Over Memorial Day weekend, I returned to the Lightning in a Bottle Festival for the 4th time, this time as one of the presenters speaking on the 5 Essentials of Designing and Building Sacred Space. It felt great to contribute in my own small way to the event and to know that I was but […]
Slivers of Eternity: One Minute Meditations On The Ground of Creativity, #18
In this clip, taken near the South Fork of Codornices Creek in Codornices Park in the Berkeley Hills, an unnamed spring feeding the creek rolls over the landscape towards the Golden Gate 14 miles to the west. Due to the geology of the Berkeley Hills, a folded geology that captures the winter rains and leaks […]
Creativity and Engineering: Last Sunday Marked the 75th Anniversary of the Opening of the Golden Gate Bridge
Last Sunday, the San Francisco Bay Area celebrated the 75th anniversary of the opening of the Golden Gate Bridge. Both the Golden Gate and the Bridge that spans it have been very influential in my life. I moved to the Bay Area when I was 18 and seeing that grand opening left me with an […]
It’s Official: Austin Hill Shaw Will Be Speaking on Creativity at the Science and Nonduality Conference in October
I am very excited to announce that this last weekend I received notice from the Science & Nonduality Conference (SAND). My talk, “Creativity and Nonduality: How The Tension Between Egoic Identity and the Absolute Self Shapes the Creative Process” will be part of this year’s line up. Here’s the official word: Thank you for your […]
Slivers of Eternity: One Minute Meditations On The Ground of Creativity, #17
In this clip, filmed at night at UC Berkeley, the bells of Sather Tower ring out into the night as the northern facade of Doe Library, which is celebrating its one hundred year old birthday this year, sits in the foreground. I love the UC Berkeley campus. Leaving my home as an 18 year old […]
Through Coworking and Collaboration, SF Springboard Brings Creative Projects to Life
In light of yesterday’s post, I felt compelled to give you more info on the offerings of SF Springboard, a local group dedicated to bringing creative projects to life. Here is what they have to say: What is it that you most want to create? What do you have burning inside you, just waiting to […]
Creativity Expert Austin Hill Shaw Interviewed by Modern Times Magazine
Several weeks ago, I was interviewed by Taylor Holmes on my upcoming presentation on The 5 Essentials of Designing and Building Sacred Space at the Lightning in a Bottle Festival. Taylor and I talked for just under an hour and he asked me some really provocative questions on the potential for learning at a music […]
How Does Being Bilingual Affect Creativity?
Not long ago I wrote a series of posts on how my own creativity was affected by learning Spanish, starting when I was 29. Today I stumbled upon a blog post by Jonah Lehrer entitled “The Benefits of Being Bilingual,” which gives the hard science behind my own subjective experience. I really enjoyed this article. Here’s an […]
Creativity and Neurology: The Way We Think About the Brain Can Determine Its Creative Potential
“Why do we persist in our belief that the brain is purely and simply a ‘machine,’ a program without promise? Why are we ignorant of our own plasticity?” That question is raised by Catherine Malabou in her book, What Should We Do With Our Brain?, which in part explores how the ways in which we think about our […]
“Corporate Alchemist” Linda Naiman Brings Creativity to the Public Sector
Sometimes it takes a bit of crisis to usher in a fresh wave of creativity into a place that is insular and prone to inertia. Here is a story of how the global economic crisis has perhaps brought a fresh, creative air to the managers of Canadian Heritage, a branch of the Canadian government that oversees […]