20 ways to find your muses

Muses will bring you towards your deepest fears. They will make you discover the ecology of your mind. They will make you understand how you use timing. They will help you tame the tiger of your ambitions.

Muses are entities that can take the form of human relationships, passion projects, actions that you dive into flow states, conversations that fuel your inner fires.

In my life, my muses have evolved to include publishing activities, creative program building, R&D hubs, collectives, artist research, entrepreneurial endeavour, partnership development, unstructured time, music-making, story-making, worldbuilding, design fiction.

I use my muses to find the non-negotiable in my life. They shape many aspects of my cultural interests, imagination, memories, travel experiences, personal identity.

A muse is a lens. And when it comes to the acronym LENS of my CALM MAGIC framework , the L refers to Landscapes.

Business Landscapes, Mental Landscapes, Research Landscapes, Artistic Landscapes.

Landscapes are defined by the muses you choose to navigate them.

Surprise out of the hat

To?do?something?surprising?and?seemingly?impossible;?to?produce?something?in?a?way?that has?no?obvious?explanation,?as?if?done?by?magic.

Crystal Ball

While many gifted psychics still use crystal balls, it is important to realize that the ball has no magical powers that will tell people’s futures. It is only a tool that helps the psychic get in tune with spiritual vibrations.

What is your Crystal Ball equivalent ?

Magic Wand

It’s like a magic wand: Metaphors and analogy can improve learning. I believe this is also known as?Hebbian Theory . Essentially by expressing a new idea in terms of existing mental scaffolding and well-understood vocabulary you associate the new concept with existing knowledge. By talking about the new idea and the old at the same time you get the neurons to ‘fire together which gets them to ‘wire together. This provides a great starting point for the brain to construct its own understanding.

Wings

By wings I mean taking control of your life, being the pilot of your destiny. Do you sometimes feel a bit stifled, like your wings are tied to your side, or are they flapping wildly, not able to gain enough momentum to get off the ground?

Think about your wings.

Draw a card

The future does not just happen. You have to prepare for it. You have to ask questions.

Inspired by Tarot Card Reading this practice is very close to the practice of Inquiry & Asking good daring questions (fear-setting ones). You are going to ask one single question. Ask a question shuffling any type of cards, visualize what you want to know.

How to ask the question? Asking the right questions is essential in having a successful reading and a connected experience with the cards (or the object you use to guide your inquiry).

Cut Ties

When you say yes to others, make sure you are not saying no to yourself.

-Paulo?Coelho

We often say Yes because We value the relationship of others over our interests, We are afraid of offending the other party, Because of self-doubt of losing something in life. we Fear missing out on opportunities And finally, we humans are very emotional; we think saying NO will hurt others’ feelings.

The power of saying No reclaims your strength and energy.?What we choose to do has to be meaningful, timely, valuable, persistent, and high quality. Our success will be more defined by what we choose not to do than by what we choose to do.

The below tips have helped me make strong decisions, and do not accept things that I cannot accommodate. Manage time, Prioritize, Have Clear Goals, Be aware of the situation.

Ticket to Ride

Creating, and being involved in, a situation that may get you in way over your head-- but deciding that turning back would be a rather?uninteresting?option. These are the most exciting,?elaborate, or fanciest rides in an?amusement park?or fair. You generally have to be?taller?than a certain height to go on these rides. They are very fun! A?ticket to ride?means something must happen for something else to happen usually the ride is more important than?the ticket.

Masquerade

I have abandoned the masquerade of living up to the expectations of others and explored the new horizons of what it means to be truly and completely me, in all my amazing imperfection and most splendid insecurity.”

―?Anthon St. Maarten

A World Without Privacy Will Revives the Masquerade.

Why Do You Wear a Mask? Masquerade balls were often turned into a game of?"guess the guests"?because the guests were supposed to conceal their identity with their masks. This would create a game that basically required guests to try to guess another guest’s identity.

Are you masquerading, wearing a mask or disguising? Are you surrounded by masqueraders? Your muses could appear when the masks are removed.

It is time to stop pretending to be someone else.

Feeling the future

Can you feel the future? How can you feel it? Feelings are, after all the mental experiences of body states, and the body lives in the present.

As a human being, you come with the amazing gift of self-projection also known as mental time travel. You can simulate possible futures by creating a mental image of yourself in the future. This is referred to as?prospection?in psychology.

Take a moment to use your time-travelling gift by imagining that you are at your next holiday destination. Now, keep that image of your next holiday in mind. Make it as vivid as you can. How does it make you feel? You can feel the future or at least evoke a feeling of a simulation of a possible future scenario.

Feelings, according to neurobiologist and author of a.o. “The strange order of things ,” Antonio Damasio, has three primary functions:?to motivate, monitor and negotiate.

These kinds of feelings about the future also relate to the term psi and it denotes anomalous processes of information or energy transfer that are currently unexplained in terms of known physical or biological mechanisms.

Two variants of psi are precognition (conscious cognitive awareness) and premonition (affective apprehension) of a future event that could not otherwise be anticipated through any known inferential process. Precognition and premonition are themselves special cases of a more general phenomenon: the anomalous retroactive influence of some future event on an individual's current responses, whether those responses are conscious or nonconscious, cognitive or affective.?

Notability

A very subtle art but one of the most efficient ways to attract your muses. Notability is the art of note-taking. Allow yourself to annotate, create, type, write, draw, speak, organize and share your notes with others.?

Escape

Good Art Helps Us Escape. Sometimes, that’s all it needs to do to have value. Good art is an escape from our reality for a brief point in time that helps us heal and take a break.

Art is an escape, although it’s not a permanent one; rather, it’s a much-needed escape.

The balance of life and art creates a liveable existence with just enough nutrition for the mind to keep us from giving up.

I would suggest visiting a museum, dance or theatre play.

Spell Casting

Casting?a?spell?is easier than you think. There are simple rituals anyone can perform to attract positive things into their lives. You can make a wish come true, control forces that are greater than you, and protect the people you care about through simple spells.

The law of attraction is an important concept if you’re interested in this kind of magic. Understanding it and using it when you cast spells will help you get better results.

The law of attraction is based on the idea that there are forces or energies that flow through the universe. These movements impact things, people, and ideas.

Have you ever noticed how negative thoughts often cause you to notice more negative things around you? The law of attraction is relevant to magic. Casting a spell is a way of stating a desire and influencing these forces or energies toward the outcome you want.

Enchanted Objects

" We are now standing at the precipice of the next transformative development: the Internet of Things. Soon, connected technology will be embedded in hundreds of everyday objects we already use: our cars, wallets, watches, umbrellas, even our trash cans. These objects will respond to our needs, come to know us, and learn to think on our behalf. David Rose calls these devices—which are just beginning to creep into the marketplace.

—DAVID ROSE (Enchanted Objects)

While most people in the 1980s were focusing on the new microcomputers, Mark Weiser of PARC was imagining a future in which computers were invisible and everywhere. He coined the term ubiquitous computing (typically shortened to “ubicomp”), realizing with others at PARC that if computing power continued getting cheaper and smaller, it would be possible to put information processing into virtually anything. In 1996, he predicted that by 2005, computers would be hiding “in walls, chairs, clothing, light switches, cars—in everything.”

Muses inhabit any objects you put your attention on. Pictures, flowers, decorative elements, figurines, tables, chairs, lamps, etc. The metaphor of enchanted objects is to remind you that you don't need technology to enchant an object. The only thing required to enchant an object is your attention and memories. Enchanting an object or a room can attract very special kinds of muses.

Mystery Box

Producer/director/writer?J. J. Abrams’s ?says his fascination with how things work and the mystery surrounding life were given to him by his grandfather.

When he was a boy, his grandfather took him to a magic store where Abrams bought a Tannen’s Mystery Magic Box. This many years later, the box has never been opened because he says it represents his grandfather to him and the infinite possibilities and hopes that his grandfather instilled in him.

Abrams believes that mystery is the catalyst to the imagination.

When I write fast and with a deadline, the same thing happens to me. During the first draft, the less time I have to think and ponder and talk myself out of a storyline, the better my story is. The key to writing an imaginative story is to get that first draft down quickly.

The blank page is like a mystery box. It can become anything.

Invisibility Cloak

Since ancient times, the most desired piece of clothing for men and women alike has always been an item … that does not exist: the?invisibility cloak.

How would it feel to find out that your neighbor and friend has secretly observed you in your own home for years? The place that should be most private to you was not, and the intruder's devices themselves weren't something you'd ever have thought to look for. This kind of behavior is the opposite of giving normal people freedom and security, of valuing and respecting them as humans--and it's happening more and more. The answer to peeping eyes and cyber theft is to move society toward greater cyber-security and it all starts with essential education about being private and invisible in our daily lives. "

—Steve Wozniak, cofounder, Apple Inc.

Start with essential education about how to be private and invisible in your daily life.

Take chances

I have many practical experiences and thoughts on how to take chances in life. I even did a Creative Mornings talk on the subject.

Who is your monster?

My friend Elias Geha coined this question as we were discussing our patterns of avoidance in face of conflicts in the workplace and mostly in regards to our career development.

The main idea was to name and visualize the monsters in our minds that are building up fears, block our access to potential muses.

My monsters are:

1. SKIPPED LUNCH
2. STRUCTURED TIME
3. NARCISSISTS
4. SMALL TALK
5. RENTIER SYSTEM

Light

?“However vast the darkness, we must supply our own light.”?

- Stanley Kubrick

If life is so purposeless, is it worth living?

“There is a crack in everything.

That's how the light gets in.”

- Leonard Cohen

You need to somehow cope with your mortality. Create your own meaning.

Make a wish / Gaze

It’s important to know that there are many ways to make a wish. You just need to know the things to make wishes on.

Make a wish upon a star. Find the brightest star in the sky and make a big wish!

A wish?is?a?beginning.?Making?and believing in?a wish?encourages you to take action, and the action you take increases the likelihood of your?wish?coming true.

One of the best contexts to make a wish is when I practice TRATAKAM of what most would refer to as Candle Gazing. The secret of this technique lies in that you gaze at an object that captures your attention. Perhaps you have had the experience of being totally absorbed, taken outside yourself as it were by a magnificent sunset, stopped and held at the moment by something of exquisite beauty and at that moment you entered the timeless, catching a glimpse of eternity.

A wish?is?a?beginning.?Making?and believing in?a wish?encourages you to take action, and the action you take increases the likelihood of your?wish?coming true.

Weightlessness

Some people feel their bodies go weightless when anxious.

Personally, I feel my stomach churn, my pulse accelerate and my skin turns clammy. All of these symptoms are part of the autonomous nervous system kicking in for fight or flight mode. Maybe for some people, it does feel 'weightless' because all the blood is drawing into core organs, preparing the body to run.

You can control it though by first remembering the sensation that comes from adrenaline pouring into your bloodstream. And slowing that adrenaline with slow, deep breathing. Then further the relaxation with a full-body scan... my head feels fine there is no pain, my arms feel fine, there is no pain, my hands feel fine, there is no pain, etc.

Normally, my most silent and powerful muses will show up at the end of those body scans.