Category Archives: The Creative Process

Messages to myself about how to navigate impediments which hinder the creative flow in hopes my answers may be a beacon to others.

Introducing Sacred Geometry in a Gaming Context

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Back in 1990, my late husband taught classes on the beauty of sacred geometry. He believed if one is to come into resonance with the universe, one must be able to accurately visualize the dance of Platonic solids and know how they fit and transform into and out of each other. Coming into congruence with sacred geometrical shapes and knowing how to visualize them at will is great knowledge sought after by those in the know.  In esoteric circles, the novice must appreciate the profound relationship between sacred geometry and the proper creation of a magic circle.

For my husband’s classes, I created all his hand-outs, including ton sacred geometry. For his publications, I created educational illustrations exemplifying the concepts of sacred geometry.

OphanicGeometry01

The above illustration is the first page from our chapter on sacred geometry [“The Ophanic Revelation” (c 2006)].

The classic five Platonic solids are 3-dimensional polygons that have a sequential relationship to one another (known as duals or congruency). Congruency occurs when one polygon–with its unique shape, size and facets–can be transformed into the next polygon simply by changing it’s placement by flipping or rotating them. The five Platonic solids are the tetrahedron, cube, octahedron, dodecahedron and icosahedron. Goethe once wrote, “geometry is frozen music.” What an beautiful way to describe the elegance of these patterns.

Because of my familiarity with sacred geometry, I was fascinated to encounter a client, from the unusual venue of gaming, who was conversant with the Platonic solids. In his text, he addressed the five Platonic solids and supplied an illustration of the same. I wondered to what degree he was acquainted with the forms. In my role as his book’s designer, I expanded on his seed idea. Instead of all the solids appearing at once in a single chapter head, I assigned one geometric solid to each chapter in the book. As there are only five solids, I had to add an additional polygon for chapter six and chose a star-tetrahedron. To pique the interest of the inquisitive, I added a small splice of text revealing the symbolic meaning represented by each Platonic solid.

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The Importance of Finishing

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Among the things I learned from my late husband is the extreme importance of finishing things. I’m thinking in terms of creativity and writing. Over a long period of time, I witnessed a repeating pattern in my writer husband. Always, in the beginning, he would be enthralled with a great idea for a book. As the excitement or the newness wore off, invariably so did his interest. Often, when he would be more than half-way through, he would get inspired to begin anew. Then, he’d go along at a consistent pace and maybe get a little further along before stopping and determining the material of the book actually required a different treatment. Usually during the third version, I’d discover he’d abandoned it completely in favor of chasing after another idea for a book to write. I never knew him to revisit any of his nearly-completed manuscripts.

Perhaps some people cannot finish things for reasons of their stars, up-bringing or life lessons. One thing is for sure: there is no sense of accomplishment when you are a great starter but do not finish the race. I recently observed this same tendency in my sister who had recently been bitten by the writing bug. She would stop before she started and rewrite. I don’t know how many different versions of chapter one she’d rewritten. Too many. I advised her to silence the critic/editor inside her head. Insist that internal interfering and disruptive editor go take a hike. Now is the time for the writer in her to flourish, unimpeded.

After listening to her other concerns, I knew she was making her doubts interfere on another level. She was fretting about marketing and self-publishing and what if this and what if that… Daunting, that is how she described what she was going through. No wonder she felt depleted, low-energy, disheartened and uninspired.

I advised her to allow herself to remember the reasons why her book was important to begin with. I said, “Reconnect with that impulse to create and allow the purity of your original motivation to allow your genius to soar. Do not concern yourself with practical matters. That comes later, much later. For now, write the book. Work on your craft. Persevere. When you feel resistance, push against it to achieve success.”

The process of writing a book is arduous. The task is long and challenging enough without the extra stress of worry. Fire that critic inside you if he tries to usurp the creative process. Silence any dissenting voices. Banish any doubts. Make no room for negativity. Concentrate on recovering the joy in the doing. Then bless the world with your creation.

I write this as a recovering procrastinator. I write this for the times I’ll need to be reminded that the way out of the unproductive, maze of self-doubt is simply by finding joy in the doing.