By Bart Sharp

Stay as present as you can in the moment.

If something bothers you, find it, resolve it and feel complete. Creativity bounds in the attitude of wholeness.

Nothing stops the flow more than emotional obstacles.

Listen with more than your ears as the world is ready to give you the inspirations that you are ready to receive.

Stay curious.

Nothing is good or bad but it may have a message for you.

Cats, animals, nature, children and anything else are our teachers.

We never know it all; give up being the authority.

Creativity has an energetic feeling, when you fine tune into it you will find writing has a different energy than painting or gardening or socializing or dancing.  Follow the energy to your activity as it comes up or create the energy to the activity you desire.

If you dread something do not postpone it, procrastination is a killer of creativity spreading to all areas of living.

By Bart Sharp

Sometimes we become lethargic or stuck.  The creative process of our magical life is affected by a variety of things.  Often there is an emotion or project that we have not come to completion with that is taking our energy elsewhere and out of the present tense.  Sometimes it is the simply our surroundings that affect our magical life and creativity to receiving inner wealth.

I awoke one morning from a dream that felt like it had slapped in the face.  It was an abrupt awakening that was not physical but the immediacy of it had struck inside of me.  I could not remember the details of the dream but I knew its message.  “You are sluggish, it is time to change things up.”

The message rang all too true for the past week I had been slowly working around my home.  My productivity as a writer was less.  My business as a counselor was down.  I was doing less in general.  It was summer time in Texas and the heat takes its toll on everyone as it sucks energy from everyone.  But, I was spending the days in an air-conditioned home, so I had little excuse.

The dream had a more direct message.  The dream stimulated my awareness to a plan.  I needed to clean my home and finish projects that were annoying me.

We as creative and active people have an intimate relationship with our home.  The condition of our home affects us.  If our space is disorganized it can steer us away from our top creative efficiency.   Our home and own energies do flow together.  Completing those unfinished projects and maintaining an environment that is visually pleasing opens us.  It is why we should always spend time cleaning, organizing and straightening.

We are connected to everything, everybody in some way.  Our immediate surrounding and relationships have the most direct affect upon us.  In most cases it is the thing we are most able to change as well.  Be willing to be aware of what changes within and around you could best facilitate your creative growth and magical life.

I was fortunate at the end of my college days of 1978 in Denton Texas to have a friendship with the founder of the most daring musical band that I have ever known, Carl Finch of Brave Combo.  Like many of us at that time we were stepping out of the college lifestyle and wondering what we were to do with our lives.  Of all my friends Carl was the best example of allowing a dream to be his guide.

Carl was completing a Masters Of Fine Art from the University Of North Texas when he decided on a lark to buy some polka records from the bargain bins at a local Wool Worth store.  Upon listening to the music Carl liked polkas and decided to recruit members to form a polka band.  It was not long before the band developed a repertoire of polkas, waltzes, Latin cumbias and other musicals styles that were most part unrecognized by a public that listened to music that was more mentally stimulating than the frolicking fun dance music of Brave Combo.

The synthesis of Brave Combo was stimulating audiences in ways that rock and jazz music of the seventies would not and could not create.  People could not stay in their seats while listening to the engaging rhythms.   After a few songs tables and chairs were moved aside to create a dance floor in the tightly compact lounges and joyous pandemonium erupted as the club would be redesigned for the evening for the pounding polka band.

For this time in Texas, rock or jazz music venues were not designed for dancing.  Dancing was reserved for disco and country and western bars.  The more eccentric listener would never consider dancing, that had been unheard of since the 1960’s.   The polkas of Brave Combo were so infectious with its new rhythms that one could not sit still.

The magic of the music brought out the playful child in so many of its listeners.  People danced in a variety of ways from traditional steps to wild reckless abandonment to express what Brave Combo stimulated in them.  People were unleashing something within them selves as they were infected with the spirit of the band.   The Combo were bringing out the child within the audience because they were connecting to a creative power in themselves that children relish, unrestricted playfulness.

One never knew how they would perform a song.  For example, their signature song of “The Beer Barrel Polka” was played a hundred different ways as they improvised each version to express a wide range of moods from the somber, to fairy-like to the insane.  Brave Combo could be anything, there was an innocence to them, like any new art in its infancy.  Their audience loved them for it.  It gave its listeners the inspiration to express their own dreams.

The big question is how could someone take several almost dead musical genres of polkas, waltzes, Latin styles and create them into an infectious art that is now loved by thousands around the world?  Carl’s formula was simple.  He did what fascinated him.  He was always willing to try something new.  Finch had many experiments of sampling long forgotten songs, Punk/Jazz, a polka about a 3 minute sexual experience, a heavy-metal version of  “The Hokey Pokey” (still a crowd favorite), playing a variety of clubs that traditional rock bands would not venture into, wacky videos, a video shot of Carl being adored by elderly women and the list goes on.  My favorite was the band’s ‘mental health tour’ playing state schools for the mentally retarded and state hospitals for the mentally ill.

What was amazing with Carl’s experiments was his detachment to them.  He simply would pick up an ideal, develop it and execute.  If he had a good response he would do more of it and if it did not work he set it down.  Carl never seemed to become remorseful of his failures nor did he become seduced by his successes.  Success and failure was all a part of the process.

The wisdom of detachment to your creations takes components of the ego out of the equation.  The ego would relish in its superiority of its accomplishment just as it would be distraught in its failures.  Enjoying the successes did not justify the value of or define Brave Combo, it was enjoyed in the moment and then moved on.  Carl was not the kind of guy that relished over past press clippings but always asked the question, “What is next?”

An aspect of Carl that I never witnessed was a judging or critical mind. He was not in judgment of how others created their lives.   What I constantly saw from Carl was an attitude of questioning when looking at Brave Combo or any situation.  Carl asked questions such as: “I wonder what it must be like to be him?” “I wonder what inspired the creation of that song?”  “That music is interesting, how can I include it in Brave Combo?”  The information would come through his asking.  He might know why it showed up, it just does.

The critical judging mind is one of the worst ways we can close down our creativity and openness to perceive beyond our own reality.  When we judge another or situation to find the wrongness of it we close down our perceptions to see beyond the situation.  The judgment influences our self to see only from the critical eye perspective.

Carl examined his life in a questioning curiosity that kept him attentive to creating life in the present moment.  I never saw Carl project how his newest song would be their next big hit.  The song was recognized as sounding good, enjoyed it for what it was and stayed in the question of, “How can we make it better?”

What I learned from Brave Combo was to always enjoy your creations in the moment.  It nourishes my spirit to continue to grow through the excitement of being me and expressing myself in a variety of ways.  By allowing the creative self to roam I have discovered secrets, talents within myself that reveal a deeper understanding of my self and the world around me.  In addition I use the same techniques Carl uses but as a therapeutic tool; living in the question and non-judgment.

After thirty years of performing Carl Finch and Brave Combo focus still remains an opened attitude to listen to themselves, music and the world around them.  They are still excited about music and the possibilities it can bring to people’s lives.

Bart Sharp
www.bartsharp.com

As I began school the wide-open playground of imagination began to narrow.  As the years passed the conformity of other people’s mindsets, school disciplines and the attempt to be like everyone else changed how I perceived the world.

As an adult it has been a rediscovery of myself that is revitalizing the creativity within me.  It is a process of breaking out of the linear world that we live in to a place of all possibilities.

It all begins by living in a state of non-judgment to everything in your life.  It is living without the decisions of right or wrong, good or bad.  Whenever we judge we close off our awareness to what we are judging.  For example if we believe that religion is bad we begin to lose the perspectives of all of what it has done and is in the world.

Imagination begins with the willingness to perceive and be all energies.  It is how we interact with our selves that develop it.  What are we willing and unwilling to see within us?  The more that we are intimately aware of our feelings and sensations and at the same time not attached to them the more we become aware of everything around us.  This creates the atmosphere for creative thoughts and ideals to proliferate easily.

The more that we confront what our limitations we can free up the suppressed parts of us that block a more open perception of our surroundings.  Inner exploration is a continual process that gives us more awareness, energy and imagination.  That is why it is always important to identify and process your feelings and sensations.  Our suppressed conflicts and feelings are energetic blocks that do not allow us to have a free flowing connection with a greater source.

One ingredient to imagination is being creative in all phases of our life.  Creativity is not limited to our art, writing or whatever we have deemed as our creative endeavor.  It is a choice to be open at all times to create.  It is listening within us to what is the most expansive thing to do in any moment.  Sometimes we are drawn to our garden, to go for a walk or to redecorate the kitchen.  There is something that is revitalizing in a variety of activities that gives an opportunity for us to be creative in them.  Children have a simpler term for it, play.

Creativity is an energy that is connected to a simultaneous consciousness, within us and beyond us.  Being in the flow of following what is light or what we are guided to do is being in sync with that kind of energy.  It guides and feeds us when we stay open to it.     We will generally be led back to what we are passionate about the majority of the time with a richer invigoration.  At the same time, expect surprises.

Sometimes it is good to pull from a source beyond us.  Before I write I sometimes sit in my backyard and I invite the presence of the trees and the earth into my body.  I immediately feel lightness in my body in this communion.  After sitting with this consciousness for five to fifteen minutes I feel charged and ready to write.

You can connect to any energy or consciousness that is out there.  Before I write I sometimes connect to the energy of J.K. Rowling.  It seems like my writing takes on the feel of her writing style without plagiarizing.  Other times I like to connect to Mary, the virgin, a real powerful presence on the planet.  We have choices to what energy we are in ourselves.  If we are aware of ourselves our ability to commune with any energy  expanded imagination becomes as natural as thinking.

Bart Sharp is an Access Learning Facilitator from Austin, TX.  Through the years Bart has worked on variety of issues with individuals and groups.  Bart teaches classes about communing with nature, creativity, emotional release, and other topics related to Access Energy Transformation.  Bart is available for classes and private sessions to help people change the limitations of their lives using the Access tools. Bart can be contacted at heartofturtle@earthlink.net or at 512 809 6807.