Courting creativity has pervaded my development for decades.  In my writing and my life, I am interested in hosting a continuous intuitive stream while using my intellect as a flowing guide.  In this way I feel that my higher self is actively participating in choices that are on par with my life’s purpose, my path of heart. The question is how to hear the voice of Spirit whispering softly?

Thomas Moore poetically reveals portals of entry to mystery and freedom in his new book, The Eloquence of Silence, through emptying and emptying some more.  The cultivation of emptiness and silence is key to the ability to hear the guidance, to keep a door open to discovery.  Remaining in the place of deep joy true to my nature is the result of my courtship with silence.  I have learned how my own nature works and chose not to violate those conditions as a critical part my the practice.  Barbara Marx Hubbard coined a word I use instead of discipline, which can imply stress, blissipline, a harmonious engagement.

My daily blissipline is to track my energy while swimming, and to notice the effects thoughts have on my swim.  Certain kinds of thoughts slow me down, and the absence of thought allows me to burgeon through time and space with a sense of harmony and ease, sometimes gusto, in a state of immeasurable presence.  Any negative or doubtful thought, especially egoic, slows me down, so I use swimming as is a biofeedback opportunity to train my mind to choose the good thoughts, or preferably to empty them out altogether, so it’s more fun!

“…It is in the nature of happiness to simply occur, as a mood that settles rather than a state you can force into being.”  P 68. In other words, happiness is a byproduct of simply being who you are, continuously emptying what is not true for you or your nature.  Not trying too hard, you will receive the gift.  For me happiness resides inside as a natural state of being.  Alongside it any number of other emotions can coexist in the rich plethora of human complexity.

Moore emphasizes the importance of not thinking you know everything, which is contrary to being empty.  Don’t cling to anything you think you know to avoid stopping the flow. The resultant empty spaces allow for free-flowing inspiration moment to moment, triggering your imagination with depth of discovery leading to magic and liberation.  He shows that the moment ego appears, it displaces the beauty in its path.  “Pride erases the very soul of emptiness.”  P172.  Release ego, it has no lasting rewards, just momentary stolen facades.

I have found that if I don’t follow a significant prompting/intuition, I should expect challenges ahead.  Aptly called the school of hard knocks in that your daemon knocked loudly and you chose to ignore the warning.  It is like a willful behavior that stops your joy with an anchor attached to your ankle.  Instead, an option is to use Moore’s concept of sacred ignorance, “Experiencing the world without figuring it out, by letting it come into you and by being present to it.  Emptying yourself by becoming lost in the infinite cosmos or by the infinite butting into your contemplation.” P120. When the infinite butts in, make a welcomed space for the information and act accordingly.  I know from experience the downside of ignoring solid guidance in favor of some cheap thrills.  They ended up being very expensive in the end.

Step into Thomas Moore’s lucid and playful book, which utilizes wisdom sources from every corner of the world to take you into a sphere worth visiting.  In fact, pack an empty bag and plan to stay a while, or insert the new vistas into your own eloquent practice.