Following the Creative Muse

Be alert to the value of the unexpected and make use of accidents creatively. Accidental art is art formed by serendipity, and possibly synchronicity, out of seemingly random objects found on sidewalks, torn ad posters that accidentally collage themselves with other layers of ad posters beneath them, etc. Some artists are “accident takers”—they invite accidents through speed and a slightly chaotic approach to their medium and then make use of unintentional paint splashes, etc. This is an ideal time for you to adopt both types of creative accident and not just with art, but with your entire life. Life, by seemingly random processes, is often configuring things in an artistic way. Be open to noticing those interesting configurations and even making use of them. Also make creative use of little mishaps. For example, if you get off at the wrong exit of the highway and are not pressed for time, drive around a bit. Maybe there is something interesting to be experienced in this accidental detour.

You need to express your mutant abilities, The world needs individual expression, and the repression of individual expression is one of the worst evils we know. But freedom of expression is not a license to indulge every impulse; for expression to be individual, and free of compulsion, it needs to be conscious. Free self-expression in a journal has a different meaning than expression made available to the collective. Not all the thoughts to which I give free expression in my mind are suitable to share with particular others. When I express myself to the collective — posting something on the internet, for example — I am adding food or medicine to a large cauldron, and I want my addition to be nourishment, not poison. In the Gnostic Gospel of Thomas Jesus said, If you give birth to the genius within you, it will free you. If you do not give birth to the genius within you, it will destroy you.

Esoteric studies, Jungian studies, deep investigation. Someone once said, “Don’t read a book unless it is like a ball of light glowing in your hands.” Find the right books (or other worthy objects of contemplation) and you will have that experience. Since you are consulting an oracle of this sort, it is highly likely that you have an essential connection to esoteric studies. Esoteric study is not a hobby or eccentricity, but an attempt to pull back the veils and find out how deep the rabbit hole really is. It is an essential aspect of human intentionality and that’s why some version of it exists in all cultures during all periods. Some take a shamanic path and emphasize entheogens and direct experience; others take an intellectual approach that has more to do with books. Find the approach that works best for you at this time. Jung felt it was foolishly dangerous to approach the unconscious without a moral purpose. For shamans, the moral purpose was usually healing. You may want to heal yourself or to investigate what is happening beneath the surface of our imperiled world. Whatever your moral purpose is, it is crucial that you stay true to it [...]

It is humbling and appropriate that a lot of the work we do can easily be done by others. Somebody has to do it, and it is only fair that we do our share of some of the maintenance work necessary to keep the whole human experience going. But if you incarnated to fulfill a unique mission, then you must give that mission priority. If the creative muse wants to work through you, then you must do what is necessary to allow that to happen. On a more personal level, we may be here to work with particular people, to have particular relationships. In such cases only you can be the particular friend, spiritual ally, parent, teacher, etc. to some other particular person. There is also unique work you have to do for yourself — only you can work on your relationship to yourself, only you can write in your journal, only you are fully responsible for your health, only you can be the father or mother to your children and so forth. Prioritize doing the work only you can do.

Utilize natural forces to put your design on the world. Woe to the creative person who neglects their relationship to the creative muse. If the muse wants to work through you, then you owe it to yourself and the world to follow through and bring the creative inspiration into manifestation. No other human generation has had as many creative tools as we do. In The Gnostic Gospel of Thomas, Jesus said, “If you give birth to the genius within you, it will free you. If you do not give birth to the genius within you, it will destroy you.”

For there to be novelty in our lives, for there to be metamorphosis, there needs to be open space. It is hard to grow something new in a space that is already overcrowded. What we often don’t realize about a loss, about the dark night of the soul, about a dry period in some area, is the space that it opens up for us where new life can grow. Both the ego and life abhor a vacuum. The ego fears unplanned emptiness and would like to fill up all the unformed spaces with stuff, activity, people and places. But the more the ego fills up all the unformed space in our lives, the less chance there is for life to find its serendipitous ways to fill that space with something new. One of the most obvious cases of the ego’s compulsive space filling is on the interpersonal plane. Some people are terrified to have a space in their life where there is no romantic partner. When space opens up, their ego anxiously asserts itself: Well I have to be going out with someone, maybe I should try this person or that one. Maybe I should register with an online dating [...]

Utilize natural forces to put your mark on the world. Woe to the creative person who neglects their relationship to the creative muse. If the muse wants to work through you, then you owe it to yourself and the world to follow through and bring the creative inspiration into manifestation. No other human generation has had as many creative tools as we do. In The Gnostic Gospel of Thomas, Jesus said, “If you give birth to the genius within you, it will free you. If you do not give birth to the genius within you, it will destroy you.”

The potential for magical manifestation is inherent in the universe. In the New Age this has inflated into the mantra, “You create your own reality.” But if this were the case, wouldn’t some sufficiently positive-thinking New Ager have created a world without pollution? To a great extent you do create your own inner reality, and sometimes your inner reality and outer reality will correspond. When no causal factor can be found to explain such a correspondence we call it a “synchronicity.” Our will, our intentions, our physical actions and our use of magic can all result in manifestation. But keep in mind, “More tears are shed for answered prayers, than for unanswered prayers.” So be careful what you wish for. According to Aleister Crowley’s definition,”Magick is the Science and Art of causing Change to occur in conformity with Will.” One of my principles of magick is that the most powerful ritual is not one inherited from tradition, but one created spontaneously in the moment with full conscious engagement. The ritual you create today can be more individual and unique and consciously intended, more relevant and applicable to the current conditions. Few of us access the array of powers that exist, [...]

Find the work you can do with enthusiasm and then do it with enthusiasm. One of the characteristics of a fallen time is the compulsion (inner and/or outer) to spend your time in counter-enthusiastic pursuits. Great work is never accomplished reluctantly. We all must deal with some counter-enthusiastic tasks and situations, but the core of your life must contain purpose, meaning and enthusiasm. Find that core and the world becomes more alive, the inner horsepower intensifies and you are able to work with enthusiasm.

It just occurred to me that this might be the first Zap Oracle card, created long before the oracle came into being, and also probably my oldest surviving art project. I was probably in first or second grade when I made this card, probably six or seven, and I remember the moment — I was sitting in front of my father’s open bedroom closet and there was a pile of leather shoes at the bottom of the closet lit by a very yellow incandescent light. I was filled with a primal feeling of rebellion from mundanity, from boring, uncreative homework and school and an unnecessary visual blandness and monotonous aspect of the Babylon Matrix, a quality that was personified in this annoyingly conventional, excessively posed publicity photo I had found somewhere of Carla Thomas, a meaningless celebrity as far as I was concerned, and who was posed with a pure persona face, a dressed up doll’s face that had no mutant individuality. I felt a primal realization erupt in me and with it the will to turn this offending object into an image and word artifact. A will to mock and mutate the reigning reality welled up, and I found [...]