Sourcing creativity

Another word for creativity is courage. George Prince

I have always believed that we are all born with some creativity. It's just life, environment, circumstances that get in the way of our expression of our creative source.

Life is a creative journey. The more attuned, open, aware of our creative essence, the more attuned, open and aware we are of our journey.

Harry Palmer, founder of The Avatar, writes, "Living deliberately requires courage, wisdom, and ambition. At the core of courage is the ability to perceive what is, as it is, while staying present and aware. You do not run away and hide. At the core of wisdom is the ability to predict the long-term consequences of actions, and human reactions they will cause. At the core of ambition is vigorous, focused effort. Increase these qualities, keep them balanced, and you will recover your power to create and shape realities."

Because ultimately, being creative allows us to create realities that nurture, nourish and replenish us out of any circumstance life dishes up.

When I let my creative self free, I am creative in my perception, experience and expression of life, in all its ups and downs, challenges and opportunities.

And that includes, the challenge of finding a stream of ants marching across my kitchen floor. Which is what happened last night. At first, I thought they must have appeared from the flowers I'd bought and clipped on the kitchen counter before putting them in water.

But there were so many of them!

And then I remembered. That morning I had opened a cupboard to give Marley some treats and without thinking about what I was doing (hello? can you spells Zen practice?), I took a container of juice powder out and poured a cup on the floor. Don't ask me why. I don't have a clue (where i my Zen when I need it?) -- which was apparent in the fact that I poured the crystals on the floor! I quickly swept up the mess and took a swipe at the floor thinking, I'll clean it properly when I get home... I had a 9am meeting I needed to get to.

Ants are opportunistic hunters and situational advantage takers. And, they're obviously of a service mentality. They just wanted to clean my floor for me.

Which means, rather than coming home from my walk with Ellie and relaxing and meditating and writing, I was cleaning the floor, the counters, cupboards and at the store buying ant traps and spray and....

I have one clean kitchen -- and this morning, no visible ants.

Which made me think.... they must be living all around us and we just can't see them. Without sustenance on the kitchen floor, they don't appear. But put a tempting sweet powder out... and voila! Ants galore.

As I cleaned, I was not very happy. Especially after I put my glasses on and saw they weren't really as tiny as I thought! They really were ants, not little mini-ants as I supposed.

Not feeling happy, grumbling as I cleaned, I decided, if I'm going to have to de-ant the kitchen, I'll have fun while de-anting.

And so, I put on some wild music and danced my way through my cleaning. It took my mind off the 'fact' of ants in my kitchen and it left me breathless and feeling lighter and less stressed at the end of the kitchen detox.

Detoxifying my kitchen floor and my mind -- that place where tiny ants of angst scurry around in search of sweet sticky and not so healthy substances to carry around on their backs, back to their nest where they feed a colony of other ants looking for the opportunity to scurry around and sniff out more sweet sticky and sickly thoughts for consumption!

In my dance, I became part of the circle of creation. I created the mess. The ants consumed it and I cleaned it up.

I really was sorry to have to kill the ants -- ok -- that's not true. I wasn't sorry at all. I do not like ants in my kitchen. or in my pants. Or plants. Or anywhere for that matter. I do not like ants.

I don't' generally kill them elsewhere but... in my home. It's a no ant zone! Ants beware. Get out of there and go back to the garden.

This morning, I have a sparkling clean kitchen and a sense of accomplishment. I cleaned the ants out while dancing my pants off!

Have a creative day being your most creative self. Let loose your imagination. whatever life brings you, dance it out!

And if you have a moment, go visit Maureen at Writing without Paper. She's posted a wonderful blog on modern dancer, Anna Halprin. I want to be like her when I'm eighty-four!