A stimulating, art-as-spirituality guide that integrates personal healing and renewal in a context of multi-cultural awareness, spiritual depth, and creative meditation--for artists and non-artists alike. Richly interwoven with art exercises, meditations, and multi-cultural ceremonies and rituals. Four-color insert.

Come awake to a more creative life—by realizing clarity of mind, body and spirit. Creativity is basic to the very fiber of our being, and not—as many suspect—solely the privilege of a gifted few. When we silence the voice of creativity that lives within us, we confine our spirit. Award-winning author Dan Wakefield helps us to examine our reasons for not creating—debunking the myths—and shows us the path to a fulfilling, creative life. Drawing on examples from religion, philosophy, and literature, Wakefield teaches us that the key to unleashing our own inner creativity is in clarity of mind, body, and spirit. Releasing the Creative Spirit gives us practical guidance to demystify the creative process and to help each of us achieve this clarity by: Breaking the Myths—Explode the myths that creativity is only for the artistic elite, that creators must suffer, and that science and business can not be creative pursuits. Emptying—Learn ways to recognize and move beyond the tired routines in your life that deaden the senses and soul. Filling Up—Experience new sensations through simple practices that revive natural perceptions and unlock hidden creative resources. Creating—Try hands-on, practical exercises to explore the mystery of creativity in your life from a spiritual perspective. This passionate, personal guide draws on examples from the experiences of many creative people—Elaine Pagels (professor), Tom Wolfe (novelist), John Coltrane (jazz musician), Harold Kushner (rabbi), Danielle Levi-Alvares (yoga teacher), Stephen Hawking (physicist), and Phil Jackson (basketball coach), just to name a few—who each demonstrate one or more of the characteristics of someone who creates from the spirit. Creative People... Develop clarity as the source of creativity Take responsibility for their lives and work Regard age as an opportunity See obstacles as an invitation to create new solutions, techniques, and skills Recognize the body/mind/spirit connection Find surprising new ways to perform routine tasks ...and much more This fresh exploration of the creative spirit includes hands-on exercises to help you unlock your creative powers, inviting you to experience the artistic grace and pleasure that can exist in our everyday lives. You may discover, as many others have, that with creativity comes more joy, more laughter, and more accomplishment than you previously thought possible.

The resource is designed to help spiritual directors and others use expressive arts in the context of spiritual direction. It is the latest book in the unique SDI series, designed for professional spiritual directors, but also useful for clergy, therapists, and Christian formation specialists. The Spiritual Directors International Series – This book is part of a special series produced by Morehouse Publishing in cooperation with Spiritual Directors International (SDI), a global network of some 6,000 spiritual directors and members.

The use of imagination can lead to greater outcomes in problem solving, innovation, and critical thinking. By providing access to creative outlets, productivity increases in schools, businesses, and other professional settings. Exploring the Benefits of Creativity in Education, Media, and the Arts is a pivotal reference source for the latest scholarly research on the stimulation and implementation of creative thinking in academic and professional environments. Highlighting the foundations of creativity from theoretical and neuroscientific perspectives, this book is ideally designed for academics, professionals, educators, and practitioners.

For more than 30 years, Yoga Journal has been helping readers achieve the balance and well-being they seek in their everyday lives. With every issue,Yoga Journal strives to inform and empower readers to make lifestyle choices that are healthy for their bodies and minds. We are dedicated to providing in-depth, thoughtful editorial on topics such as yoga, food, nutrition, fitness, wellness, travel, and fashion and beauty.

Learning to think and act creatively is a requisite fundamental aspect of design education for architectural and interior design as well as industrial and graphic design. Development of creative capacities must be encountered early in design education for beginning students to become self-actualized as skillful designers. With chapters written by beginning design instructors, Developing Creative Thinking in Beginning Design addresses issues that contribute to deficiencies in teaching creativity in contemporary beginning design programs. Where traditional pedagogies displace creative thinking by placing conceptual abstractions above direct experiential engagement, the approaches presented in this book set forth alternative pedagogies that mitigate student fears and misconceptions to reveal the potency of authentic encounters for initiating creative transformational development. These chapters challenge design pedagogy to address such issues as the spatial body, phenomenological thinking, making as process, direct material engagement and its temporal challenges, creative decision making and the wickedness of design, and the openness of the creative design problem. In doing so, this book sets out to give greater depth to first design experiences and more effectively enable the breadth and depth of the teacher–student relationship as a means of helping your students develop the capacity for long-term self-transformation.

Like most ground-breaking art forms, contemporary creative music is rarely understood or accepted in its own time, and for those reasons, can largely go unheard. Music and the Creative Spirit: Innovators in Jazz, Improvisation, and the Avant Garde aims to give today's brightest music innovators due recognition and respect, celebrating their work and creativity. Through personal interviews, artists such as Pat Metheny, Regina Carter, Joshua Redman, Fred Anderson, Dave Holland, Bill Frisell, David Murray, and John Zorn—to name just a few—offer clear, frank discussions about music, creativity, work, society, culture, current events, and more. Author Lloyd Peterson has hand picked these artists specifically for their ability to express themselves through their own creative voices and transcend their art form through the strength of their own ingenious spirit. Their music eschews categorization, genre, or style, and the book necessarily takes a broader view of jazz, tapping into the inventive aspect that is difficult to describe or teach, and is rarely discussed. By allowing the innovators an opportunity to speak for themselves, readers are afforded a clearer sense of their attitudes and approaches, their ways of working, and their views of contemporary music and society.

The author reveals not only how readers can recognize their God-given gifts, but how they can develop their potential by surviving personal mine fields, determining their creativity quotients, and nourishing their dreams.

The Fourth Edition of this popular text expands on the third by taking an in-depth look at teaching strategies appropriate for educators working in all health related professions. Chapters present a broad range of strategies, as well as the learning environment to best use the strategies, detailed practical and theoretical information about the strategies, how to deal with problems that could occur, specific examples of the strategies as they have been used, and resources available for further information. Focusing on innovation, creativity, and evaluation, the strategies are developed for use in traditional classroom settings, technology-based settings, and clinical settings.

When did you last have enough free time to carefully create, develop, and test a therapeutic concept or teaching method to improve the help you provide to your patients? With The Therapist's Notebook, a compilation of original ideas by practicing clinicians, you can tap into the knowledge and experience of seasoned professionals to give your clients tangible, field-tested assignments that will represent their work and progress in therapy. Appropriate for practicing marriage and family therapists, psychologists, social workers, and other therapists of any professional affiliation who deal with children, adolescents, adults, couples, or families, this dynamic handbook provides you with handouts and homework activities that are quick and easy and require little effort or experience to use. The Therapist's Notebook is a valuable resource for both experienced and novice clinicians. Established clinicians will know how to fit each chapter to a particular clientele, while uninitiated clinicians or trainees will appreciate how the ready-made materials help their clients and spur their own creativity in intervening. You'll find therapeutic work becomes less stressful and more enjoyable as you learn about helping these populations deal with important issues: Adults--goal setting, boundary issues, life transitions, communication, problemsolving, compulsivity, feelings Couples--trust, infidelity, leisure time, communication, conflict resolution, sexuality, enrichment Families--rules/punishment, decisionmaking, gender roles, chores and responsibilities, communication Children--self-esteem, school problems, social skills, abuse, discipline problems Adolescents--peer pressure, school issues, communication, involvement in therapy, behavior Other--resistant clients, crisis counseling, linking clients with social resources The Therapist's Notebook gives you a tangible, useful product you can utilize with clients. The book's compilation of homework, handouts, and activities that have been successfully applied to client populations is valuable not only for therapists’daily use, but also to illustrate creative, clinically tested interventions to future counselors, therapists, social workers, teachers, school psychologists, and special educators. Particularly useful as an ancillary text in university courses in psychotherapy-related fields, the book's user-friendly format will enliven practicum courses and ensure heightened student participation.