is filled with specifics for living an inspired life. From a very personal viewpoint, Wayne Dyer offers a blueprint through the world of spirit to inspiration, your ultimate calling.

Life, Paint and Passion - Michell Cassou 1996

Amazon Synopsis: Life, Paint And Passion is a deeply involving approach to using the creative process as a tool for self-discovery. With vibrant and contagious enthusiasm, the authors liberate the reader's urge to create freely and spontaneously, as a painter or an artist in another medium, purely for the process of exploration, not for result.

With eloquence and simplicity, the authors encourage the reader to journey inward toward his or her authentic self and discover the unique intuition awaiting there. It is this intuition that provides all the tools the reader needs to crumble the barrier between the innermost self and its uncensored manifestation.

Through lively interviews with students, the authors explore painting as a practice that facilitates the ecstasy of unfettered expression. With simple brushes, a few dishes of paint, and this book, the reader will be able to coax the hidden self out of the heart and onto a paper.

Life, Paint And Passion is the result of nearly thirty years of intensive work with the painting process. It provides powerful insights into the act of creation, a solid base for facing and transcending creative blocks, and brings fresh perceptions and healing to life.

The Music Lesson: A Spiritual Search for Growth Through Music - Victor Wooten 2008

Amazon Synopsis: From Grammy-winning musical icon and legendary bassist Victor L. Wooten comes The Music Lesson, the story of a struggling young musician who wanted music to be his life, and who wanted his life to be great. Then, from nowhere it seemed, a teacher arrived.

Part musical genius, part philosopher, part eccentric wise man, the teacher would guide the young musician on a spiritual journey, and teach him that the gifts we get from music mirror those from life, and every movement, phrase, and chord has its own meaning...All you have to do is find the song inside.

The Nine Modern Day Muses (and a Bodyguard): 10 Guides to Creative Inspiration for Artists, Poets, Lovers and Other Mortals Wanting to Live a Dazzling Existence - Jill Badonsky 2007

Amazon Synopsis: The Nine Modern Day Muses (and a Bodyguard) are actually 10 powerful creativity principles in the guise of wise and playful Muses. Meet Aha-phrodite, the Muse of paying attention, Audacity, the Muse of uninhibited courage. Lull gives you permission to take a break from the process; Marge helps mortals defy fear and procrastination through small steps, ingenious structure, and common sense.

No Ordinary Time: The Rise of Spiritual Intelligence and Evolutionary Creativity - Jan Phillips 2011

Amazon Synopsis: Jan Phillips' Book of Hours is a tapestry of threads from the arts, science, sacred texts and her own mystical poetry. It is the story of one woman s journey from Catholicism to a new cosmology of global communion and co-creation. It is Rumi-meets-Teilhard, Catherine of Siena meets Dorothy Day a compelling illustration of how spiritual practice leads to heightened creativity leads to inspired evolutionary action. It s like being picked up by the shirtsleeves and carried to the mountaintop. It doesn't hurt but the view most certainly changes. A book to help you:

• evolve yourself forward as a spiritual and creative agent of change
• find out why you believe what you believe and update your mental software
• expand your intuitive and creative bandwidth
• discover meaningful ways to express your commitments
• clarify the distinctions between spirituality and religion.

Painting from the Source: Awakening the Artist's Soul in Everyone - Aviva Gold 1998

Amazon Synopsis: Imagine yourself painting with no hesitations, no conflicts. Your brush dips into pots of vibrantly colored paint; inner inspiration guides your hand into lines and shapes that find their perfect places on the paper . . .

Welcome! I'm Aviva Gold, your guide to the magic source. As children, all of us lived and painted intuitively. And as adults we can re-create the boundless joy of unselfconscious art by setting aside intellectual critique and self-doubt and reconnecting with the source. Remember standing at an easel as a child and painting in a trancelike state of wonder? Somewhere along the line this freedom gets trained out of us, and we are either categorized as artists or not.

Paint and remember! Return to the easel with the same childlike sense of play. My program is not about regimentation. Learn to let go of inhibitions, relinquish control, and embrace the source. Using simple materials--tempera paints, newsprint--paint without worrying about the end product.

Just let go, and begin! Every human being is an artist. In Bali, one word means both "human" and "artist." Just show up and face a blank piece of paper. Tap into the source. Revitalize! Transform! Now, imagine yourself painting . . .

The Painting Path: Embodying Spiritual Discovery Through Yoga, Brush and Color - Linda Novick 2007

Amazon Synopsis: What can you learn about yourself through painting? How can a piece of artwork reflect your own personality, beliefs and values? How can touching brush to canvas help you portray something about yourself that is otherwise inexpressible?

Delve into these questions and more in this imaginative, creative resource. Professional artist and beloved teacher Linda Novick leads you on an exploration of the divine connection you can experience through art. Each chapter includes a simple yoga-inspired breathing and stretching exercise to focus your mind and refresh your body, along with an original art project that helps you explore a theme essential to both your creativity and your spirituality. Whether you're a painting novice or an accomplished artist, no matter your faith and background, this engaging book has a place for you. Experience the joy of unbridled creativity!

Pencil Dancing: New Ways to Free Your Creative Spirit - Mari Messer 2001

Amazon Synopsis: Pencil Dancing offers writers fresh, useable information to inspire creative confidence, overcome blocks and tame their inner critics. They'll discover fun, yet effective ways to achieve satisfying creative expression and enrich their daily lives, approaching creativity from the point of view of a "dance" between conscious and unconscious, left and right brain, creator and critic, logic and creativity.

This book is divided into fifty short chapters, presented as if by an encouraging teacher or coach standing close at hand. Readers will find prompts, field trip activities, vivid imagery and methods that allow them to get out of their usual creative modes, helping them to conquer writer's block and other creative difficulties. This book is perfect for not only writers, but anyone who wants to become more creative!

The Spirit of Silence: Making Space for Creativity - John Lane 2006

Amazon Synopsis: The importance of emptying the mind has been recognised for millennia across a variety of cultures. Meditation is a way of life for millions; at the end of a Hindu's life, he renounces all and becomes a wandering ascetic, seeking union with God; and the Japanese tea ceremony provides an interlude of spiritual relaxation within lives rooted in activity.

Others find their creative inspiration in everyday activities such as gardening, walking, watching the sea, or listening to music. The Spirit of Silence is for those who wish to look beyond the speed and superficiality of our modern lifestyle to find depth and spiritual space. It is devoted to clearing the clutter from our minds, and to feeding the creative heart and soul.

 

Spiritual Creativity CD - Shawn Bolz, Paul Keith Davis, James Goll & John Paul Jackson 2004

Amazon Synopsis: In this enlightening series, authors Shawn Bolz, Paul Keith Davis, James Goll, and John Paul Jackson will propel you to seek and nurture God’s creative gifts. Listen as these authors share riveting experiences in heaven’s library rooms. Journey with them as they reveal their goals and achievements in the creative process. You will be infused with divine vision for your creative endeavors.

• Journey into heavenly library room filled with books, blueprints, artwork, sounds, and inventions that are filled with the mystery of love
• Grasp seven keys to visionary writing
• Learn about the scribe gift and the role of scribe angels
• Explore two spiritual issues that will affect the impact of your creative accomplishments

 

Spiritual Doodles and Mental Leapfrogs: Playbook for Unleashing Spiritual Self Expression - Katherine Q Revoir 2002

Amazon Synopsis: With a whimsical sense of fun and fancy that masks a much more serious quest to integrate your conscious and subconscious selves, Katherine Revoir has created a playbook full of exercises and games to ignite your best self -- both your rational, analytical, and logical (left brain) self and your intuitive, expressive, and creative (right brain) self. By using both halves of the brain, you can achieve more complete introspection and expand your spiritual consciousness.

Hand-lettered, lay-flat pages make doodling easy. The book begins with an exercise designed to access inner guidance, creating a pathway for finding your own unique formula for self-expression. Spiritual Doodles and Mental Leapfrogs gives readers a private, powerful tool to experiment with creativity, to try something new, and to grow spiritually.

Unintentional Music: Releasing Your Deepest Creativity - Lane Arye 2002

Amazon Synopsis: The last time you whistled a tune or hummed a song-why did you choose that one? You may not consider yourself a musical person, but your little act of unintended music may be the key to unlocking within you a wealth of unsuspected creativity-a kind of creativity that goes way beyond music, too.

Lane Arye, PhD, a musician himself, focuses on the music that people do not intend to make. Using the highly regarded psychological model called Process Work, developed by Arnold Mindell, PhD, Arye has been teaching students around the world how to awaken their creativity, using music as the starting point, but including all art forms and ways of expression.

The unintentional appears at moments when some hidden part of us, something beyond our usual awareness, suddenly tries to express itself. If we start paying attention to what is trying to happen rather than to what we think should happen, we open the door to self-discovery and creativity. Sometimes what we regard as "mistakes" in self-expression are in fact treasures.

The book is rich with real-life stories, ideas, and practical techniques for unlocking creativity, which Arye dispenses with humor, insight, and enthusiasm.

Walking On Water: Reading, Writing And Revolution - Derrick Jensen 2005

Amazon Synopsis: Remember the days of longing for the hands on the classroom clock to move faster? Most of us would say we love to learn, but we hated school. Why is that? What happens to creativity and individuality as we pass through the educational system? “Walking on Water” is a startling and provocative look at teaching, writing, creativity, and life by a writer increasingly recognized for his passionate and articulate critique of modern civilization. This time Derrick Jensen brings us into his classroom--whether college or maximum security prison--where he teaches writing. He reveals how schools perpetuate the great illusion that happiness lies outside of ourselves and that learning to please and submit to those in power makes us into lifelong clock-watchers.

As a writing teacher Jensen guides his students out of the confines of traditional education to find their own voices, freedom, and creativity. Jensen's great gift as a teacher and writer is to bring us fully alive at the same moment he is making us confront our losses and count our defeats. It is at the center of “Walking on Water,” a book that is not only a hard-hitting and sometimes scathing critique of our current educational system and not only a hands-on method for learning how to write, but, like Julia Cameron's “The Artist's Way,” a lesson on how to connect to the core of our creative selves, to the miracle of waking up and arriving breathless (but with dry feet) on the far shore.

What We Ache For: Creativity and the Unfolding of Your Soul - Oriah Mountain Dreamer 2005

Amazon Synopsis: In her previous books, Oriah Mountain Dreamer has challenged readers to live with passion and honesty, to embrace the true, fallible, human self. What We Ache For is a moving and eloquent call to delve deeply into our creative selves, to do our creative work, and offer it to the world.

The creative process is essential to human nature. It is as essential as spirituality and sexuality, and in fact all three are deeply intertwined. What We Ache For is a practical book allowing readers to embrace the urgency and necessity of their creativity, whatever their medium -- writing, painting, sculpture, dance, music, or film. As Oriah says, "Doing creative work allows us to follow the thread of what we ache for into a deeper life, offering us a way to cultivate a life of making love to the world."

Following Oriah through this journey in such chapters as "The Seduction of the Artist," "Learning to See," and "Risk and Sacrifice," What We Ache For challenges and inspires readers to fully embrace their artistic selves as a way of forging a path of spiritual unfolding.

Wild Heart Dancing - Eliezer Sobel 1994

Amazon Synopsis: There is creative genius inside of you just waiting to get out. Wild Heart Dancing shows you how to free that innovative spirit by spending a day playing with words, music, songs, dance, and paints. You don't need to be artistic to benefit from the teachings of Elliot Sobel, you just need to open up and take the time to try you hand at new ways of expressing yourself.

Elliot Sobel's step-by-step program will help you to explore all aspects of the creative process and discover abilities you may not know you have. A fun and refreshing break from your usual routine, a day with Wild Heart Dancing will help you to rediscover your passion for living and tap into your own artistic powers.

Writing the Natural Way - Gabriele Lusser Rico 2000

Amazon Synopsis: Writing the Natural Way, first published fifteen years ago, has shown hundreds of thousands of readers how to turn the task of writing into the joy of writing. Completely revised, newly illustrated, and with a wealth of updated, field-tested exercises, this popular classic will help unlock natural writing styles and storytelling abilities.

Zen in the Art of Writing - Ray Bradbury 1992

Amazon Synopsis: "Every morning I jump out of bed and step on a land mine. The land mine is me. After the explosion, I spend the rest of the day putting the pieces back together. Now, it's your turn. Jump!" Zest. Gusto. Curiosity. These are the qualities every writer must have, as well as a spirit of adventure. In this exuberant book, the incomparable Ray Bradbury shares the wisdom, experience, and excitement of a lifetime of writing. Here are practical tips on the art of writing from a master of the craft-everything from finding original ideas to developing your own voice and style-as well as the inside story of Bradbury's own remarkable career as a prolific author of novels, stories, poems, films, and plays.

Zen In The Art Of Writing is more than just a how-to manual for the would-be writer: it is a celebration of the act of writing itself that will delight, impassion, and inspire the writer in you. In it, Bradbury encourages us to follow the unique path of our instincts and enthusiasms to the place where our inner genius dwells, and he shows that success as a writer depends on how well you know one subject: your own life.

The Zen of Creativity: Cultivating Your Artistic Life - John Daido Loori 2005

Amazon Synopsis: For many of us, the return of Zen conjures up images of rock gardens and gently flowing waterfalls. We think of mindfulness and meditation, immersion in a state of being where meaning is found through simplicity. Zen lore has been absorbed by Western practitioners and pop culture alike, yet there is a specific area of this ancient tradition that hasn’t been fully explored in the West. Now, in The Zen of Creativity, American Zen master John Daido Loori presents a book that taps the principles of the Zen arts and aesthetic as a means to unlock creativity and find freedom in the various dimensions of our existence. Loori dissolves the barriers between art and spirituality, opening up the possibility of meeting life with spontaneity, grace, and peace.

Zen Buddhism is steeped in the arts. In spiritual ways, calligraphy, poetry, painting, the tea ceremony, and flower arranging can point us toward our essential, boundless nature. Brilliantly interpreting the teachings of the artless arts, Loori illuminates various elements that awaken our creativity, among them still point, the center of each moment that focuses on the tranquility within; simplicity, in which the creative process is uncluttered and unlimited, like a cloudless sky; spontaneity, a way to navigate through life without preconceptions, with a freshness in which everything becomes new; mystery, a sense of trust in the unknown; creative feedback, the systematic use of an audience to receive noncritical input about our art; art koans, exercises based on paradoxical questions that can be resolved only through artistic expression. Loori shows how these elements interpenetrate and function not only in art, but in all our endeavors.

Beautifully illustrated and punctuated with poems and reflections from Loori’s own spiritual journey, The Zen of Creativity presents a multilayered, bottomless source of insight into our creativity. Appealing equally to spiritual seekers, artists, and veteran Buddhist practitioners, this book is perfect for those wishing to discover new means of self-awareness and expression—and to restore equanimity and freedom amid the vicissitudes of our lives.

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