The 12 Secrets of Highly Creative Women. Gail McMeekin
Olsen, the international fashion design firm.
Rebecca Parris: Internationally known jazz singer, singing coach, teacher, and lecturer.
Christina Pickles: Emmy Award-nominated actress for her role as Judy Geller in Friends. She recently appeared in the films The Wedding Singer and Nerds in Love IV. She is a frequent television guest star, acting teacher, and screenwriter.
C. C. H. Pounder: Emmy Award-nominated actress who plays Dr. Angela Hicks on ER and has also starred in theater and films, including Bagdad Café, Prizzi's Honor, Postcards from the Edge, and All that Jazz. She is also a jewelry designer and co-owner of Banji Face Jewelry, which makes one-of-a-kind Afrocentric jewelry with a European flair, as well as cofounder of a cultural museum in Dakar, Senegal, West Africa.
Joanne Rossman: Scarf and women's accessory designer, antique dealer, and writer.
Cathleen Rountree: Writer and educator, visual artist and photographer, cultural mythologist and film historian, and the author of On Women Turning 40, On Women Turning 50, On Women Turning 60, On Women Turning 70, The Heart of Marriage, and Cinema and Psyche: How the Movies Mirror Our Minds. She is currently completing a Ph.D. in Mythological Studies and Psychology.
Alison Shaw: Landscape and editorial photographer, known for her photography of Martha's Vineyard, and author of Remembrance and Light: Images of Martha's Vineyard, Vineyard Summer, and a children's book, Until I Saw The Sea.
Barbara Sher: Career consultant and author of the bestsellers Wishcraft, I Could Do Anything if Only I Knew What It Was, How to Live the Life You Love, and her new book, It's Only Too Late If You Don't Start Now.
Lydia Shire: Renowned chef and owner of Biba's and Pignoli's, two of Boston's finest restaurants.
Lesley Irene Shore, Ph.D.: Licensed psychologist and author of Healing the Feminine: Reclaiming Woman's Voice and Tending Inner Gardens: The Healing Art of Feminist Psychology.
Sidra Stone, Ph.D.: Internationally known teacher, psychotherapist, and author of The Shadow King: The Invisible Force That Holds Women Back. With her husband, Hal Stone, Ph.D., she co-created the Voice Dialogue technique that is described in their bestselling books Embracing Ourselves, Embracing Each Other, and Embracing Your Inner Critic.
Marilyn Veltrop, Ph.D.: Transformational coach and guide to business leaders, as well as cofounder, with her husband, Bill Veltrop, of PathFinders, a consulting company.
Barbara Waugh, Ph.D.: Manager of worldwide personnel, Hewlett-Packard Labs, Hewlett-Packard Company; former director of Center for Women and Religion, Graduate Theological Union; board member for State of the World Forum; associate for Global Fund for Women; and a social activist for diversity issues as well as initiator of numerous creative projects.
Lynne Waymon: Professional speaker, networking guru, and author of 52 Ways to Reconnect, Smart Networking, No More Cold Calls, and How To Fireproof Your Career.
Carmella Yager: An artist and painter whose work has been exhibited widely and purchased for both public and private collections, she also teaches at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston and North Shore Community College in Massachusetts, in addition to conducting private studio lessons and painting retreats.
Marcia Yudkin, Ph.D.: Writing and marketing consultant and author of nine nonfiction books, numerous audiotapes, and an upcoming PBS series on amateur musicians.
The intent of this book has always been to share the inspirations of these remarkable creative women with you, as sisters, in a guidebook format to spark your creative unfolding. May these secrets direct you, your daughters, and nieces, and all the women of future generations toward your voice of creativity, urge you to follow where it leads, and help it flourish. The planet needs our collective feminine creative energies. Let us dare to share our knowing.
SECRET 2
Honoring Your Inspirations
In order to access your creativity, you must validate and capture your inspirations. These inspirations are precious seedlings awaiting nurturance.
Cultivating Attractions
Practicing Play
Communing with Your Senses and Nature
Taking Time to Capture Your Ideas
Creating a Sanctuary
Inventing Rituals
If you have a passion for something, it has an energy to it.
—JUNE LEVINSON, CERAMIST
It all begins with attraction. Creative inspirations seduce us with the power of a magnet. They lure you, charm you, tempt you, and captivate your attention. Whether it's an idea, a notion, a hunch, a whim, an impulse, a thought, an intuition, a sensation, or a feeling, an inspiration can be any stimulus that pulls you into your creative self. Like passion, creative attractions can be tantalizing. Uniquely yours, inspirations invite you into the world of creative possibility. How do you respond when an inspiration beckons? Do you accept the invitation or discount it? By honoring a personal impulse and following where it leads, creativity is born.
Cultivating Attractions
In my correspondence with cantadora, Jungian analyst, and author Dr. Clarissa Pinkola Estés, best known for her blockbuster book, Women Who Run with the Wolves, I asked her to describe her creative awakening. She replied, “I was born awake in this one way. In my opinion, anyone born in a creatively awakened condition deserves both congratulations and condolences.” To the question, “Where do you get your ideas,” she responded, “I do not have ideas. Ideas have me.”
Imagination is the highest kite we can fly.
—LAUREN BACALL, ACTRESS
Inviting your creative inspirations into your consciousness alters the course of your life. Being willing to be creatively awake is a choice and not always an easy one. If we choose to invest in our creative self, challenges lie in wait. If we follow our inspirations, we align ourselves with our life-force and pursue a path that emanates from our very being.
Inspiration is not just the domain of the ingenious. As innovation consultant Pam Moore says, “We all have the software to be creative; we've just forgotten how to use it.” By keeping our intuitive channels and our senses open to discovery, we can capture our unique inspirations. However, that's easier said than done. In the madness of this frantic workaholic era, it is far too easy to rush by the roses and never see the world around you. Too many women are overwhelmed by the awesome responsibilities of home, work, and relationships, and have lost touch with their creative voice.
In order to relate to your environment and capture your innocent thoughts or visions, you need to listen, observe, and stay centered. This capacity to linger in the unknown and see what happens is the passage to your creative self.
Practicing Play
In addition to receptivity and time, we must also grant ourselves the freedom to play creatively. Painter Michelle Cassou, founder of an original approach to creative painting described in her book, Life, Paint, and Passion, and cofounder of The Painting Experience Studio in San Francisco, urges aspiring creatives to “recover the capacity to invent that you had as a child.” In fact, as a young Frenchwoman, Michelle searched unsuccessfully for the right art school and was even advised to give up painting. Luckily, at the age of nineteen, she discovered the Free Expression School in Paris for children ages five to fourteen and wept with delight. Forsaking traditional art school, Michelle simply painted with the children for three and a half years, basking in their freedom and lack of judgment. As a result,