Creativity & Manifesting Your Dreams

    

Today, I’m going to share some excerpts from a recent essay I sent with my newsletter, PINK DANDELIONS. Not because I don’t want to write something specific for Type M, but because this is what I’m thinking about this week and anything new I tried to write would probably just rehash all this anyway. 

The force that through the green fuse drives the flower 

Drives my green age; that blasts the roots of trees 

Is my destroyer. 

And I am dumb to tell the crooked rose 

My youth is bent by the same wintry fever. 

 –Dylan Thomas Lately 

I’ve been thinking about what I call “the creative energy of the universe,” what it is, how it operates without and within us, whether it’s simply a phrase to explain the inexplicable–OUR inexplicable–drive to create, thrive, succeed, manifest, or if it is actually somewhere, substantive, other, extra, above. 

    Can we find ways to connect with it or tap into it or use the force, I wonder? Or is it simply a concept? A wordy way to explain an ephemeral feeling that there must be something out there besides ourselves, or something within ourselves beyond flesh? Or both? 

     I believe in manifestation–tapping into the creative energy to make things happen as you want them to. Manifestation is inspiration (one kind of energy) plus action (a different kind of energy). If you set your sights on an accomplishment and take actions to help yourself as best you can, you end up accomplishing your goal, often through circumstances you couldn’t predict.

    That doesn’t mean something magical happened in the sense that saying a prayer or casting a spell made it happen just POOF! Prayers and spells are ways we focus our intentions. If we focus our intentions, we make certain choices in our actions. Our actions cause reactions, often leading to what we envisioned. 

     It’s kind of simple, really. 

    One thing I’m pretty sure of: You can’t really manifest if you don’t know what you want. 

     Now that I’ve accomplished the goal of becoming a published author, I’m not sure what I want. I have a dollar amount in mind for earnings. It’s modest. I don’t want to be famous, but I do want a loyal readership for whom I can create beautiful, entertaining, and uplifting stories. Also a modest number. What I don’t know is how I want to move toward these goals. 

     Traditional publishing? Indie publishing? Selling on Amazon? Selling from my own online shop? Creating a Patreon? Getting an agent? 

     It’s hard to envision the path forward. I’m in a holding pattern. I’m confused. I’m uncertain. I’m a pool a stagnant water. The force isn’t blasting against my roots or driving the flower of creativity through the green stem. 

     Here are some steps I’m going to use to move forward. 

     First, I’m going to get into a regular exercise, meditation, and journaling routine. Eating fewer carbs–especially sugar and pasta–usually helps with any brain fog I’m experiencing. 

     Second, using journaling and visualization and a vision board, I will figure out what I want my personal life and career to look like by this time next year, the year after, and five years from now. If you don’t know where you want to go, you will end up somewhere you probably don’t want to be. This step is crucial. 

     Third, with these outcomes in mind, I will think up definite steps to take and will work toward them every day. Calendar journals work well for this step. 

     Fourth, I will celebrate milestones and actions taken. 

     With some concrete inspiration and goals plus action steps to take, I believe I can create the creative literary and personal life I imagine. Maybe these steps will inspire you as well. Remember, creativity comes in many forms: art, home decor, cooking, writing. You can even see your LIFE as a work of art, one you create every day, each day a brushstroke on the canvas.

Thistledown Time

Don Koozer, age 2, Enid, Oklahoma (click to make larger)

Happy Canada Day yesterday to all my beloved Canadian friends, and happy Independence Day this weekend to my compatriots. I hope all the celebrations go off without a hitch. The world has been a sad and scary place lately, as my blogmates have noted over the past weeks. Sometimes it feels like everyone on earth has lost his mind and we wonder what awful thing could possibly happen next. Of course the world has always been a scary place, and humanity as a whole has never been particularly sane. But that fact doesn't make it feel any better when the next insane event occurs. So for the summer holidays, allow me to take you back to what seemed like a more innocent time. Though the truth is maybe we were just more innocent.

The following is a poem by Donald Koozer, who happens to be my husband. This work first appeared in his book of collected poetry entitled The Road, from Bellowing Ark Press. This particular poem is a celebration of Americana and a remembrance of an American boyhood. Enjoy the holiday, and have some watermelon and corn on the cob.

THE PLAINS

It was a thistledown time for a boy,
A time of white frame houses
With porch swings,
And bells ringing out
From steepled churches;
A strawberry and shortcake time,
A time of watermelons
Cooling in tubs of water,
Of buttered corn on the cob,
Of eggs fresh from the chicken nest
And milk bottles waiting on the porch;
Of the silence of mornings
Broken by daybreak and the rooster's crow,
Of family gathered around the dinner table,
Of short pants and stubbed toes,
Of fishing poles and bobbing corks
On quiet lakes,
Of fried okra, corn bread, and butter beans,
Of mute imposing oaks
Climbed by chattering squirrels;
Of dandelions, four leaf clovers,
Grasshoppers, and hound dogs;
Gardens of tall corn stalks,
Climbing pea plants, pumpkins,
Hollyhocks, morning glories,
Petunias, and honeysuckle.
And the plains,
Beyond, like the great soul
Of earth and sky,
Was always the plains.

The land was a sacred realm--
Grasslands reaching beyond the horizon,
Towering cottonwood trees
Lining banks of winding creeks,
Red dirt country roads
And windmills beside tanks of cool water,
Skies filled with
Ten thousand stars,
Moonlight shining off
Fields of green wheat,
The spirit possessed
Howl of coyotes,
Catfish and cooing doves,
Soaring hawks and hooting owls.
The quiet days seemed endless,
And the nights,
A bewildering star-filled mystery
That filled the heart.

In the evenings my mother
Would call me from the fields
Where I played
To the brightly lighted house.
There was always food
And family and safety
In the aura of the glowing chandelier.
But I knew that a part
Of myself was elsewhere,
Beyond the circle of light
From shaded lamps,
And the boundary of homes
With neatly mowed yards.

For a few hours I belonged
To the sphere of light and family,
To the ticking clock
And singing radio.
But later, lying alone,
Beneath the blankets
In the unlighted bedroom,
I felt the sacred darkness
In my heart and all around
For a thousand miles.