Card #20 in New Tarot © Aliyah Marr

A little peek into the new deck I am creating: the Judgement card, card number 20 becomes The Awakening card in my new Tarot deck.

The Lover's Card © Aliyah Marr

As I explained in my last post, I am redesigning my Tarot game. The major arcana cards are titled with the traditional name below a new, modern title that I am choosing based upon my own experience in reading the cards.

Just how do you distill the meaning of the card down to one word? Some of the cards are easy, and others present more problems; there are so many wonderful words that could easily work, yet the title I choose must not constrain the card to a single meaning.

The Lovers Card is one such card, the image above shows UNION as the title, but I have not finalized my decision. I am searching for a single word that means equal but different. The image is a closeup of two birch trees that are so close that they are almost one tree. Let me know what you think; just put your choice in the comments section or email me . Thanks for your help!

Here are the title choices (replacing the top title in white modern font “UNION”) for this card:

• SYMMETRY
• THE DOUBLE
• INVOLUTION
• SYNTHESIS
• PARTNERSHIP
• UNITY
• COOPERATION
• MERGE
• UNION
• UNIFICATION
• SYNERGY
• SIMBIOSIS
• SIMILTUDE

I have spent the last few weeks redesigning my Tarot deck, which, up until now, existed only in a computer program online and in one printed deck that I had made for myself. My first Tarot deck was called The Transformational Tarot: it was exhibited at Purdue University in 2005, along with a few of my other interactive art pieces.

When I found myself studying the Tarot in earnest a few years ago, I realized that I wanted to not only redesign my deck for printing, I wanted to update it and re-order the cards with new meanings and numbers. The images remain the same, however, now the cards are the full rectangular shapes of traditional Tarot cards. At this date, I have only finished the major arcana (22 cards). I am still looking for a new name for my deck, since there is a competing published deck with this name. Here is a quote from the artist’s statement I wrote for The Transformational Tarot in 2004 when I first published the deck as a computer game.

The combination of the mysterious image and the enigmatic words of the title serve to do what I call “stop the mind”, an effect that resembles what happens during certain types of esoteric meditative practices. When the mind is stopped, something extraordinary happens: another type of thought process starts to emerge.

In this new design, all the major arcana cards are double-titled: a modern title in a modern typeface reveals a modern interpretation of the traditional title, which is represented in a traditional “shadow” font below. The new titles reflect information from the highest esoteric sources I have been able to find, as well as my own intuitive knowledge and practical experience. Only the Fool has the same word in both titles, as it is the Fool who “journeys” through the meanings in the rest of the deck.

For more information on the original Transformational Tarot

Recently, I had to prepare an old Mac laptop for sale. I wanted to make sure that the hard drive was completely erased before I sent it to the new owner.

The Mac technician who helped me explained to me that there are several ways to erase a hard drive: to dump the trash, to initialize the hard drive, and to “zero-out” the data. The first two ways don’t really erase the data, just the index that points to the data, therefore the data is actually still there, just hidden from view.

He told me that if you really want to make sure that you have a totally clean, blank disk you can zero it out seven times.

Zeroing data takes the erasure process to the next level by converting all binary…to zeros, a state that might be described as blank.

After a year in the void, I found myself in a similar place as my old computer. No matter how hard I tried to replace negative thoughts and emotions with more positive ones the old ones seemed to still be in place, taking up all the available room on my internal hard drive. My mind still has a habit of checking my index file for those old habits of thinking and emoting. I am at the beginning of a new life, but some of my old thoughts and emotions are just too heavy for me to take along. How do I effect a permanent change?

I decided to zero out my mind of whatever I wanted to end. Seven passes on a light issue, up to twenty-one for a really sticky one.

Take envy for instance. Does this emotion have ANY redeeming value in your life? I couldn’t find any; envy is an energy waster for me, therefore I decided that I wanted it gone forever.

Those of you who read my book, Parallel Mind, The Art of Creativity may remember how I eradicated nostalgia from my life over a two week vacation, when I realized that I didn’t benefit from this emotion anymore. It had taken over my life, and was keeping me from enjoying the present.

So, I decided to take time every day to empty myself of all those wasteful and energy-draining thoughts and emotions. I like to do it while I walk on the beach– a deserted beach is best, although in this age of ubiquitous cell phones, people are less likely to think you are crazy if you seem to be talking to yourself.

My process is simplicity itself:

1. Focus on the emotion.
2. Define it and feel it, if possible.
3. Declare it erased forever from your life.
4. Count to 7, 14, or 21 as you go through the first 3 steps above.

This may need to be done more than once for those really sticky issues, so be prepared; as they say on the shampoo bottles,

Rinse and repeat.

Copyright 2013 Aliyah Marr

Aliyah Marr is a creative projects consultant, and creative life coach. She is the author of several books on personal empowerment through creative development. Permission to reproduce this article is granted as long as it is copied in its entirety, and you include a link back to www.ParallelMindzz.com, and the credit/copyright notice in the post.

Field of Gold, Copyright Aliyah Marr

Have you ever lived through a “dark night of the soul?”

Last year, I experienced a creative void; a strange blank, vapid land where it seemed that nearly everything that I had loved no longer held any interest for me. And while it wasn’t exactly a dark night of the soul, I definitely felt a loss of my creative vitality. If there is a purgatory for artistic souls, it looks like this bland and endless void.

The only thing that kept me going is that I knew it was necessary: I knew is that the void or dark night always precedes a personal change. The longer the void the more profound the transformation, but there comes a time when you have to start again. But how?

A couple of weeks ago, I found myself doing “opposite” things without thinking. I, who have always had an aversion to running, suddenly started running on the beach.

I don’t approach running as exercise, but as a kind of playful release. I don’t force myself: I run as long as I want and then walk until I feel like running again.

When my creative juices got “turned on” 2 weeks ago after a a year and a half of the void, I found myself literally deluged with (mostly old) creative ideas. However, I have to discard most of them as soon as they seem to feel that they have turned into a form of work instead of play. I am dismantling my habit of turning anything that I like into work.

Creativity is play without purpose.*

Remember how you played as a child? That is how we should be. The minute you add a deadline, goal, or purpose, you have just made it into work, and the fun part deflates like an old tire.

Creativity is active entertainment.*

Creativity isn’t passive entertainment like watching TV–-that is watching other people have fun creating, not having fun creating ourselves.

If you are too down to play, then find a way to laugh. It should be a really good belly laugh–one that really {{{shakes}}} your midsection. Watch a funny movie if you can’t do anything else, but it is better to find a way to laugh with others in the real world.

The creative process has really changed for me in this new energy: it is very much connected with my “pure-energy field” instead of with any small-self egoistic goals or timelines. It is very much in the moment, and extremely changeable. So it is impossible to plan or sometimes even execute, since the sand is shifting under my proverbial feet all the time.

The creative process that I described in the book I wrote in 2007–Parallel Mind, The Art of Creativity– is still valid since the topic was “pure creativity” — which is incredibly playful and spontaneous.

None of this process of personal transformation should be scary. Fear only takes us back to limitation. A powerful way to get over an obstacle is to redefine it. One way to redefine fear is as a playpen that we needed around us to keep ourselves from creating even bigger bad situations with our creative power. In other words, fear was (once) a necessary fence to protect us from misusing our own creative power. If you have fear and anxiety in your body now, it only tells you that something is too big for you to handle at this moment. And this changes moment by moment.

Emotion is the catalyst in the science of manifestation.*

Emotion makes your thoughts real. If you think something it doesn’t have much power, but if you emote about what you just thought, that thought receives a jolt of manifesting power–this is a big or little jolt depending upon the strength of the emotion.

Your unconscious (the universe) is at your command, and doesn’t care if that thought is positive or negative. So, this is why you have to learn to be more “neutral” in terms of emotions, and why we have needed this “playpen” around us. As long as we have no “control” over our emotions, we cannot be true creative masters and be allowed to play outside of the playpen of limitation. The fear limits us, but for a good reason, until we transmute the fear into its opposite–love.

Think of it this way, if you had a child that had just been through a great trauma, you wouldn’t just throw her out of the house, and say, “Just go out and have fun, it’s not scary anymore!” And you wouldn’t tell them that they made it all up. No, you would find fun, safe-feeling activities for them to do.

Try doing silly things, like blowing bubbles or walking on curbs, or my favorite, sit upside-down on park benches and look at the world and everyone upside-down.

Follow the fun.

Do only what is comfortable AND fun. Play at it, don’t make it work. The second it turns into work, dump it without a concern. After all, you weren’t serious, you were only playing.

Play on!

Copyright 2013 Aliyah Marr

(* indicates material from my books)

This material can be reposted anywhere as long as it remains intact in its entirety, including the copyright notice,  credit to the author, and a link back to the original source material on Parallelmindzz.com.

Perhaps the most notorious suppressed invention is the General Motors EV1, subject of the 2006 documentary, Who Killed the Electric Car? The EV1 was the world’s first mass-produced electric car, with 800 of them up for lease from GM in the late ’90s. GM ended the EV1 line in 1999, stating that consumers weren’t happy with the limited driving range of the car’s batteries, making it unprofitable to continue production.

Many skeptics, however, believe GM killed the EV1 under pressure from oil companies, who stand to lose the most if high-efficiency vehicles conquer the market. It didn’t help that GM hunted down and destroyed every last EV1, ensuring the technology would die out.

The Death of the American Streetcar

In 1921, if the streetcar industry wasn’t actually naming streetcars Desire, it was certainly desiring more streetcars. They netted $1 billion, causing General Motors to hemorrhage $65 million in the face of a thriving industry. GM retaliated by buying and closing hundreds of independent railway companies, boosting the market for gas-guzzling GM buses and cars. While a recent urban movement to rescue mass transit has been underway, it is unlikely we’ll ever see streetcars return to their former glory.

The 99-MPG Car

The holy grail of automotive technology is the 99-mpg car. Although the technology has been available for years, automakers have deliberately withheld it from the U.S. market. In 2000, the New York Times reported a little-known fact, at least to most: A diesel-powered dynamo called the Volkswagen Lupo had driven around the world averaging higher than 99 mpg. The Lupo was sold in Europe from 1998 to 2005 but, once again, automakers prevented it from coming to market; they claimed Americans had no interest in small, fuel-efficient cars.

Free Energy

Nikola Tesla was more than just the inspiration for a hair metal band, he was also an undisputed genius. In 1899, he figured out a way to bypass fossil-fuel-burning power plants and power lines, proving that “free energy” could be harnessed using ionization in the upper atmosphere to produce electrical vibrations. J.P. Morgan, who had been funding Tesla’s research, had a bit of buyer’s remorse when he realized that free energy for all wasn’t as profitable as, say, actually charging people for every watt of energy use. Morgan then drove another nail in free energy’s coffin by chasing away other investors, ensuring Tesla’s dream would die.

Miracle Cancer Cure

In 2001, Nova Scotian Rick Simpson discovered that a cancerous spot on his skin disappeared within a few days of applying an essential oil made from marijuana. Since then, Simpson and others have treated thousands of cancer patients with incredible success. Researchers in Spain have confirmed that THC, an active compound in marijuana, kills brain-tumor cells in human subjects and shows promise with breast, pancreatic and liver tumors. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration, however, classifies marijuana as a Schedule I drug, meaning that it has no accepted medical use, unlike Schedule II drugs, like cocaine and methamphetamine, which may provide medical benefits. What a buzzkill.

Water-Powered Vehicles

Despite how silly it sounds, water-fueled vehicles do exist. The most famous is Stan Meyer’s dune buggy, which achieved 100 miles per gallon and might have become more commonplace had Meyer not succumbed to a suspicious brain aneurysm at 57. Insiders have loudly claimed that Meyer was poisoned after he refused to sell his patents or end his research. Fearing a conspiracy, his partners have all but gone underground (or should we say underwater?) and taken his famed water-powered dune buggy with them. We just hope someone finally brings back the amphibious car.

Chronovisor

What if you had a device that could see into the future and revisit the past? And what if you didn’t need Christopher Lloyd to help you? Father Pellegrino Maria Ernetti, an Italian priest, claimed in the 1960s to have invented what he called a Chronovisor, something that allowed him to witness Christ’s crucifixion. The device supposedly enabled viewers to watch any event in human history by tuning in to remnant vibrations that are caused by every action. (His team of researchers and builders included Enrico Fermi, who also worked on the first atomic bomb). On his deathbed, Fermi admitted that he had faked viewings of ancient Greece and Christ’s demise, but insisted the Chronovisor, which had by then vanished, still worked. Unsurprisingly, conspiracy theorists say the Vatican is now the likely owner of the original Chronovisor.

Rife Devices

American inventor Royal Rife (his real name), in 1934, cured 14 “terminal” cancer patients and hundreds of animal cancers by aiming his “beam ray” at what he called the “cancer virus.” So why isn’t the Rife Ray in use today?A 1986 book, The Cancer Cure That Worked, Fifty Years of Suppression, by Barry Lynes and John Crane, revived the Rife device affair. The book, written in a style typical of conspiratorial theorists, cites names, dates, events and places, giving the appearance of authenticity to a mixture of historical documents and speculations selectively spun into a web far too complex to permit verification by any thing short of a army of investigators with unlimited resources. The authors claim that Rife successfully demonstrated his device’s cancer curing ability in 1934, but that “all reports describing the cure were censored by the head of the AMA from the major medical journals.” A 1953 U.S. Senate special investigation concluded that Fishbein and the AMA had conspired with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to suppress various alternative cancer treatments that conflicted with the AMA’s pre-determined view that “radium, x-ray therapy and surgery are the only recognized treatments for cancer.”

Cloudbuster

In 1953, a drought threatened Maine’s blueberry crop, and several farmers offered to pay Reich if he could make it rain. The weather bureau had reportedly forecast no rain for several days when Reich began the experiment at 10 a.m. on July 6, 1953. The Bangor Daily News reported on July 24:

Dr. Reich and three assistants set up their “rain-making” device off the shore of Grand Lake. The device, a set of hollow tubes, suspended over a small cylinder, connected by a cable, conducted a “drawing” operation for about an hour and ten minutes. According to a reliable source in Ellsworth the following climatic changes took place in that city on the night of July 6 and the early morning of July 7: “Rain began to fall shortly after ten o’clock Monday evening, first as a drizzle and then by midnight as a gentle, steady rain. Rain continued throughout the night, and a rainfall of 0.24 inches was recorded in Ellsworth the following morning.”

A puzzled witness to the “rain-making” process said: “The queerest looking clouds you ever saw began to form soon after they got the thing rolling.” And later the same witness said the scientists were able to change the course of the wind by manipulation of the device.

The blueberry crop survived, the farmers declared themselves satisfied, and Reich received his fee

Overunity Generator

A number of overunity generators, which produce more energy than they take to run, have surfaced in the past century. Ironically, they have been more trouble than they were worth. In nearly all cases, a supposedly working prototype has been unable to make it to commercial production as a result of various corporate or government forces working against the technology. Recently, the Lutec 1000, an “electricity amplifier,” has been making steady progress toward a final commercial version. Will consumers soon be able to buy it, or will it too be suppressed?

Cold Fushion

Billions of dollars have been spent researching how to create energy using controlled “hot fusion,” a risky and unpredictable line of experimentation. Meanwhile, garage scientists and a fringe group of university researchers have been getting closer to harnessing the power of “cold fusion,” which is much more stable and controllable, but far less supported by government and foundation money. In 1989, Martin Fleischmann and Stanley Pons announced that they had made a breakthrough and had observed cold fusion in a glass jar on their lab bench. To say the reaction they received was chilly would be an understatement. CBS’s 60 Minutes described how the resulting backlash from the well-funded hot-fusion crowd sent the researchers underground and overseas, where within a few years their funding dried up, forcing them to drop their pursuit of clean energy.

Hot Fushion

Cold fusion isn’t the only technology to get buried by hot-headed scientists. When two physicists who were working on the decades-long Tokamak Hot Fusion project at Los Alamos Laboratory stumbled across a cheaper, safer method of creating energy from colliding atoms, they were allegedly forced to repudiate their own discoveries or be fired; the lab feared losing the torrent of government money for Tokamak. In retaliation, the lead researchers created the Focus Fusion Society, which raises private money to fund their research outside of government interference.

Magnetofunk and Himmelkompass

Nazi scientists spent much of World War II hidden in a covert military base somewhere in the arctic, creating the Magnetofunk. This alleged invention was designed to deflect the compasses of Allied aircraft that might be searching for Point 103, as the base was known. The aircraft pilots would think they were flying in a straight line, but would gradually curve around Point 103 without ever knowing they were deceived. The Himmelkompass allowed German navigators to orient themselves to the position of the sun, rather than magnetic forces, so they could find Point 103 despite the effects of the Magnetofunk. According to Wilhelm Landig, a former SS officer, these two devices were closely guarded secrets of the Third Reich. So closely guarded were they that neither device apparently survived the collapse of Hitler’s Germany, although the real tragedy is that no one has ever named their band Magnetofunk.

A Safer Cigarette?

In the 1960s, the Liggett & Myers tobacco company created a product called the XA, a cigarette in which most of the stick’s carcinogens had been eliminated. Dr. James Mold, Liggett’s Research Director, reported in court documents in the case of “The City and County of San Francisco vs. Phillip Morris, Inc.,” that Phillip Morris threatened to “clobber” Liggett if they did not adhere to an industry agreement never to reveal information about the negative health effects of smoking. By advertising a “safer” alternative, they would be admitting the dangers of tobacco use. The lawsuit was dismissed on a technicality and Phillip Morris never addressed the accusations. Despite their own scientists’ publication of research that showed less cancer in mice exposed to smoke from the XA, Liggett & Myers issued a press released denying evidence of cancer in humans as a result of tobacco use, and the XA never saw the light of day.

TENS

The Transcutaneous Electronic Nerve Stimulation (TENS) device was created to alleviate pain impulses from the body without the use of drugs. In 1974, Johnson & Johnson bought StimTech, one of the first companies to sell the machine, and proceeded to starve the TENS division of money, causing it to flounder. StimTech sued, alleging that Johnson & Johnson purposely stifled the TENS technology to protect sales of its flagship drug, Tylenol. Johnson & Johnson responded that the device never performed as well as was claimed and that it was not profitable. StimTech’s founders won $170 Million, although the ruling was appealed and overturned on a technicality. The court’s finding that the corporation suppressed the TENS device was never overturned.

The Phoebus Cartel

Phillips, GE and Osram engaged in a conspiracy from 1924 to 1939 with the goal of controlling the fledgling light-bulb industry, according to a report published in Time magazine six years later. The alleged cartel set prices and suppressed competing technologies that would have produced longer-lasting and more efficient light bulbs. By the time the cabal dissolved, the industry-standard incandescent bulb was established as the dominant source of artificial light across Europe and North America. Not until the late 1990s did compact fluorescent bulbs begin to edge into the worldwide lighting market as an alternative.

The Coral Castle

How did Ed Leedskalnin build the massive Coral Castle in Homestead, Florida, out of giant chunks of coral weighing up to 30 tons each with no heavy equipment and no outside help? Theories abound, including anti-gravity devices, magnetic resonance and alien technology, but the answer may never be known. Leedskalnin died in 1951 without any written plans or clues as to his techniques. The centerpiece of the castle, which is now a museum open to the public, is a nine-ton gate that used to move with light pressure from one finger. After the gate’s bearings wore out in the 1980s, a crew of five took more than two weeks to fix it, although they never did get it to work as effortlessly as Leedskalnin’s original masterpiece.

Hemp Bio-fuel

The father of our country, George Washington, who is rumored to have said “I cannot tell a lie,” was a proud supporter of the hemp seed. Of course, the only thing more suppressed in this country than an honest politician is hemp, which is often mistakenly for marijuana and therefore unfairly maligned. Governmental roadblocks, meanwhile, prevent hemp from becoming the leader in extracting ethanol, allowing environmentally damaging sources like corn to take over the ethanol industry. Despite the fact that it requires fewer chemicals, less water and less processing to do the same job, hemp has never caught on. Experts also lay the blame at the feet of (who else?) Presidential candidates, who kiss up to Iowa corn growers for votes.

The 18 Most Suppressed Inventions Ever | in5d.com.

The main reason for making them was because I can no longer run properly due to problems with my feet, so plodding about on level snow is the least painful way of getting exercise. Gradually, the reason has become photographing them, and I am considering buying a better camera. ~ Simon Beck

via Man Walks All Day to Create Spectacular Snow Patterns – My Modern Metropolis.

Song of the Earth

Dream of the Mother
She tells you secrets
That which you know you know

In every wave of the ocean
In every leaf on the tree
In every cell of your body.

Do you feel sadness and grief?
Do you feel the incredible
Pain, loss and separation?

Know that it is the last time
You will feel this way
Know that She knows.

She has always known.

You don’t have to suffer
You don’t have to grieve
Even as you watch it all crumble

The last brick of the fortress
That guarded your heart
The last barbed wire

The prison of “evil”
The fence of “limitation”
The wall of lamentation

The drama is ending
Tragedy is disappearing
Like smoke on the horizon.

We burn with desire
Like vapor in a fire
We want to feel

What even the smallest
Creature knows:
Her unconditional love

We cry out
In the darkness cast by
The shadow of our Ego

Eons upon eons of suffering
A simple mistake
A lack of understanding

“How,” Jesus asked,
“Can you allow the least
Of us to suffer?”

Can you see that “the other”
Is you? That spider
On the wall

Is just a piece
Of you. A wondrous creation
A fragment of your soul.

It has a message for you
If you are ready to listen.
The truth is everywhere

You live upon the body of the Earth
You ARE the Earth,
Of dust you are made.

To dust you return.
To deny this is to deny life
And ignore the one truth

We are like small children
Crying in the darkness
Why can’t we be happy?

We can’t see with our eyes
Held tightly shut
Against the light

We turned to face the wall
We refused to listen
To the whisper of our soul

An incredible tale of power
Has held us beguiled
The power was always outside us

Always with someone else
God, the government,
Kings, queens and corporations

It is OUR power
It is as wide as the sea
We give it away

When we worship power
Whenever we think we see it
Outside us

Whenever we bestow it
Upon another without regard
Or responsibility.

See the spider on the wall
She has a message for you.
Connect the dots:

All we have to do is let go
Watch the tower of ego crumble
Watch fear and limitation

Slip away. Forever.
We can change the future
We can change the past

With one thought sustained:
Hold it in your heart
Love, connect, forever.

~ Aliyah Marr, November 2, 2012

The doctor interrupts the clown's fun.

I enjoy watching old episodes of Star Trek Voyager.

A couple days ago I saw an episode about people the Voyager crew found imprisoned in stasis. These people were scheduled to wake up four years earlier, but something has gone terribly wrong. The crew finds out that the minds of the people in hibernation were kept active inside a virtual reality run by a computer, but the computer has gone mad: instead of providing a pleasant environment for the people in stasis,  it had created a circus filled with characters that tortured them with the fears generated by their own imaginations.

Their minds were kept eternally awake in a virtual circus-like world dominated by a clown character named Fear. The people in stasis had not woken up on schedule, and in fact, two of the five had died of massive heart attacks brought on by the extreme stress generated by the circus of fear.

To rescue her people and the aliens caught within this world, Captain Katheryn Janeway, projects a hologram of herself as a substitute hostage.

Janeway's offer is flattering to Fear

Fear doesn’t know that Janeway is a hologram, and therefore not influenceable by the environment or by the characters in the virtual circus of fear. He is relishing the prospect of torturing someone of Janeway’s caliber and is willing to give up all the others in exchange for her. The clown is highly entertained by the idea of someone “choosing” to be with him. But when he finds out that Janeway is just a projection (like him), he begins to become afraid, knowing that he cannot live without a mind to live within.

Janeway tells him that she knows his secret (desire): she knows that Fear wants to be conquered. Fear needs to surrender to love • knowledge • acceptance • recognition • awareness • consciousness. Because Fear — knowing only fear, battle, war, and separation — cannot understand the higher concept of surrender, it has to be “conquered” — as if it is in a battle — by love.

Janeway is telling us that Fear exists to be defeated; that it’s “raison d’être” —it’s reason for existing—is to experience love through the unimaginable act of surrender. Fear unconsciously desires to be reunited with its polar opposite; in doing so, Fear achieves its real goal of surrender in order that it may become whole.

“I’m afraid,” Fear says just before he dissolves.

Janeway whispers, “I know.”

~ Copyright 2011 Aliyah Marr

There are more creative geniuses on Earth today than at any other time in the history of mankind. We have the power to resolve all our problems practically overnight, if we want to. ~Aliyah Marr

The Keshe Foundation is a non-profit foundation*–free of political, religious, and corporate affiliation–that shows how we have access to new, non-polluting technology that will save us and the planet today. There is absolutely no reason not to explore these amazing options.

Humanity is capable of solving ALL our problems practically overnight, if we want to. There are enough creative people with the skills, inspiration and knowledge to lead a revolution in technology that, in future years will show how primitive our current technology is in comparison. In the not-so-distant future, it will be unconscionable to develop and profit from any technology that enslaves/exploits/endangers anyone or pollutes the environment.

If you can’t see the video, you can access it here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UrN99RELqwo)

"Abundance" Transformational Tarot

When you learn how to do more with less, you will get more for less effort. That act will radiate out and attract more opportunity.

Be vulnerable; total vulnerability is total self-empowerment, because you open up to the infinite, and when you open up to the infinite you are totally supported. Vulnerability is strength. Paradox is power.

In this video (transcribed below), Bashar describes some of the same ideas that I explored in more depth in my book, Parallel Mind, The Art of Creativity.

BE SIMPLE
Allow yourself to create definitions that allow you to function more simply. When you find yourself stuck, or blocked it is usually because you are living a definition that is more complicated than it needs to be. Out of alignment with your true self.

TRACK THE OLD DEFINITION (the unconscious definition that supports the “reality” you perceive)
Find out what that definition is that is making you feel that way (out of alignment, unhappy) to the situation.

REDEFINE IT
Change it into the definition that you would prefer to have (simplify) with your imagination.

KNOW
The new definition is automatically in place. (You don’t have to work to put it in place.)

BEHAVE AS IF….
All you have to do is behave as if you know that it has replaced the old one and you will see the effect in your reality.

PROJECT THE CHANGE (don’t wait for the reflection in the mirror to smile)
This is critical–you must not look to the reality for the change first, you must simply KNOW that you have changed and you must BEHAVE differently toward the reality that you see outside of you, even if it looks the same as it did before. When you behave differently, when you behave as if you have changed, regardless of the reality as it may look; that’s when you really have changed, and that is when your reality can really reflect that change. But if you are waiting for the reality to show you that you have changed, then you haven’t changed. Because you are waiting for the reflection in the mirror to smile first, instead of smiling first because that’s what you prefer regardless of whether there are any mirrors around or not. And when you live more in the NOW you will be having so much fun, you won’t create so much time. But when you look at time relative to yourself, it will appear as if you have lived hundreds of years, but  they will have gone so quickly in joy and excitement that you will not feel tired at all because they have nothing to do with linear time.

ABUNDANCE

You are all abundant, infinitely abundant. You must allow yourself to understand the idea of acting on your joy, the idea of feeling the energy of excitement within you is its own sufficient idea. I do what I do because it is my joy, I would do it if no one was listening. I do not make my joy and the expression of my joy conditional. Because I make it unconditional, because I allow it to be unconditional, there are always people to talk to, I don’t have to think about it, I don’t have to plan for it. I just have to express my joy because it is who I am. I don’t need another reason, I don’t need it to do anything for me. I do it because it is me, and there is no better reason than that. When you just simply choose to be who you are, then, everything will be there that needs to be there. Abundance–what have you…

Abundance in plain, simple terms is: the ability to be able to do what you need to do, when you need to do it. Sometimes money is the longest route. Let it be and drop the insistence that it must be this way, so that abundance can come to you in any way that it needs to to represent the path of least resistance and the most expansive expression.

KEY PRINCIPLE (to abundance)
When you can learn that you can do more with less, you will then be able to do less and get more. Example: an artist can create a masterpiece with just a burnt stick on a cave wall. If you judge that the burnt stick is preventing you from being an artist, that is where you get yourself in trouble, and where you short-circuit your ability to attract abundance. When you can as much as you can possibly imagine you can do with what you have, when you can do more with less–do as much as you can–then that act will radiate out and attract to you other individuals and circumstances who will begin to interact with that level of energy and conviction that you put out, and that will bring you more opportunity to get more by doing less.

Don’t you observe in general that the most accomplished artists among you can just squiggle a line and it is considered a masterpiece? Don’t you notice that in the evolution of your most powerful artists: they begin simple, they go through complexity, but usually they come back to simplicity when they are advanced. They have learned that by doing as much as they could with what little they had to begin with, they now have to do very little to get quite a lot. That’s the principle; apply it in every field and in every endeavor: there’s always a counterpart in every field you can think of.

One of the components is clarity of communication. Anxiety v.s. excitement. When you act on your joy and it involves other relationships, if you are not honest enough to share with all involved, who you are and what you really prefer then you are not expressing your true natural self. Interact with other individuals on the level of your true joy.

1. Spontaneous - bored by anything planned.
2. Planned – suspicious of anything that seems in the least spontaneous.
3. Planned Spontaneity – don’t ask me how this works.
4. Party Mixer - needs infinite variety and stimulation: hops around a lot.
5. Environmentally Dependent – workspace has to be just so.
6. Music Junkie – goes nowhere without iPod.
7. Java-Powered - what coffee jitters? That’s the way I draw!
8. Night Owl – this train only travels after midnight.
9. Regular Spigot – can turn it on and off at will.
10. Muse Within – inspired from within.
11. Wild Child – inspired by nature.
12. Shower Muse – ideas come in weird places, when you can’t write them down.
13. Pop-culturette - inspired by graffiti, tabloids, the smear on your shoe.
14. Art-aholic – inspired by all forms of art.
15. Workhorse – labors night and day, forgets to eat, sleep or pee.
16. Prima Donna – is the best, even if no one else agrees.
17. Tortured Soul – would cut off ear for each idea; worries doesn’t have enough ideas/ears.
18. Volcano – spews ideas forth like hot magma.
19. Mystic – ideas come from the very air.
20. Epicurean – tastes a little of everything.
21. Schizophrenic – wakes up a different kind of artist every morning.

Personally, I can identify with all of these except #2 & #3 above.

Copyright Aliyah Marr

Reality is a Matrix, and the Matrix is an Illusion. David Lynch Wayne W Dyer and more discuss the illusion of reality.

Path from Creative Inspiration to Realization © Aliyah Marr

In the last article, I explored the physical effects of strong emotions. At the end of the article, I asked, “What are emotions for? Why do we have them?”

With the clear understanding of the relationship of thought to the creation of disease and health in the body, it isn’t a big step to understand the quantum physics discovery that the thoughts and beliefs of the “observer” direct the reality that we experience (as outside us) This is not a new idea; it is one basis for many ancient esoteric philosophical systems.

It is evident to me that this ongoing manifestation of outer reality through our beliefs is a highly creative (though for most humans, an unconscious) process. I asked the question: what role do emotions play in this process?

As an artist, I had direct experience with the creative process, albeit a very conscious one. Anyone can clearly see how emotion is often explored by artists, either directly or indirectly. A lot of people are under the misunderstanding that their emotions are theirs, however, many emotions are inherited from family members, are instilled in us as cultural beliefs, or are part of our societal environment.

Not admitting the power — or even the existence — of your emotional life is akin to standing in the middle of a busy highway; you are bound to be hit by the very thing that you deny. Why not admit to this powerful force, not as an enemy that needs to be controlled and conquered, but as a friend who is willing to work for your ultimate benefit, and help you create the life of your dreams?

…Both health and disease are the result of our innermost thoughts and emotional reaction to those thoughts. The child inside us wants to be loved, knows he deserves to be loved and accepted for who he is, as he is — unconditionally. The only way to do that is to let him speak. The best way I know to do this is through art.

We all have stuff that we throw into the enormous bin of the subconscious. Unearthing these uncomfortable, sometimes downright disturbing mental/ emotional issues, is an act of incredible courage, and a kind of psychic cleansing.

Art is one of the ways to go deep into this danger zone safely. Personally, I write poetry when I am emotional, and I find that once the poem is out, I feel good. It has the same effect on me as listening to blues music does: the theme is sad, the content is emotional, but the process of creating the poem delivers me into a state of happiness. Art like this can be sublime in that it touches the human soul.

~Parallel MInd, The Art of Creativity

On the level of reality-making, though, the conscious use–not control–of your emotions is a powerful way to manifest something new. The real trick is to learn that you have choice over your emotions; this is the path to personal power and personal freedom.

Beliefs form reality; beliefs are fueled by emotions. Emotions are therefore the catalyst that transforms a creative thought into material reality.

As long as you continue to cling to the illusion that you do not have the self-discipline to choose your emotions, you cannot know emotional freedom. Art can help us explore hidden feelings, expose inherited or suppressed emotions to the light of day–but the real creative act is to consciously choose the emotions that will supercharge your thoughts and make your creative vision a reality.

Copyright 2012 Aliyah Marr

For the last few weeks I have been feeling loss and grief. Because I can no longer really cry–I just don’t “believe” my emotions anymore–the feelings manifested as a rather strange “flu,” with symptoms that affected my respiratory system.

One of the laws of nature is that all (creative) energy needs to be expressed: if you bottle your emotions up on one place, they will find another way to flow (express themselves). Because I couldn’t cry, the energy of my emotions flowed into a symbolic expression of what was bothering me.

Interpreting physical symptoms as an indicator of a deeper-lying disorder in the underlying emotional system is a well-respected way of understanding the whole person; psychologist and healers are on the forefront of this “new” science.

Quantum physics readily explains how  thought-forms can become reality. As I wrote my book, Parallel Mind, The Art of Creativity, it became evident that emotions play a huge part in the creative process. We see it most readily in the body as unconsciously-generated diseases, but our society frowns upon self-healing techniques–implying that you should trust the doctor and his diagnostic machines rather than your own intuition.

However, it is slowly becoming more “mainstream” to understand that all illnesses have an emotional basis. The more you suppress your emotions, the bigger the illness that finally emerges. Certain illnesses are preceded by years of matching emotions: for instance, breast cancer often indicates that the woman never felt nurtured by her own mother. Heart disease is often experienced by someone who cannot experience unconditional love.

Think of everything as a symbol or metaphor.

Artists may have an easier time with this concept for two reasons: they have been trained to see and work with metaphors, and they can use their work as a way to express, rather than suppress, emotions. The mind deals only with symbols–it cannot experience anything directly. For the tongue to taste, the skin to feel, the ears to hear, or the eyes to see, we have to use the language of the mind, which is symbolic in nature. The mind actively compares old symbols (established memories) with the new sensation to categorize, prioritize and file it.

Caroline Myss is a famous medical intuitive who works with the entire mental/emotional makeup of people. She brings in the chakra system, and symbology to understand her client’s physical ailments. In my case, the chakras represented by this illness would be the 4th (the heart–trust), 5th (speaking your truth), and 6th (the “third eye–your life mission and personal vision). So, just like a Tarot reading, we can piece together the meanings of the above symbols to get a reading on the meaning of the physical disorder. Since most illnesses are just blockages of (creative) energy, I interpret it the following way:

Relax, let your heart trust your inner guidance (your intuition), know that once you clear the heart of all wounds, you will be able to more clearly speak, and move more into the stream of your passion, completing your purpose with joy and ease. Joy and ease are the natural result of the flow caused by the removal of all emotional blockages.

I see the grief as a final letting go of all the past concepts and emotions that no longer serve me. Since these ideas and feelings belong only to the past, they are dead, and I need to express (expel) them. The flu-like symptoms are the last step in ridding myself of all of that emotional tar from the past. The emotions of loss and grief is just a final–necessary–recognition of the loss of the past that is no longer here.

I spent many years trying to figure out emotions. Why do we have emotions? What are they for?

Stay tuned for my next post on how to use emotions in order to create whatever you want.

Copyright 2012 Aliyah Marr

Beauty and the Beak
by Keith Bubach

Beauty the Bald Eagle gets a second chance with a little help from technology. Shot and edited by Keith Bubach for Evening Magazine (KING-TV). 2008 Emmy winner.

Whatever you can dream is available to you, but first you must know how to use your creative potential. An artist is not defined by his work, but by the power of his creative thought.

Becoming an artist does not require a mastery of technique, great skills or advanced degrees, it only requires that you take the time to be an artist. Art is about change, exploration, and about the courage to know yourself.

Often we don’t accept a challenge because we fear change and commitment. Perhaps we are afraid, because we know deep down that a life like this takes unconditional passion, courage, and dedication. To live a consciously creative life, you have to show the forces that be that you deserve the life you want by consistently displaying these qualities. This is what Joseph Campbell calls the “Hero’s Journey.” Make no mistake, if you follow a path of conscious change you are walking in the very footsteps of giants.

So I ask you: when will you allow yourself the life you deserve? A voice is whispering in your ear: today is the day.

—Parallel Mind, The Art of Creativity

In the end, all people who engage in conscious creativity* are consciously creating their lives. They dare dream big dreams: they know that they are in charge of their lives–not any outside authority or organization–and, so, as empowered conscious people, they are envisioning great things and actively creating their highest, most creative dream–their personal reality.

Copyright 2012 Aliyah Marr

* A term I coined in Parallel Mind, The Art of Creativity.

The Creativity Card Transformational Tarot

The term “creative” has been so misused that no one knows what it means anymore. Clients, tending to be rather left-brain, are sometimes the worst offenders, as they are actually wanting something a lot safer (more left-brain) than something truly creative.

I took my shot at defining creativity in my book, “Parallel Mind, The Art of Creativity.” In it I proposed two main categories, which I coined as “pure creativity” and “applied creativity.”

http://www.parallelmindzz.com/2012/02/parallel-mind-the-art-of-creativity/

Pure creativity is the natural impulse to create without a need for application or commercial reward: the fine arts fall into this category, although specific artists may not be practicing pure creativity. Pure creativity is germaine to what one may call the natural (unsocialized) human. Children are good examples of this. Pure creativity doesn’t have to be good art. In a way, it is simply an expression of what it means to be human.

The other category is “applied creativity.” This category is very broad, including everything that most people think of as creative. Applied creativity is practical, and tends to be goal-oriented: in the minds of people it has worth only if it can demonstrate a commercial or practical value. You can see how this category includes everything that a client can think of: software programming, business creation, marketing, design, copywriting, etc.

Of course, a client has no use for “pure creativity” because, by its nature, is not very left-brain, practical, or commercial. However, I would go so far to say that experiencing pure creativity is essential for a creative’s personal and professional development.

This is why a broad education in fine art, literature, or even liberal arts is such a wonderful experience, especially at the time of life when one normally attends college: the mind is much easier to open at the ages of 19-22 than at any other time. Typically, if one waits too long, the left-brain has become too dominant to allow right-brain inspiration and flexibility. Once we are out in the world, the pressures of professional employment and monetary considerations may be too intense to overcome. Its similar to trying to walk before you crawl; if you try to learn applied creativity without first exploring pure creativity your ideas and inspiration will be unnecessarily constricted.

There are many other reasons to attend school in the fine arts, especially if one ends up in the applied arts. For instance, a graphic designer with both an education in world culture and graphic design has a rich pool of images and ideas that consciously or unconsciously fuel his design. A marketer with a solid understanding of world culture and global art history will find it much easier to market overseas.

The occasional or full-time practice of pure creativity stretches the mind. One can take the Olympian gymnasts as a metaphor: a gymnast warms up and stretches with drills (pure creativity) that don’t count to their score. Only when they have done this first can they perform a flawless routine and score high (applied creativity).

In my book, I recommend that all creatives spend some time exploring pure creativity–to get out of their comfort zone (and left-brain dominated activities) as a release from the stress to perform for their clients’ bank accounts, and as a way to develop new ideas, and recharge their work.

I had a situation in my life that had escalated into gross proportions. Call it a tempest in a teapot, but what had started out as a simple statement of personal rights had become a full-on war. Tension was palpable, and I began to experience anxiety. I couldn’t quiet my mind down to meditate as my mind kept on spiraling down the same silly scenarios of confrontation, right vs wrong, and defensiveness.

I knew I had to do something, and it had to be radically different from what I had been doing; in fact I had to do the exact opposite of what I had been doing.

In my book, Parallel Mind, The Art of Creativity, I call this technique, “thinking upside-down.” It involves three simple steps:

1. Objectively examine the current situation that isn’t working.
2. Determine the linchpin that supports the structure of the situation.
3. Turn that element upside-down–do the exact opposite.

So, in my situation, I knew I had to turn confrontation, defense, and anger into harmony and understanding. It’s important to realize one’s own part in creating a bad situation; to realize that the problem isn’t outside you, but actually stems from you. I knew I was right, but I had to find a way to relax my tension and defensiveness to be able to express myself in another way. What did I say?

I apologize; I did not intend to injure you.

It takes power to apologize. However, it is extremely important to leave out the “buts” — such as “I apologize for hurting you, but….” The effect of the “but” is that it totally negates whatever went before; the listener knows that you need to be right, and that your apology is insincere.

To get to the place where you don’t include a “but” you have to understand that harmony between people works on a simple dynamic of appreciation. Appreciation is a much more powerful word than love, because it is so simple to learn to appreciate. Love is a much bigger word, and one that makes most of us uncomfortable, since the word and concept have been so badly misused. Plus the action of appreciating builds more appreciation.

And while my turnaround this morning was very successful with the person I had had a confrontation with, I found an entirely unexpected dividend: suddenly, I no longer felt annoyed at the little things that had–even earlier that morning–irritated me, but I felt happy and relaxed for the first time in weeks. Quite a little dividend for accepting responsiblity and having the courage to say those two little words:

I apologize.

1. The void would naturally end, since as scientists say, “Nature abhors a vacuum.”
2. I would know the period of the void would be over when I felt totally new ideas come in.
3. The void would last no more than one month at the longest.
4. While in the void I would have to do nothing except keep an eye on (detach myself from) emotions and thoughts.
5. The void is a necessary preliminary to entering a new mental/emotional space.

Turns out I was wrong on most counts.

Only numbers 4 and 5 in the list above have turned out to be true, but more importantly, I realize that one of the things that is stopping me from “starting up again” are my expectations, re: the list above. Expectations stop us because they are necessarily are rooted in the known, while what I was wanting to experience was the unknown–some totally new path.

My ideas of what is possible and what is probable are still rooted in the “known” — what I have experienced and thought up to this point. Really new things have to be unexpected, and appear magically, or my mind won’t be satisfied that this or that idea is actually new.

So, while I have been really good at detaching myself from old thoughts, emotions, past remembering or future plans, I didn’t realize that starting up again would require a new effort on my part. What is that effort? Let me use a simple example:

Let’s say that you want to get in shape again, but since you are a natural athlete, it has always been easy for you to regain your strength and flexibility. Now, for whatever reason, you are finding it harder than ever before. Things that always were easy are suddenly hard, you feel heavy and stiff. You lack energy.

In the past, you simply remembered the feeling you wanted to have, and the feeling accomplished wonders. However, that doesn’t work anymore.

While the experience of the void may have successfully removed a lot of your old thoughts and emotions, you may find yourself running back to them out of habit and fear. You may experience emotions such as loss and regret if you allow yourself to recall what you used to have in your old life, whether successes or failures. Ultimately, you may find yourself renewing the past through your emotions–exactly what the experience of the void was designed to end.

You are getting frustrated. What can you do?

Start all over.

The way out of the void is to simply start all over again. You are in a totally new body/mind now (new reality); start slow, be happy with small victories, and focus on those things that you can do. Treat yourself as you would if you were trying to educate a small child–notice what you do well and capitalize on these good things, help develop new skills, and lavish yourself with love and praise.

A few years ago, when I was in a major transition, I kept on seeing (with my inner eye) the rotors of an outboard motor. I knew I was starting all over again, tossing out nearly everything that was familiar, learning new things, and finding wonder in the everyday. While I was good at charging ahead, I now needed to go in reverse. I was like an outboard motor; I had to first stop before I could go in a radically new direction.

Think of the movie Titanic when the captain tried to avoid the iceberg by reversing the engines; remember that heart-stopping moment when those powerful propellers had to first stop before reversing their direction? Did you notice how infuriatingly slow they were when they did finally start going again? In order to go in reverse, you have to first stop your forward motion. Then you can go in the opposite direction.

The void is the stopped motor. It can get scary to be in a seemingly empty space without all your old props–excuse the pun–and crutches, but the void requires discipline and faith. Exiting the void requires another kind of faith, a kind of humbleness–starting slow and small, and having the discipline to not allow your old ideas, emotions, or successes–which support your old reality-thought-system–to stop you from taking a new direction.

Starting over again has some really great advantages, but mainly it circumvents energy-wasting expectations. Expectations are dead ideas that can block new things from entering into your life. When you drop expectations, stay present, and relish every new sensation, you will find yourself exiting the void with very little effort on your part.

Now that you have trashed your old thoughts and emotions, and started over again, wondrous things can flow into your life, but don’t expect the leaders of countries to suddenly call you for political advice, or for six-figure job offers to start pouring in, or for your soul-mate to find you.

I once had a business card that had one of the images from my Transformational Tarot deck on one side, and the phrase, “Expect Magic” on the other side. I’d like to amend that phrase now to suit the energy of starting again, polishing it into an easy mantra for the majestic slow re-start of your engines as you leave the emptiness of the void. Don’t forget to:

Allow Magic.

Copyright 2012 Aliyah Marr

The One Percent Foundation (OPF) is a non-profit organization dedicated to addressing persistent global challenges by building a broad-based movement for next generation philanthropy.

We educate, organize and mobilize our peers – young adults in their 20s and 30s – to become generous, committed, and strategic philanthropists. We recognize that many young people are not in the habit of giving since it can be a burden to know where or how much to give. Student loans and entry level salaries can leave young people feeling like they don’t have much to give, but by pooling our member’s donations OPF can overcome these barriers to giving. Our goal is to empower every young adult to give away at least one percent of his or her income to philanthropy each year – meeting that goal would mean raising an additional $16 billion for non-profits every year.
We believe that philanthropy should not be driven by income or age, but by the power of collective action to create lasting change. By making donating money easy and exciting, engaging in the grantmaking process, and amplifying our impact through collective giving, we are creating a new generation of philanthropists who will help address critical needs in our communities and the world, and who will only grow more generous and engaged throughout our lives.
Through our active participation, we are committed to spur innovation in philanthropy, the non-profit sector, and the problems they aim to solve.

One Percent Foundation.

All the sevens in the Tarot are about hidden things, like emotions, thoughts, desires, and secrets, but as the Major Arcana cards are cards of “higher” mastery, The Chariot is the master path that transcends the four-fold path of the lower cards. The lower cards in the suits — Wands, Pentacles, Swords, Cups — are about daily concerns in the pursuit of the path indicated by the suit.

Interestingly enough the 7-11 date of this card reading is a number that appears quite often to me. On the morning of the 11th, I was dreaming about the number seven and the Chariot. I dreamt of the three and the four that make up the seven. The four represents the number of the Earth, while the three represents the 3rd dimension.

Three is an unstable number–the number of creative expression, which, come to think of it, is a great number for the material dimension. The four adds another number to the three, as a realization of the psychic/psychological/etheric layer that overlays everything that is visible.

If you notice, this card shows a vehicle that is not moving–the charioteer has no reins to control the sphinxes in front of the chariot. The Chariot is the movement underneath what is visible. After the Hanging Man of last week, we still might feel suspended, as our new point of view has been changed, but we don’t know yet what that might mean for our everyday life and life path alike.

The Charioter is confident, and holds a wand of inspiration in his right (dominant) hand. He knows that things are moving below the surface, he knows that inspiration has to be held (allowed to incubate in the right-brain) but cannot be controlled with the mind. Any creative person knows this: that the spirit of inspiration is something that seems to be on its own time schedule.

The shaman knows how to beckon spirit–this is the artist who knows how to access the greater knowledge and inspiration in the right-brain by allowing time to incubate the new creation. The artist beckons inspiration by not forcing ideas, by not getting weirded out when nothing seems to be happening.

For me, this means that I have to be comfortable in the Void without my normal creative outlets. Can you stand it? Will you allow something completely new to emerge from underneath your laptop or sketchbook?

The artist says, “that sounds like business, and I want nothing to do with it. It will corrupt me and make me think small.”

The businessperson says, “art is frightening, unpredictable and won’t pay.”

Because the artist fears business, she hesitates to think as big as she could, to imagine the impact she might be able to make, to envision the leverage that’s available to her.

And because the businessperson fears art, she holds back, looks for a map, follows the existing path and works hard to fit in, never understanding just how vivid her new ideas might be and how powerful her art could make her.

There’s often a route, a way to combine the original, human and connected work you want to do with a market-based solution that will enable it to scale. Once you see it, it’s easier to call your bluff and make what you’re capable of. —Seth Godin’s Blog

For those who have been living under the proverbial rock (I don’t blame you, it’s cozy down there), Seth Godin is one of the most original thinkers today. Ostensibly, he is a marketer who has authored a bevy of unusual titles, such as Meatball Sundae.

One of the things I love about Seth is his sense of humor, but his real value is in how he has challenged the bean-counter mentality of the marketing industry with **gasp** creative ideas. He is a kind of philosopher of marketing, turning a talent for trend-spotting into an influential speaking career.

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It has taken me a while to admit it; after all, many of my friends/family are left-brain engineer types. (Nothing against engineers and accountants, but, believe me, life is always better if you can loosen up a little, and do some art!!) I hid my habit because I felt as if I might be judged as part of the lunatic fringe.

I don’t know why I worried; these people probably gave up on me long, long ago–after all, what is more lunatic-fringe than an artist? I wasn’t fooling anyone.

But, now I’ve really taken a walk on the wild side: I confess that I am truly addicted to and serious about the Tarot. I use it daily–like other people might pray (OK, I know I lost a lot of you right there), or meditate; I use it to know what is going on, inside me, with other people and, now, with my clients. The Tarot is a window onto an amazing psychic, psychological landscape, and a very, very useful tool. (Carl Jung said that if he had only one thing to take with him to a desert island, it would be the Tarot.)

A friend of mine uses a special Tarot deck, The Alchemical Tarot, to help his consulting clients change their organizations from the inside-out. I must say I admire him, but I think I have it easier—I coach creative people.

So, what does Tarot have to do with coaching creatives? Everything! (Well almost).

In general, creative people are very right-brain-dominant people, who easily understand metaphor, and symbolism. They are not afraid of discovering deep meanings, hidden blocks, and psychological underpinnings. They tend to be focused on self-actualization through creative development.

The Tarot is a creative tool for personal development. It employs a very ordinary kind of magic–synchronistically meaningful, but random card-play–to obtain more information about the querent and his/her circumstances, and even help advise them.

I find the Tarot to be an incredible tool in my coaching business. I can use it as a way to understand a client, get into his/her psyche and then to guide him in his/her creative life. The Tarot “speaks” to me through metaphor and symbolism, which I translate into practical advice and action.

So, join me this Friday as I host my first Tarot party. Walk a bit on the wild side, and get a FREE reading from me! More on how I read Tarot is here.

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Like most artists, I am fascinated by metaphoric meaning and by the power of symbols. The Tarot is a rich source of symbolism, but more important, it uses the power of archetypes and metaphors to mine and access a deeper awareness. The game of Tarrochi played in the Middle Ages was a game to challenge and develop the players’ intellectual/emotional development, rather like the modern Brainiac games of today. Carl Jung once said that if he were left on a desert island and given only one item to take with him, he would choose the Tarot.

Today, I “pulled” The Hanging Man, number 12 in the Tarot. This is one of my favorite cards, a card that signifies a willingness to go inside, and set all old beliefs on their metaphorical heads. This card shows that you are on your way to turning your own world upside-down, changing your perspective, heralding a deep inner transformation.

This card is very appropriate for what is happening in the world today. Anyone interested in shifting global consciousness to a better, more equitable world is challenged these days to look closely beneath the turbulent surface and feel what is really happening at the deepest level.

If you physically turn yourself upside-down, the blood rushes to your head, challenging your heart, and refreshing your cells with new oxygen. The hanging man is feeling the same thing–he has playfully turned himself upside-down and now he sees the “underside” of the world with objective eyes.

If you have been listening to the news propaganda engine, or even to the alternative news sources, you may be seeing the dark underside of political maneuverings, wars initiated for the gain of the one percent, and nefarious banking schemes upsetting the global economy. All the hidden agendas of the global elite and their Machiavellian deals are coming out in the open. It’s sickening, you might feel dizzy, as if your world has suddenly turned topsy-turvy.

Many of us are not surprised, yet The Hanging Man shows us how to take the higher road. Instinctively we all know that deals with the devil are always bound to end this way. We don’t want more turbulence or even revenge. We may only be surprised at how long it has been taking for all this dark stuff to come out in the open.

The Hanging Man shows us that we are in a precious moment of pause and reflection. Notice the aura (halo) around the hanging man’s head. When you put your consciousness below your feet you are bound to illuminate some pretty interesting hidden agendas, but you also can see how your own unconscious behavior helps continue these agendas. It is time to look inward at oneself and make sure you have dotted all your “i’s.”

Carlos Castenada introduced the idea of “impeccability”–this means that instead of pointing out the wrongs and peccadilloes of the “other” you first look to how you are managing your own energy. Are you watching all your thoughts and emotions? Do you take responsibility for your moment-by-moment experience?

Lest this seem like too much work, remember that positive moods are actually easier to obtain and maintain. After all, it takes more muscles to frown than to smile. All you have to do is allow others their experience by detaching yourself from their agreements (their thoughts and emotions).

In numerology (the right hand of the Tarot) the number 12 is actually the number 3. Let’s say that the reality of the 1 is added to the 2 to produce the number 12. In this sense, the 12 looks like a more developed 3. In the Tarot, the 3 is The Empress, signifying the quintessential mother energy: nurturing and fertile. You can also say that the 12–The Hanging Man–is distilled down to its essence–or properly understood and integrated into the querent’s life–it becomes the natural 3, The Empress. If you experience The Hanging Man experience through the accompanying lesson of changing perspective and transcendance, you can then “own” the natural and easy creative manifestation powers of The Empress–the creative number 3.

While the 3–The Empress–represents the undeveloped fertile potential of your (and the world’s) consciousness, the 12 represents the addition of the conscious mind (the 1) to the 2.

In the Tarot, the 1 is The Magician, a potent figure representing conscious actualization. The Magician demonstrates the Hermetic axiom, “as above, so below” with his gesture. He knows how to access the full potential of all his magical tools, represented on his table and in his right hand: the Wand that he holds aloft for creative inspiration, the Sword for mental discernment and discipline, the Cup for emotional mastery, and the Pentacle for physical manifestation. The Magician shows the nascent Fool (the student of self-actualization) the 4-fold path of creative manifestation, represented by the four tools on his table and in his hand.

The 2 is The High Priestess, which represents the potential of the unconscious mind — intuition and the natural power of the activated and powerful feminine power. The High Priestess shows how you can tap the power of the Earth through your own intuition.

When the 1 of the conscious mind is married to the 2 of natural intuition, you obtain the “new view” and the enormous, revolutionary potential of The Hanged Man is suddenly revealed. This card signifies that the change is here, we are noticing it, and are able to transcend our old systems by changing our perspective. As we all do this together, we change the world for everyone, and set a new set-point of global consciousness.

The Hanging Man challenges us to view the world anew, and to set the world upside-down, while turning misguided values on their proverbial head. He shows us that our innate, natural values of love, tolerance and respect for the Earth are right, and are returning to us if we can only allow ourselves a bit of discomfort and reversals in public and personal affairs. After all, a couch potato only gets fatter, while an acrobat practices his art of creative view displacement in supple, joyful health. The Hanging Man teaches us to be flexible and ready for the change that always comes after an earth-shattering revelation: turning yourself upside-down certainly gives you a different point of view!

Exercise for the week: spend a little time upside-down. I like to bend backwards over the arm of the couch — this stretches my back delightfully. More advanced fun exercise: sit upside down in a chair (a heavy chair that won’t upset), with your back on the seat and your butt/thighs on the back of the chair. Hang your feet off the back.

(Really advanced players can try this on public park benches, for some nice reactions from passerby’s.)

Hanging Man definition from www.aeclectic.net:

With Neptune (or Water) as its planet, the Hanged Man is perhaps the most fascinating card in the deck. At #12, it is the opposite of the World card, #21. With the World card you go infinitely out. With the Hanged Man, you go infinitely in.

Some readers believe the Hanged Man reflects the story of Odin who offered himself as a sacrifice in order to gain knowledge. Hanging from the world tree, wounded by a spear, given no bread or mead, he dangled for nine days. On the last day, he saw on the ground runes that had fallen from the tree, understood their meaning, and, coming down, scooped them up for his own. All knowledge is to be found in these runes.

And still other readers like to point out that the Hanged Man is like that moment when a babe in the womb turns upside-down so that it may be born, hanging, as it were, from it’s umbilical cord.

The Hanged Man is similar to all of these: like Odin, he allows himself to be hung so that he can gain wisdom for the world. Like traitors of old, be sacrifices himself for a cause, and sees things from an “inverted” perspective. What is right to him is wrong to others and vice versa. And like the babe in the womb, the Hanged Man hangs suspended between one world (the womb) and the next (outside the womb).

via Meaning of the Hanged Man Tarot Card.
The Hanging Man: July 5th 2012 Tarot Reading | Parallel Mindzz.

Copyright 2012 Aliyah Marr

Creative freedom equals awareness and choice. If you doubt this definition, think of how it feels to be victimized and fearful: do you feel small and hurt, or expansive, loving, and free?

One way to define the layers of creative empowerment is as different “dimensions” — the higher you go in the dimensions, the more empowered you become. You ascend to a “higher” dimension when you accept responsibility as a conscious creator; no longer are you a victim of circumstances; you accept that you have an effect on others and on your world with your mood, your thoughts and your actions.

A good visual image of these dimensions is 5 concentric circles, with the inner circle as the densest reality — the 1st dimension; the next layer outward is the 2nd; and so on. The following test can help you see which dimension you are currently residing in:

#1 –HOW DO YOU SEE LIFE?

1. Life is a battle: the world is “dog eat dog.” Only the strongest survive.
2. The world I experience reflects everyone’s thoughts & emotions. I am responsible for everything I see.
3. Life is a love story: I love it all, no matter what I see. Everything fits together, it is not fixed, but fluidly responds to my thoughts: I get to choose my experience, by choosing the thoughts and emotions that make up my daily environment.

——–

#2 –THE GLOBAL ELITE

1. We need to punish these greedy, inhuman people for all their sins against the Earth and against humanity.
2. We can let them accept their punishment at the hands of others. We should be activists so that we can throw off the oppressors. The one percent will suffer, because they have chosen their path, and because their thoughts will be reflected instantly back to them.
3. I can see how everyone is playing a role. I have no idea of how others are experiencing their life, and I allow for the possibility that some of these people may be very advanced souls who came here to experience limitation, lack, and suffering. I allow everyone else their right to choose their experience without preaching to them or trying to change them.

——–

#3 –THE PAST

1. I need to remember the past, in order to survive should anything like that happen again.
2. I am attempting to overcome my past by choosing to be the opposite of what I was.
3. I am letting all past ideas and emotions go; first I honor them, and then I let them simply drop away, so I can have a new life in the now.

——–

#4 –THE EARTH & NATURAL DISASTERS

1. I need to educate myself and stay alert, so I can avoid all potential disaster areas.
2. I am one with the Earth and no more important than any one of her creatures. I cannot be hurt by her, because the part of me that is one with her is in constant communication, and I will know if there is danger, and will leave in plenty of time.
3. I recognize that the Earth is a living being; I live in consciousness of the interrelatedness of all life. I hold a consciousness of love for the Earth and all living beings. This vibration is received and reflected by the Earth and holds me in a different “reality” than the lower vibration reflected by fear and danger. In this higher vibration, the concern and fear of “natural disasters” are irrelevant.

———-

#5 –LEADERS & GURUS

1. I follow a great leader, who helps me become a better person, despite all my sins.
2. I am searching for a group of people and a leader that exhibit better qualities that I can emulate. Together we will change the world into a loving and peaceful place.
3. I am a lateral leader: I have the integrity to BE the qualities I admire. I trust my inner knowing, and need no one to interpret things for me.

———

#6 –LOVE

1. I will know love when I meet my soul-mate. Love is rare, so I must work–be prettier, make more money–so I can attract someone to love me. I am looking for a beautiful person who is faithful, loyal and supportive: someone who will love me unconditionally.
2. It takes courage to love because we have all been hurt by someone else. We are the walking wounded, and it is only a matter of time before we experience hurt, because only God is capable of unconditional love. I love my children (lover, wife, husband, sister, brother) as myself, and would sacrifice anything to make their lives better.
3. I love, but I do not require that that love be returned, because the nature of true love is like a beautiful river that flows unimpeded and without ever stopping. No one is unloved, and for me, the idea of separation is an almost forgotten illusion. I love because that love reflects my inner, true self. I am a fish, swimming in a sea of love. My children are independent people, with their own paths. All my relationships are based upon true equality, respect, and freedom.

———

#7 WORK

1. In this world, one needs a job to survive. If I work harder, I can make more money so I can have the things I need.
2. I want to create a new business so I can be my own boss. However, I need to be careful to pick a service or product that will be popular and sell well. For that I need to know what others want.
3. My only job right now is to follow my heart, and feel the flow between me and the world, and feel the flow between me and the other. As I help others, I help myself, because this increases the good feeling of flow. As I follow my heart, things that resonate with my nature will be naturally attracted to me.

——–

# 8 MONEY & ABUNDANCE

1. I need money to survive. Money will protect me, and I need more than my immediate needs to cushion me from this world. I need insurance to protect me from negative events. I’ll be happy once I have enough money.
2. Money is a currency, which stops or flows at the speed of thought. If I can visualize it, I can be as rich as I want. If I don’t have enough money, it is my fault.
3. I am redefining the terms money and abundance as flow. I see how I can daily demonstrate and participate in that flow by allowing myself to flow abundance to others. Happiness is the result of being in that flow.

———

#9 TIME

1. I need more time to do what I need to do. There is never enough time: the days are getting shorter and shorter. Life is short and over before you know it.
2. Time is a non-renewable resource. I have to be careful not to waste time. I don’t have time to relax right now, but I am planning a retirement that I will enjoy. Until then, I do my best to enjoy my free time on the weekends and plan fun vacations.
3. Time is elastic. Time expands or contracts according to consciousness. In fact, you might say that time has some qualities of consciousness. As I (we) grow in consciousness, our vibration gets faster, and time seems to be speeding up. Finally, time stops, when you get fully into the now. This place of stopped time is stopped thought. It is the divine, eternal moment of now.

———

#10 POSSESSIONS

1. Financial worth brings me security. I like shopping, but somehow the stuff I buy don’t make me feel good for long.
2. Mother Teresa is a saint because she valued service to others and rejected personal possessions. I couldn’t do that because I have responsibilities, but I admire this quality.
3. I enjoy all that is around me, but I need to own nothing. I can give freely because there is more than enough for all, and because I like to experience the good feeling of giving and receiving.

————

#11 CREATIVITY

1. I am not very creative, but I’d like to be. To be creative, one needs talent, and needs training. I may never be creative because even if I took classes I may not have the necessary talent. I see creativity as an activity separate from everything else.
2. I am creating everything around me, and I must take responsibility for my thoughts and emotions which are (respectively) the inspiration and the engine for what manifests in the outer world.
3. I am happy not knowing how or when my intent will produce what I desire. Creativity is a mood, and a focus. All creativity originates from the ocean of collective consciousness, and flows through the channel of my intent out through my heart into the outer world, which is only another beautiful expression of my inner self.

————-

SCORING

• Give yourself 1 point for every question that you answered with a #1.
• Give yourself 2 points for every question that you answered with a #2.
• Give yourself 3 points for every question that you answered with a #3.

—————

RESULTS

SCORE 0-11 — You are solidly in the 3rd dimension.* You are still ruled by polarities and reactivity. You do not yet realize that your reality is fueled by your thoughts and emotions, and that you have been conditioned to agree that the inner thoughts of lack, limitation, and fear are empirically real. You believe that the survival is based upon physical things, and that love is rare. You don’t believe in freedom, because you feel that the reality you experience is solid and not something under your control.

3rd dimension keywords: LACK, LIMITATION, FEAR, AUTHORITY, HIERARCHY, ABSOLUTE, POLAR OPPOSITES, SURVIVAL, VICTIMIZATION, DOMINATION, CONTROL, WAR, OPPOSITION, RESISTANCE, REACTIVITY, BLACK & WHITE, GOOD VS EVIL, US VS THEM

SCORE 12-22 — You are in the 4th dimension,** going towards the 5th dimension at the higher range; you are learning how to let go of the rational, limited left-brain concepts in order to claim your natural creative freedom. You still experience emotions, but are learning to chose your experience by choosing your thoughts and emotions.

4th dimension keywords: CHOICE, LAW OF ATTRACTION, SHADES OF GREY, NASCENT AWARENESS, PERSONAL POWER, TRYING, PAST/FUTURE

SCORE 23-33 — You are in the 5th dimension,*** expressing your higher self with love, and tolerance, and you are becoming a master of creativity. Every day you find more to embrace with love.

5TH dimension keywords: TOLERANCE, DETACHMENT, UNCONDITIONAL LOVE, ACCEPTANCE, INNATE, INTUITIVE, RESPECT, FREEDOM, ABUNDANCE, BEING, NOW, JOY, ABANDON, UNINHIBITED

———–

DEFINITIONS

*3RD DIMENSION
The 3rd dimension is the old, limited, controlled human-victim paradigm, full of fear, lack, and limitation. It represents the concept of what it meant to be human battling to survive on a hostile planet. The 3rd dimensional person has to fight for limited resources, is pre-ordained as the owner of the planet, and so has permission to despoil and exploit all resources. In 3D, everything is polarized, and one has to be either on the top or on the bottom of the food chain; amazingly it is possible for an exploiter to claim victim-hood because he/she refuses to see how the two polarized concepts need each other to survive. The polar opposites dance with each other while the human generating the accompanying emotions remains unconscious. The key phrase for the 3rd dimension is: irresponsible exploiter/victim.

**4TH DIMENSION
The next concentric circle represents the 4th dimension–actually active in the so-called 3rd dimension as well — where thoughts and emotions fly around uncontrolled. Some people conjecture that all the thoughts and emotions that have ever been thought live in the (lower) 4th dimension. But before you dismiss this theory out of hand, remember that physics tells us that energy (thoughts and emotions) is indestructible. A beam of light projected into (empty!) space goes on forever. Thoughts are virtually things in the 4th dimension; the 4th dimensional energy of thoughts and emotions activate manifestation on the 3rd plane. The 4th dimension is Quantum Consciousness–this layer “feeds” the lower dimensions.

Time does not exist in the 4th dimension, since the rules of quantum physics are subatomic– energy/vibration-based. Creation in the 4th is pure creative energy directed by conscious or unconscious intent and collective agreements. This quantum soup of consciousness is the field of collective (un)consciousness that all artists draw from for inspiration. However, one cannot easily survive for long in the 4th dimension because it is difficult to experience the tumultuous combination of instantaneous manifestation and unconscious direction for long.

The movie “The Secret” and the book, “The Holographic Universe” demonstrate how 4th dimension functions. The 4th dimension is where the master number 22 is king: 22 is the number of the master builder; it expresses the power of building consciousness. In numerology, the master number 22 is a higher expression of both the number 2 (duality) and the number 4 (the Earth).

The keyword to the 4th dimension is “choice.” Historically the 4th dimension has been the playground for tyrants and manipulators, who learned to use some pretty nefarious techniques in emotional manipulation: for uncounted eons, negative emotional events such as religious intolerance and war, have been triggered by people who knew how to manipulate the power –emotions and beliefs — of this layer.

But the 4th dimension is properly used as a bridge. Just as the heart chakra–the 4th chakra– “bridges” the “lower” chakras with the “higher” chakras, so the 4th dimension operates as a bridge between the 3rd dimension and the higher dimensions, by calling upon us to achieve a state of “higher love” and to make our creative powers conscious. In doing so, we “skip” quickly by the dangerous and turbulent lower 4th dimension and enter the 5th.

***FIFTH DIMENSION
You can “escape” the chaotic, unconscious creativity of the 4th dimension by becoming more conscious of your own part in manifestation of what you are experiencing as “reality.”  In the 5th dimension, you experience acceptance, detached love (unconditional love), flow and abundance. Regardless of what we have been entrained to believe, these feelings are our natural state. Freedom and tolerance are by-words in this dimension: you create naturally and freely because it is your innate nature to be actively and consciously creative. You are assured, and self-confident without egoistic concerns–you are in the place of “no doubt” where you trust your inner guidance implicitly.

The primary keyword on the 5th dimension is “connection.” If you experience connection–also known among various esoteric sects as  ”oneness” –you know that the other equals the self, and you cannot harm anything without harming yourself. Native peoples who retain Earth-based esoteric belief systems often reside in this awareness, because they practice respect for the Earth, and see themselves not apart from anything, but connected and responsible for everything, from the food they eat, to their fellow beings. Unconscious behavior is eliminated at this level because–like a stone causing ripples on a pond–every thought/deed affects everything else. Thoughts are things here because 4th dimensional rules still play, directed by the intent of the originating consciousness. The 5th dimension is the entrance to the expression of the master number 33: what they call “Christ consciousness,” the consciousness that effortlessly expresses unconditional love, wrapped in personal responsibility: at this point you are fully conscious of your thoughts and you use higher emotions to create your chosen reality or timeline.

The ancient shamans of Mezoamerica called the unconscious expression of reality as “the smoky mirror” — thoughts generated by an individual are reflected on the inside of his aura, but rather than a clear surface that reveals your own face as the creator, you can only see your own confused, undirected “smoky” thoughts, and mistake those thoughts for empirical reality. The “in here” of mental/emotional reality is reflected on the “out there” of the aura, but dimly. So no connection is made between the initial thought, the activating emotion, and the energetic/material results.

From the 3D experience, one cannot understand unconditional love because the reality of 3D is that of conditional everything. The concept of “unconditional” throws away the limiting polarity that exists on the third and fourth dimensions, breaking through to the higher dimension ruled by a higher comprehension of the self. At this level you can feel the jewel of the inner self inside the shell of the outer self, or reality.

While someone who has achieved a higher dimension of awareness can see the lower dimensions, the lower dimensions cannot see or comprehend higher dimensions. This is what they mean by “gaining a higher perspective.” One could poetically say that the heaviness of the lower dimensions (unconscious thoughts and emotions) keep the head (spirit) too weighed down to look “up.”

So, one primary tool that all creative development needs is a huge dose of faith. Faith that there is a better way, faith in your inner guidance, faith in your inner strength. This faith might be all that you have against what appears (for a while) as an empirical, absolute reality, that paradoxically, you have been creating. Eventually, you learn to responsibly create that reality with your thoughts and emotions.

The funny thing is, you have been in charge of the creative process all along, but like a nightmare that you experience after a trauma, you created it unconsciously. To become a “material master,” you have to “wake up” from the dream of the unconscious, by making everything you do conscious–once you are consciously choosing your thoughts and your emotions, you cannot slip back into the old dream of victimhood and helplessness.

Which dimension do you choose?

Copyright 2012 Aliyah Marr

I use the following metaphor: visualize the outboard motor of a ship. To go in reverse (radically change your thoughts), the motor has to stop—at least for a moment.

I call this process “Ending the Story.” The ancients of nearly every philosophy knew that we describe the world to ourselves and then live in it. The ancient Toltecs called this mental hologram, “The Smoky Mirror,” meaning that we project our thoughts out to our auras, which reflect our thoughts back to us as “reality.”

As I state in Parallel Mind, The Art of Creativity: We are magicians who have forgot that we create our own illusions. To regain control of our creative powers, we have to:

1. Realize we have creative power.
2. Realize that our thoughts and emotions create our reality.
3. Take responsibility —not blame— for our thoughts and emotions that support our creations (unconscious or conscious).
4. Monitor every thought and emotions that arise.
5. Choose the ones we want.
6. Maintain vigilance against unconscious habits.

The power of our illusions is so strong that we all think that we have to change the “outside” in order to change the “inside.” An example of this kind of misguided thinking is our habitual conditional thinking: “I’ll be happy when I get that job, find a spouse, get my own home…etc.” This kind of thinking practically guarantees that we can never be happy; not only are we putting our happiness in the future, but we are subjecting it to conditions that by our own definition do not currently —and may never—exist. All of this is how we disempower ourselves with every unconscious thought.

Our thoughts begin to create a story when we continue to “gather evidence” to support a storyline. Whenever you practice the same (disempowering, unconscious) thought, it forms a path in your brain. Like any footpath in the wilderness, more traffic along the same path of thought creates a deeper grove in the matrix of the brain. For instance, you might have the (unconscious) belief that you cannot find a job. Since you are unconscious about this belief, it is sabotaging your efforts to find a job, even sabotaging any affirmations that you may be practicing, because the underlying negative belief is fueled by unconscious emotions.

The process is not to replace a “negative” belief with a more “positive” one, but to realize that you are in control of all your beliefs. Better yet: dismantle all your beliefs so you can create anew. This involves learning how to dismantle the “story of your life” by unraveling the thoughts and emotions behind that reality.

I wanted to create a radically different reality, one that was freed of all unconscious emotions and beliefs (thoughts). That meant that I had to next choose all my thoughts, and, for me, that meant first emptying myself of all thoughts.

Before you tell me that that is impossible, reflect that regaining control of your thoughts is the goal of all esoteric philosophies. All the adepts aspire to empty themselves of thoughts, beliefs and emotions.

“But, practically, how can you divest yourself of all thoughts,” you might ask. How do you do this throughout the day. Most Buddhists sit in meditation for hours in order to do that, but I was aspiring to do this throughout the day.

I used a trick.

Every time my thoughts started to go down unconscious paths of habit I would bring myself gently back to a visualization of a Lemniscate, a symbol used as an expression of infinity. A lemniscate has only one side: you can easily make one by taking a strip of paper, twisting it, and gluing the opposite ends together.

Whenever I had an unconscious thought that I no longer wanted, I would trace the single-sided lemniscate in my mind. This simple exercise allows the practitioner to connect the two sides of their brain. A connected brain has access to all right-brain skills, such as intuition, creative inspiration, and yes, even creative genius.

I practiced this until my thoughts slowed down and finally stopped. I found the following idea really helpful:

Think of reality like an old-style strip of film. The illusion of movement (and reality) is created by a phenomomen called “persistance of vision.” As the strip of still images moves through the projector the images blend into a convincing “reality”—the real secret to the illusion is that we perceive with our brain rather than with our vision.

As I went back to the lemniscate again and again, my thoughts slowed down—the projector of the illusion slowly slowed— until I could see each frame of the illusion (each thought supporting the believed reality) revealed as a simple image.

At this point I realized that I was emptying my mind in preparation for something. After all, I don’t want to be in the void forever, but I also don’t want to simply fill myself with more unconscious thoughts, emotions, and beliefs.

Why do I call this place “the void?” At this moment it feels very empty and bland. I cannot get excited about anything—even creative projects. I have created a vacum —since, as they say, “Nature abhors a vacum,” I am looking forward to using this void to flow into me all the things that I want.

Before I created the void, I had a lot of mental static and obstructing emotions. There wasn’t the space or power to allow anything new to enter. I don’t want old “solutions” or tired, old ideas, but until I am clear of all the old stuff, I can’t allow myself to put more in.

The void is necessary at this time. I am beginning to use my heart to guide me towards ever better feeling concepts and solutions. To me, the world is a feeling, not a thing: I can change my world by changing the things in myself that generate that underlying feeling: my thoughts and emotions.

So, the question remains: what happens after the void? What will I create? I have no idea, but I will say that I think it will be fantastic.

— Copyright 2012 Aliyah Marr
All rights reserved.

It started at the beginning of the year when I was inspired to put my own advice in effect: I decided to examine every emotion and detach myself. My mantra was:

The only emotions that are mine are the emotions that I consciously choose.

The dirty little secret is that most people are addicted to emotions, even, and sometimes especially, the so-called negative ones. Think of it: what do people feel when they watch “thriller” movies? They get buzzed by the negative emotion of fear, and thrilled by the adrenaline rush. However, these emotions are wasters of your creative energy, they deplete the body of energy, and worst of all, they allow others to easily control you.

When you don’t consciously choose your emotional reaction, you are more likely to find yourself in situations that are not good for you and allow others to profit from your pain. I would go so far as to say that most wars throughout history relied upon the subversive emotional exploitation of the masses. These wars benefit a small group of people, as they gather and bogart more and more resources. Marketing/selling, as the “military arm” of the capitalistic system, is dependent upon the manipulation of emotions.

The funny thing is: most emotions that you experience are not even yours! Here is a list of the origins of most unconscious emotions:

1. Inheritance: your relatives, friends, etc. — this is particularly a problem for those people who are empathic and sympathetic, especially if you are at all psychic.
2. Social conditioning. You receive this conditioning from growing up in a social construct.
3. Habit: personal memory traces. If you have a strong memory it is attached to an emotion– emotion allows you remember the event. Every time you have a similar experience, it triggers the attached emotion.

The way to break unconscious behavior–even powerful emotions–is always the same:

1. AWARENESS
Become alert to the rise of unconscious emotions.

2. REALIZATION
Realize that these emotions are not yours until they are conscious.

3. CHOICE
Here is the fun part: do you choose this emotion? Maybe you enjoy it. My criteria in choosing what emotions I wanted was: “Does this emotion help or hinder me? Does it feel good?” Once you choose an emotion, you infuse it with conscious power, which is much more powerful than an unconscious emotion. You are using your emotions to manifest the world you want, rather than using your emotions to manifest a negative world that you feed with your unconscious reactions. Unconscious emotions create a mirror existence that is maintained by reactivity.

4. PERSISTENCE
Repeat steps 1-3 as many times as necessary until you feel a bit empty and free of all unconscious emotions.

Now, you might find it a bit disconcerting if you take this to the nth degree, and find yourself without any emotions for a while. I, myself, was addicted to the buzz of creative ideation: I wasn’t happy without a creative project. My task was to find out if I could be happy without a creative project to feed my emotions.

Did I succeed? Yes, but this is just part one of a two part process. My next task was to stop thinking. Now, you might scoff at me—”How can you stop thinking? No one can stop thinking.” And, why would you want to?

I’ll explain all of that in part two.

~~~

People say I’m crazy doing what I’m doing,
Well they give me all kinds of warnings to save me from ruin,
When I say that I’m o.k. they look at me kind of strange,
Surely you’re not happy now you no longer play the game,

People say I’m lazy dreaming my life away,
Well they give me all kinds of advice designed to enlighten me,
When I tell that I’m doing Fine watching shadows on the wall,
Don’t you miss the big time boy you’re no longer on the ball?

I’m just sitting here watching the wheels go round and round,
I really love to watch them roll,
No longer riding on the merry-go-round,
I just had to let it go,

People asking questions lost in confusion,
Well I tell them there’s no problem,
Only solutions,
Well they shake their heads and they look at me as if I’ve lost my mind,
I tell them there’s no hurry…
I’m just sitting here doing time,

I’m just sitting here watching the wheels go round and round,
I really love to watch them roll,
No longer riding on the merry-go-round,
I just had to let it go.

—Watching the Wheels, John Lennon

http://youtu.be/_U9cXIDFzzI

(Personally, this piece really sends me…)

Annunciation (3D collage box-opened position) © Aliyah Marr

Both the shaman and the artist willingly venture where others would not travel. A shaman was an inspired fool who’s job was to cure the sick and communicate with the Spirit. The job of an artist today is very similar in that he points out the ignored and the obvious, and paints the unseen—and in the process, renders the human soul. Both shamans and artists connect ideas with people, emotions with souls, and open windows into new or ancient realities.

“…But now we have a tradition that doesn’t respond to the environment—it comes from somewhere else, from the first millennium B.C. It has not assimilated the qualities of our modern culture and the new things that are possible and the new vision of the universe. Myth must be kept alive. The people who can keep it alive are artists of one kind or another. The function of the artist is the mythologization of the environment and the world.”
— Joseph Campbell, The Power of Myth

As an artist I make nonsense out of meaning, or meaning out of nonsense; I deliberately misinterpret cultural signs, jumble known facts, misuse common tools, and recycle cultural artifacts. The act of painting for me is both a synthesis of a connection to the collective psyche and a reflection of my personal experience. I cannot always say where an image is coming from or where it is going. Jungian archetypes can only explain a portion of what is invoked during the process of painting. I have often thought that I am not solely the author of the work that I produce; and that the best art involves images that defy explanation; things that cannot be traced back to any definite origin.

Writers sometimes speak of characters that spontaneously emerge in a novel, coming “alive” and even directing the author’s work. For me, a good painting also has a life and a direction of its own. Unpredictable and capricious, it can break free of my conscious control, and take a new course. I actually endeavor to set up the circumstances and environment where this kind of break can happen naturally. I look for the “happy accident” that allows me to glimpse something from the other mind, from my soul’s intent — a chance to make the unseen seen.

If you feel an epiphany that goes beyond words, then you have connected with the essence of something through art or nature. As Joseph Campbell points out, an epiphany does not have to be aesthetic in nature — rather it involves a “gut” feeling of truth, something that goes beyond mere words and logic. Reaching that part of us is the holy grail in art.. That is the magic, the alchemical effect, the connection that we all long for, the distance abridged—the “Aha”. We cannot get there through daily life or a life lived ordinarily. Art is my bridge to the inner self, a window into the human soul.

— Aliyah Marr

Today, developers often place a building on the land with no interest in blending into the landscape or using materials that come from the area. When we do not make an effort to learn what works and what doesn’t, we make a grave error. Eventually, nature takes away the building. If you build an adobe building or rammed earth building in a rainforest, eventually, nature takes that building down.

We resist the natural process with all our might. In this, we are resisting life. When we create cars that pollute and live our lives at the mall, we are so out of contact with life that we cannot connect at all with a sense of natural process. We find it tragic when a tsunami takes a town, or an earthquake levels a building, but the tragedy actually occurred much earlier, when we decided that we could find an exit clause in Nature’s process.

The wider vision is that, although a volcano may erupt or a wildfire get out of control, and destroy acres of land, that land comes back more fertile than ever in a year or two. This is life, and if we worked with it and saw the bigger picture, we would find ourselves in a happier, healthier place.

It takes creativity to create something, but takes nothing to destroy it. Our thinking is a colossal hubris; an incredible combination of overweening pride, idiocy, and irresponsibility. We build tall buildings that do not bend, we build towns too close to the sea. We erode the land with our farming techniques, and send fertile soil out river heads to pollute the sea. We think that we can put sewage and garbage somewhere else and it will somehow disappear.

We don’t need most of the chemicals and artificial products made today. These products are poisonous. They are poisoning us and the planet, yet we are told we cannot stop because people will lose their jobs. Why not simply switch to producing substances that are more aligned with natural processes? It is a lie that we can only produce hazardous products and a bigger lie that the economy will collapse if we stop. This is just greed and laziness at the corporate executive and governmental level.

George Oswawa said that Western man is exclusive. Western philosophy resists life, because Western man feels he is superior to life. Everything else may die, but he feels superior and immortal. But the concept of immortality is a ruse to keep you from really living.

In the end, only the life you are living is important. Not what you buy in the mall, drive on the road or have in the bank account. Who but the film buffs and historians care about the stars of former eras? How many statues in city squares interest you? Only the pigeons find these useful.

Revel in your mortality, embrace life, and start living. Take a walk in nature today, and be humble; she has much to teach you.

Copyright 2009 Aliyah Marr

This post may be copied and shared as long as nothing is changed from the original and the copyright notice is included.

Field of Gold © Aliyah Marr (6 x7 ft mural)

Have you ever noticed that the words “magic” and “image” seem to be from the same root word?  A visual artist today has access to the entire history of art—to a vast museum of images from the subconscious that evoke ideas, emotions and feelings in the viewer.

I cannot always say where an image is coming from or where it is going. As an artist, my intent is to tap into what I call the “ocean of dreams” — what psychologists call the collective unconscious; a type of awareness that is pre-verbal and primarily visual in form and content. However, Jungian archetypes can only explain a portion of what is invoked during the process of painting. In my opionion, the best art uses images that defy explanation; things that cannot be traced back to any cognitive or logical origin.

Writers often speak of characters that spontaneously emerge in a novel, coming “alive” and even directing the author’s work. For me, a good painting also has a life and a direction of its own. Unpredictable and capricious, it can break free of the artist’s conscious control, and take an entirely new course. Instead of fighting this tendency, I welcome it; in fact I often set up the circumstances and environment where this kind of break can happen naturally. I look for the “happy accident” that allows me to glimpse something beyond my original intent — a chance to make the unseen seen.

By summoning the unseen participation of our collective unconscious, artist like me hope to evoke a “gut” reaction in the viewer —a feeling that defies words and logic. In my opinion, reaching that part of us is the holy grail in art. That is the magic, the alchemical effect, the distance abridged.

HUMOR!

Check out this little ditty in limericks.

The short answer is: I was compelled to tell my story. I felt it was time to show what it is like to live a creative life, to show what it is like to think like an artist, and to not feel fettered or bound to any medium or technique.

I wanted to show how a mind develops through the practice of art, to demonstrate how the view of the world becomes bigger with a creative mind, and to show how art makes bridges that connect ideas, emotions, and people.

Were there any books out there that did this? No. Are there any now? No.

It is my assertion that the best artists learn to use both sides of their brains in a balanced fashion. The crazy ideas that wake an artist up at night come from the uninhibited right-brain. In order to make that concept into art, the artist has to use the discipline and skills from her left-brain. It doesn’t matter what medium the artist chooses, the path to creation works the same way. This is, of course overly simplified for the purposes of understanding. Yet, most artists agree with me, that they feel that the practice of art engages the whole brain.

When I wrote my book, it seemed that no one had ever asked a visual artist what it is like to be truly creative. Why do they create? Certainly not to help their employer or their team, although that may happen once they have already developed their creativity.

Parallel Mind is one of the few books that talks about “pure creativity,” which I define in the book as below:

“Pure creativity is an activity that has no predefined destination or purpose, while applied creativity is an activity that always has a goal or application in mind. Pure creativity can be seen as a kind of play, while applied creativity is usually seen as work.

“Examples of pure creativity include (but are not limited to): a painter who paints from his heart, a musician who creates a symphony while toying at the piano, a writer who bases a screenplay on the people she knows at work, a scientist who discovers a new law of the universe by playing with raw materials and outlandish ideas. “

“Pure creativity” is divine play, a ready entrance to the greater sense of connection with the central energy of the universe. Many people find this feeling through meditation. The practice of art (meaning any purely creative work) is one of the active ways to experience the same thing. Our society, dominated by the values of the left-brain, only permits that which is useful and gainful. It allows very few avenues to the kind of pure existential enjoyment that artists know in their work.

So, I guess my answer to the question above is, simply, that I was compelled to create a book on creativity for the simple reason that I love to create. It doesn’t matter which medium I choose; the sheer enjoyment of creating something new is what keeps me playing in new mediums, with ever new toys, and with increasing delight no matter what form the final piece takes. My books show others how to access the amazing power that resides inside them: the human birthright of creative freedom.

• A book or an image is copyrightable.
• It is copyrighted the minute the book or image is produced.
• in order to prove you own it, you should register it, otherwise you may lose in a court battle.
• Copyright is a form of protection provided by U.S. law to the authors of “original works of authorship” fixed in any tangible medium of expression. The manner and medium of fixation are virtually unlimited. Creative expression may be captured in words, numbers, notes, sounds, pictures, or any other graphic or symbolic media. The subject matter of copyright is extremely broad, including literary, dramatic, musical, artistic, audiovisual, and architectural works. Copyright protection is available to both published and unpublished works.
• There is one more way to protect a book or magazine…

–>> read the rest of this post on the FreshAsylum blog

You may think that someone has stolen your idea, but it may not be so. After all, an idea is not copyrightable — you can only copyright a tangible rendition of your idea. And here is where your idea is guaranteed to be different than all other similar ideas — in the form you develop from your initial idea.

Let me give you an example: when I was writing my first book, I was asked what made my book on creativity different from all other books on creativity? Certainly not the idea to write about creativity! What made it unique was…

–>> read the rest of this post on the FreshAsylum blog

Stefan Bucher draws a monster-a-day. Check out his intuitive drawing technique in the video below. He sells original prints of his monsters and has even made a phone app. www.dailymonster.com

The Squirrel Mask is the perfect thing to freak out your neighbors. Just slip it on, sneak over and steal birdseed until they notice. If it freaks out people, just imagine what it will do for squirrels! They’ll never come back to your yard again. Do not wear around dogs. Latex. Fits most adult heads.

The full article, plus all the hilarious copy from the site are on my other blog, FreshAsylum.

The image above is printable and free to you. No email request or password: just download it.
Right-click or command-click on the image above and choose “save target as” (PC) or “save the link as” (MAC) to your computer, then print with your printer.

A few years ago I designed a Tarot deck. I admit that when I began, I didn’t actually believe that a mere deck of cards could have any meaning to me. I just wanted to conduct an intellectual experiment: what would happen if I randomized the titles to my paintings? Would a word placed near the image change the image; would the image change the word?

Try it for yourself. You can play the online version of my game here.

Play the Transformational Tarot Like a good friend, it is there for you, day or night. Available for Mac and Windows computers.

A few years ago I had a similar experience: a designer friend and I were strolling through the aisles of a new wine store in town. We delighted in the label design, both often drawn to the same design for the same reasons. Years earlier, I remember a graphic designer who remarked that she thought designing a wine label was a plum project (pun unintended).

The label on my new purchase is especially interesting, as the brand is called “Found Object.” OK, I did find it. But the reference is to an art movement in the early part of the last century. A found object is a surrealist trick whereupon the artist takes an object that is normally NOT considered art, and makes it into art. Often the artist achieves an “aha” in the viewer by turning the object over, or combining the object with others to produce a visual resemblance to another, unconnected subject.

The term found art—more commonly found object (French: objet trouvé) describes art created from undisguised, but often modified, objects that are not normally considered art, often because they already have a non-art function.Pablo Picasso first publicly utilized the idea when he pasted a printed image of chair caning onto his painting titled Still Life with Chair Caning (1912). Marcel Duchamp perfected the concept when he made a series of “readymades”—completely unaltered everyday objects selected by Duchamp and designated as art—several years later. The most famous example is Fountain (1917), a standard urinal purchased from a hardware store and displayed on a pedestal, resting on its side.— Wikipedia

Needless to say, this little urinal-turned-fountain art-that-was-not-art had repercussions throughout the art world. Some people still react to this image even though this piece is now almost 100 years old.

One of my favorite examples of found art is the Picasso bull, made from the seat of a bicycle and handlebars. It’s an elegant piece that takes pieces from the same utilitarian object and presents it to the viewer in such a way that he is forced to a different conclusion.

It takes a creative mind to look at something that one sees everyday and suddenly see it in a new way. It takes an artist to transform that glimpse into a form that others can now see. —Aliyah Marr, The Art of Creativity

A few years ago I designed a Tarot deck. I admit that when I began, I didn’t actually believe that a mere deck of cards could have any meaning to me. I just wanted to conduct an intellectual experiment: what would happen if I randomized the titles to my paintings? Would a word placed near the image change the image; would the image change the word?

Try it for yourself. You can play the online version of my game here.

Play the Transformational Tarot. Like a good friend, it is there for you, day or night. Available for Mac and Windows computers.

The image above is printable and free to you. No email request or password: just download it.
Right-click or command-click on the image above and choose “save target as” (PC) or “save the link as” (MAC) to your computer, then print with your printer.

A few years ago I designed a Tarot deck. I admit that when I began, I didn’t actually believe that a mere deck of cards could have any meaning to me. I just wanted to conduct an intellectual experiment: what would happen if I randomized the titles to my paintings? Would a word placed near the image change the image; would the image change the word?

Try it for yourself. You can play the online version of my game here.

Play the Transformational Tarot. Like a good friend, it is there for you, day or night. Available for Mac and Windows computers.

….it’s magical, it’s what art is about. — Joshua Allen Harris

Artists don’t wait for the perfect studio, the perfect materials; they make art from whatever they find around them. Joshua Allen Harris combines garbage bags and the hot air from subway train grates and makes art.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PH6xCT2aTSo&color1=0xb1b1b1&color2=0xcfcfcf&hl=en_US&feature=player_embedded&fs=1]

$4.98 Ebook All formats: computer, i-Book, e-reader or smart phone. (PDF • EPUB • MOBI • RTF) You will be taken to the download page after payment.

A Revolution of Birds Bird Seed announces that a revolution has taken place under our very noses. Social media has created a new grassroots movement. The phenomena of social media shows us that a new paradigm has evolved. Old paradigm verbiage Consumers, corporate power, mass marketing, advertising, planned obsolescence, search-engine optimization, content mills, email blasts, 30-second commercials, broadcasting. New paradigm verbiage Individualists, informed buyers reporting on products and corporations, freedom of choice, democratized media, viral messaging, conversation, democratic media, inclusion and participation, flocking behavior, community, global reach.

Or to put it more succinctly, the old paradigm of the advertising and consumerism is being replaced by an exciting new era of individualism, free choice, and democratic grass-roots viral media.

Can You Digest Bird Seed? If you feel victimized by nonsensical Ebay ads in your search sidebar… If you are pursued by a growing mob of Facebook friends whom you have never met… If you are deluged with double opt-in messages when you can’t remember a single opt… If you find yourself confused by application upgrades that downgrade your experience… If you are unable to see the social media forest for all the meaningless trees of content… If you are afraid that your last precious half-hour of free time may be on the chopping block of Twitter… If you bemoan the disappearance of time, depth, and real meaning… If you find it sad that your iPhone has replaced your dog as your constant companion… If you suspect your wife has left you for her blog… …then this book may be for you. New technology should not make us into a technician or slave to the application, but instead, it should free the individual to live a better life. The purpose of this book is to help you achieve the same goal.  

I really love this book. I can use it as a serious reference and sign-poster towards a better understanding of the increasingly complex and confusing world of social media marketing which at times, for many writers and publishers can at best become overwhelming and at worst a nightmare. But in addition, Aliyah has written not only a common sense description of easy to follow building blocks and integrated platforms but added her usual unique sparkle of wit, fun and creativity into the process, making this book a pleasure to read on topics which are often presented in such a tedious and off-putting nerdy way, rather than as Bird Seed does, by telling you how it is, straight and no messing about. This book will make you laugh and smile as well as reflect and ponder. Writers are advised endlessly to Twitter our Facebooks and StumbleUpon our LinkedIn – now after digesting some Bird Seed I think I have at last informally learned something practical and useful at a cost effective price. — achillespubtalk

It’s an engaging read and I really enjoyed it. It should be a must read for anyone trying to get their ideas, business, product out there or anyone trying to navigate social media and all its positive aspects while avoiding the pitfalls.— Aaron B.

$4.98 Ebook All formats: computer, i-Book, e-reader or smart phone. (PDF • EPUB • MOBI • RTF) You will be taken to the download page after payment.

Available on Amazon & All Booksellers

Print version available on Amazon for about $12.00

Kindle Edition $4.99

If you want to develop your natural creativity — I guarantee you, if you are human, you are creative — then this site can help you do that. (If you aren’t human, well, I can’t help you with that.)

Here’s what you can do here:

• PLAY creative games
• PARTICIPATE in creative groups, like Creative Caffeine
• BUY creative products
• DEVELOP your creativity
• FIND creative personal & business guidance
• GET INSPIRED— join the blog to get fun offers, site updates, and inspiration by email

Older posts on creativity and personal development may be found at:

The Art of Creativity Newsletter