The birth of the fire is the death of the log. The planting of crops marks the end of the meadow. The invention of the automobile marked the decline of the horse-drawn carriage. Creativity and innovation not only brings new products, services, and methodologies into the world, it also ushers out the old and outdated, […]
Creativity in the Bathroom? Steve Jobs’ Vision for Pixar
I just heard a fascinating interview on NPR with Jonah Lehrer promoting his new book on creativity, Imagine: How Creativity Works. In this interview with NPR, he tells the story of Steve Jobs’ desire to create creative cross-pollination among a diverse campus of creatives at their one an only common facility: the bathrooms. Check it […]
Creativity and the Three Stages of Conscious Design Build, Part I: Unconsciousness
First off, I would like to thank the profound work of David Deida, and my partner at Conscious Design Build, Hristiyan Atanasov, for inspiring this three part series. The built landscape all around us has come into being through the power of human beings’ most defining aspect: conscious self-awareness, the awareness of being aware that […]
Intro to the 5 Essentials of Designing and Building Sacred Space
Dear Friends, For those of you who don’t know me very well, I co-host a monthly conversation on the intersection between the built landscape and consciousness with a contractor friend of mine from Bulgaria, an amazing, heartfelt contractor named Hristiyan Atanasov. We call our events, Conscious Design Build: A Holistic Path to Better Living. Every […]
The Relationship Between Art, Creativity, and Meditation
“Creativity isn’t necessarily an obstacle to meditation but, rather, its fruit.” –Amanda Palmer quoting an unnamed friend. Let me begin by thanking my friend, Adam Gyokazan Coutts–a brilliant and irreverent man, Zen practitioner, dedicated meditator, and one who teaches others the view and techniques of meditation–for sending me the following illuminating article. You can find […]
Creativity and Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, Part V: How Creativity Expands Our Sense of Self
We began this series by looking at Abraham Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, noting how Maslow has creativity positioned at the uppermost level, at the level of Self-Actualization. We also noted that while the first four levels were characterized by a sense of “deficiency” or lack, this uppermost level of Self-Actualization was marked by a sense […]
The Death of Terence Mckenna and the Importance of Heart Integration in Creativity
Terence McKenna, a visionary thinker and author of Archaic Revival: Speculations on Psychedelic Mushrooms, the Amazon, Virtual Reality, UFOs, Evolution, Shamanism, the Rebirth of the Goddess, and the End of History (now how’s that for a title?!), died in 2000, two days after April Fool’s Day. While hanging around a bit at one of Terence […]
Create to Honor Impermanence
Some time ago, I was designing a gabled roof to cover a client’s porch. I was stumped trying to solve a detail involving the intersection of a vertical post, a horizontal beam, and a frame for a bug screen. I remembered a solution I liked from a project I’d worked on a few years earlier […]
The Heart of Creative Design: On Natural Light
Nourishing, life-giving, ever-changing light, rising and setting, arching across the sky, silvering the waxen edges of the leaves of the oak tree, flashing up the spine of a single blade of grass, its resplendent presence on the sill of a window, its ability to penetrate a room like a sharp object or to diffuse through […]
Creativity and Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, part IV: Creativity and Culture
Last time we explored personal traumas and their effects, both positive and negative, on our ability to create. Now let’s take a wider view, this time exploring the reigning attitude of a culture and how it can either thwart or enhance the creative process. Remember, since the finite ego perceives itself as separate from the […]