By Whitney Ferré of Creatively Fit

What if the true intention behind your creative practice was to be a PORTAL for change on this planet? Would this be NEW to you?

For me, the most exciting part of my creative journey has been the corresponding emotional and spiritual journey. I have inspired “non-artists” to embrace their creative power since 1996, but I confess that I did not do so in order that they might create “quality” art or marketable product. What has always inspired excited energy within me and a passionate drive to share paints, colored pencils and watercolors with as many people as possible is my belief that it is our creative energy that is going to save the world—literally! As the world prepared for 2012 I was further inspired as some of my most respected spiritual philosophers and leaders started sharing their own beliefs surrounding our creative spirits. This following quote is from Andrew Cohen.

“In the way that I use the term, God is the energy and intelligence that created the universe and is driving the process forward in every moment. And that energy and intelligence cares desperately about change and innovation and the release of potentials that have not existed before. So it is constantly looking for portals through which it can enter into the world and consciously engage with creating its next step. As conscious human beings who have been blessed with self-awareness and free agency, we are those portals.” ~Andrew Cohen

Can you go there? Can you imagine the infinite universe scanning kitchen tables and art studios around the globe, searching for PORTALS through which to channel its infinite, creative energy? Why not? As human beings we created art before we created a monetary system OR a written language. We can look at tribal art and we know the sculptures, paintings, and symbols were created to access other dimensions and powers. We can still do that today.

The image below hangs above the door to my art studio. The “double croc” is an ancient symbol of protection. My painting it was a meditation on protecting the good, positive energy and my own “inner croc” that needed a boost to “own my power” and protect my own inner landscape. (Read more in my blog post here….)

This Creative Goddess is my most recent painting, still in process, and has already provided hours of colorful, sparkly meditations on all that is possible. As I layered and layered the colors, scratched through to bottom layers, and made her glow with my white & yellow painted fingers, I felt as though I was really accessing this goddess, encouraging me to think bigger, to expand my awareness about my own creative power and really let go!

I do believe it will be when more people proudly state, “I am creative!” rather than, “I can’t even draw a straight line…” that our global consciousness will shift and our world will step into a new time of greater peace, compassion and sustainability. YOU getting “Creative Everyday” is building that energy that our world needs. Here is what Ken Wilber has to say about creativity….

“Creativity: in some ways it seems so common, yet in other ways it is actually at the foundation of virtually every important activity and practice in human life—from relationships to play, from work to relaxation, from meditation to transformative practice, from parenting to teaching, from emotional expression to cognitive competence, from recreation to career choice. In many ways, creativity has been thought of as a rare, difficult, hard-to-come-by talent or gift, evidenced only by the few geniuses of each era. But according to the Integral view, creativity is actually a component of each and every moment of existence, and it can be learned and exercised with a few simple practices.” ~Ken Wilber

This is why there is such power in what Leah is doing here at Creative Every Day. Each day that you flex your creative muscles you are opening up as a portal to infinite creativity.

Here is a really fun & easy exercise to create and, should you choose, integrate into your spiritual life. I call them Story Cards.

Grab that stack of magazines and tear out ANY images that catch your attention. If anything, a color, a texture, an image, makes you go, “Oooooh!” tear it out. Don’t judge and don’t wonder what you are going to do with it. Just grab the pages that speak to you.

When you have a nice stack of images, divide them into 3 piles (you can make many sets of these, but each time make 3 piles). How do you divide them? Just let the images that you intuitively feel should be together join the same pile. You do not even have to label them yet, or understand the difference between the piles. One pile may have all bluer images, another pile nature images. The image above is a collage of three of my Story Cards. The far left card is about my spiritual life. When I look back on that card, with the fact that right now I am busy with our new SPIRIT Project 2012, I get the chills! The middle card was all about things I love. The far left card was inspired by nature.

When you are done, you will have exercised your “creative intuitive” muscle and have cards you can go to over and over for insight into the ART that is your LIFE!

I hope this NEW perspective on your daily creative activity inspires some new thoughts and energy into your practice. Namaste. Whitney

Whitney is the author of The Artist Within, A Guide to Becoming Creatively Fit and you can learn more about Whitney at www.CreativelyFit.com and join the SPIRIT Project for only $20.12 for the entire year!

Day 30! Woohoo! I'm proud of myself for getting through this month and I hope you all are feeling good about what you've accomplished.

I started to feel like my paintings were starting to tell a story recently. Perhaps if I put them all together, I'll be able to see what the narrative is.

Tomorrow I'll have a check-in for the Creative Every Day Challenge to carry us through til Monday, when I'll resume the regular weekly check-ins.

Congrats to all the Art Every Day Month participants. You all rock!

This is my favorite of the onesies I've done this month! It's another freezer paper stencil based on a drawing I did earlier this year. I can't wait to put Annabelle in it! I'm glad AEDM pushed me to try this out. I'd like to do more!

I started this piece early in the day, letting paint run together on a wet page. Then I let it sit out, looking at it occasionally while entertaining the baby during the day. After I put her to bed, I went into it with white pen, purple marker and a little more paint. The image that came surprised me, but I'm liking it. I think it was inspired by the miniature starfish in our fish tank that seem to multiply over night.

A quick drawing today, using some new brush pens I picked up. I had no plans, just started to draw and the deer came. I seem to be connecting with deer lately. I'll have to look them up in my Animal Speak book!

I hope you had a beautifully creative weekend!

For Day 2 I wanted to do something in honor of my daughter turning 6 months. 6 months!! A whole half a year. Remember when half a year was important? When you'd say, "I'm 8 and a half!" Hehe.

Back when I was still pregnant, Mindy of wishstudio gave me a blank board book as a gift and this week, I decided what I wanted to do with it. I decided to create a little storybook of things Annabelle loves. So far I've done two page spreads, one for cats (you can see above) and one for music, two things she adores at this point in her young life. I'll later do pages for bath time and for mommy and daddy.

For day one, I had my husband helping me out a bit during the day and was able to spend a little extra time painting. How nice! I had already completed the collage background for this piece, but I'm SO happy to have started painting the image I've had in my head since Annabelle was about a month old.

It has to do with the strange time that is the middle of the night when you're up constantly, nursing a newborn baby. It's like this whole other world. Kind of lonely, but kind of sacred.

I've still got more to do on this piece, but I really like the way it's going so far! I know that many days this month, all I'll be able to do is part of a piece, but as long as I'm creating every day, I'll be happy with that.

I hope everyone has had a beautiful start to Art Every Day Month! And even if you haven't, keep at it. It's a long month and every day is a new beginning.

This was fun. I decided to start painting intuitively with Passion in mind. I chose colors and music to listen to with this in mind. I started simply painting in a passionate manner. Then I stepped away to let it dry and came back later in the day. The bit of yellow in the center of a red/blue landscape, made me think of a heart at sea, so I painted in the boat around it. A larger bright spot made me think of the moon, so I made that more clear. I played with the waves and sky and eventually saw a whale beneath the surface.

I think the red string has something to do with heart strings and an umbilical cord, blood lines and life. Whales are always loaded with symbolism for me, so I'm not surprised to see one pop up here.

I enjoyed painting with passion in mind! And I look forward to seeing more of your passionate creations!

I had this idea in my head last month and it seemed like a good transition from the month of Cosmos to the month of Passion. My original idea was quite different from what came out though.

In my head, the idea was one of a woman being lit from within by stars. But as I started painting, I wanted something more colorful. And then this afternoon, I checked something online and saw that the Chinese New Year starts tomorrow (the year of the Rabbit) and suddenly knew I wanted rabbits in the image. I saw it as three rabbits jumping over her. The white trees were a last minute addition.

So the image I ended with is quite different from where it started, but the idea is the same. I see it as representing how when you shine you own light (your passion, your you-ness, your creativity) out into the world, it encourages others to do the same.

With tonight being the Full Wolf Moon, I sat down after dinner to make a dreamboard, something I used to do with collaged images, but in the last year or so I have enjoyed drawing or painting them. I thought it was a good thing to share during the month of cosmos! In this one, I intuitively drew a tree growing from a wolf, with the various branches holding things I want to manifest, such as a healthy body and baby. Have you made a dreamboard for the full moon before? You can find out more about them from the amazing, Jamie Ridler.

I've got a couple other goodies to share too!

1. The lovely and talented, Liv Lane is celebrating the one year anniversary of her Happy HeART giveaways and to help her celebrate, I'm giving away one of my prints! All you have to do is stop by and leave a comment here.

2. My calendar publisher offered me a great discount after the holidays, so I picked up some more, so I could pass the savings on to you! While they last, you can grab one of my 2011 calendars for half off! And if you'd like a drawing on your birthday in the calendar, simply order a second item (greeting card, print, or original art.)

3. The Soul Art TV series of interviews of Creative Revolutionaries has been so fun to watch! If you haven't checked them out yet,  you can sign up here (they're free) and get a whole bunch of free gifts in the process! I'll let you know when my interview is up.