Creativity happens when we make unusual connections…making what is familiar “strange.” We presume that certain things automatically go together—boat, duck, and water, for example. When we put unusual things together, we are in “creative” terrain. (As a silly example, ham sandwich and hair jell don’t go together…it’s a creative combination.) When we put two paradoxical [ Read more … ]
John O'Donohue
Do You Have a Key Image? Is it Real?
I had a disagreement with an old friend recently about whether the images and metaphors that show up in our subconscious are “real.” I believe, just like with dreams, that when images and metaphors show up in our lives, they have something to teach us and I don’t think my friend would argue with that. [ Read more … ]
An Image Big Enough to Hold You
There was a child went forth every day. And the first object he looks upon, that object he became. –Walt Whitman The late poet Stanley Kunitz believed that writers often have a “key image” that keeps working them over and over again in their writing. In fact, writers may spend an entire lifetime working one [ Read more … ]
Seeing Beyond the Surface
In yesterday’s class, I gave students the task of going out into the University community and finding: a) something visual that catches your eye (it can be as simple as a color), and b) some piece of writing or a phrase (such as an EXIT sign). A couple students came back with the phrase Seeing [ Read more … ]
Giving Birth to Beauty
To create is always to learn, to begin over,to begin at zero. — Matthew Fox In John O’Donohue’s book The Invisible Embrace of Beauty, O’Donohue mentions St. Thomas Aquinas, who believed that beauty was the perfection of a thing. “To know a thing is to awaken to its depth, complexity and presence.” According to Aquinas, [ Read more … ]