Freedom: Freeing Your Inner Muse

A meditation to visualize sowing creativity seeds in the garden of your heart.

Posted 1/1/11 | Updated 2/6/21

Overview

Freedom Your work, your every idea, is significant, for only you can bring your unique perspective to life. This guided meditation will free your inner muse through a Milkyway Marbles Meditation and sowing seeds in the Garden of your heart.

Your work, your every idea, is significant, for only you can bring your unique perspective to life.

Whether your chosen medium is song or story, paintings or poems, know this: your work is precious, and priceless.

It is vitally important for anyone embarking on a creative journey to know this. The way will not be easy, but with the help of the guided imagery work here, you'll have some tools to fall back on when the road gets rocky.

Milky Way Marbles Meditation

Feel like you're losing your marbles? Need to look at things from a new perspective, or get some distance from a situation in order to see it more clearly? Try this…

Find a still place. Sit in a comfortable chair, or lie down, and close your eyes. Let the journey begin. Imagine yourself soaring high above the Earth, leaving our world behind to take to the skies. As you rise on the wind of inspiration, you see birds and clouds far below. Finally, the planet falls away, receding beneath you until it is the size of a marble.

The Earth is tiny, insignificant — but you are larger than life. Flick the Earth with your finger, and it goes careening across space willy-nilly, bouncing into Saturn's rings and knocking them askew, then ricocheting into another galaxy. Play marbles with the planets as long as you like, then gather them up and put them in your pocket, safe and sound.

This is what it is to be an artist — you have the power to create and destroy entire worlds and galaxies with a wave of your brush, your pen. When you're ready to come back down to Earth, take the planets from your pockets and place them in orbit again. Re-enter the atmosphere slowly, drifting down on the currents of ideas until your feet lightly kiss the Earth. You're ready to continue the creative journey with a fresh perspective.

In the Garden of the Heart

Feeling blah? Bored? Deep in the doldrums? Stuck in the muck? Try this guided imagery, and watch the new ideas blossom!

Close your eyes and imagine a rose-seed, deep in the ground. Watch as it sends a root deep into the ground. A sprout emerges from the seed and forces its way up through the soil to strain skyward, loving the sun. As you observe, the rose-vines grow taller and stronger. It is springtime. Leaves sprout and unfold, and then rose-buds emerge. Each flower, each idea, begins as a tightly-fisted little bud.

Shift focus until one rosebud entirely fills your field of vision. Breathe in the sweet aroma of rich earth and sunshine. Focus on the heady fragrance, the way the smooth vine is strong and supple beneath your fingertips. Move in closer, then closer still, until you have a bee's-eye view. It begins to open for you slowly, expanding into a lush, full bloom before you. It blooms until it completely fills your vision. As you note its beauty and perfection, ponder this — the rose is a metaphor for an idea, or a creative project only you can give the world. Your work is as lovely, as unique and priceless, as full of life as the rose.

Now, allow your vision to draw back. You see not one rose, but an entire garden full of blossoms and bees, pulsing with life. Each blossom represents one of your ideas or projects — some unique work of art only you can create. The garden is always blooming inside your heart. Visit any time you have need of creative inspiration. Linger there as long as you wish, and leave when you are ready to return to the mundane world, bursting with ideas.

Going Deeper: Inspiration Seeds

Using heavy paper or card stock, cut out seed-shapes. Decorate them on one side however you wish. On the other side, write a few words or a phrase, describing an idea for a story, song, poem or project of your choice. Inspiring quotes, images, or interesting words culled from the dictionary can also be used for your inspiration seeds.

Keep these inspiration seeds in your studio in a bowl or box so you'll have a ready supply of fresh ideas. Keep a few in a pouch in your bag for some inspiration on the go. This way, you'll never run short of ideas. When you're feeling stuck, choose a seed and let it inspire your work for the day. Let creativity and inspiration bloom in the garden of your heart.