The creative spirit makes use of everything that happens to a person. It sees beyond the limitations of the immediate situation and uses adversity as a source of inspiration. It thrives on challenge. We might go in search of visions, but the process of seeking is a preparation for a new way of approaching life. The defining quality of the visionary is a desire to change the world in a positive way. The vision is a sense of what can be, and the visionary has a confidence that it will happen together with a willingness to commit everything to the idea. Visions are a sense of possibility and never rigid scripts. They grow from a person’s longing and interactions with the world. No doubt you will see that life is a movement in and out of  creative inspiration. The vision must be lost in order to be regained and refashioned. Loss and longing are preconditions of creation. The inner life is constructed from the images perceived in the physical world. What we see shapes us. Visions do befall us, as tribal peoples believed, but in my experience they are shaped incrementally through the total range of our life experiences. The vision doesn’t simply arrive one day, from above, and without connections to our previous experiences with the world……..Shaun McNiff

do we create our reality? where do we envision the edge of an abyss? what little nuances in our day feed the deep soul? is possibility the shaping force behind authenticity? what lies behind a mood? does deep presence lie behind those shadows?

I like to suffer as much as the next guy. On my wall is a photo of Franz Kafka with the caption ‘There is hope, but not for us.’ I believe this is true. But as I approach the end of my first year of meditation (erratically, so erratically) and have attended two very very short silent retreats, I believe something else is possible. An attendant joy. An attendant happiness. And though the last thing we want to tell Kafka is to lighten up it is not simple-minded to be happy. Well, sometimes. My beginner’s brain is prone to positive thoughts. Seeing the impermanence of all moods. Enjoying the idea, the fact, of being alive. End of story. And when I die and become the rain, let me not be a raging miserable storm. Let me be instead a refreshing, tender, loving shower. But I am not sure I will have a choice…….Maira Kalman

warp speed to happiness

The truth is always an abyss. One must — as in a swimming pool — dare to dive from the quivering springboard of trivial everyday experience and sink into the depths, in order to later rise again — laughing and fighting for breath — to the now doubly illuminated surface of things…..Franz Kafka