Finding inspiration

Finding inspiration. I have found that my most reliable source of quality inspiration is down time. Yes, doing nothing. Well almost doing nothing, inspiration comes when I relax and most importantly, listen. I sit or lay still trying not to fidget or drink tea or tend to emails and I listen, not just to the whirr of the heater or the chirp of birds but into a quiet deep well within myself that has a voice. This isn't the voice that lists my chores or reminds me that I have to hang out the washing or pick up one of my children from the station, I've come to name it the 'universal' voice. The voice is both visual and auditory, like a whisper with a movie playing as a background.

Im not sure where I first learnt the trick of dropping into listening, I think years of sporadic meditation practice has helped, I also think its in my nature to listen for magic. As a child I wasn't content to just see and hear what was real but wanted to explore unseen elements of my world. A walk in the bush would be a walk to look for tree spirits, inside a church I would look for 'god' even though I wouldn't have said I was a christian. It was within the ruin of a church at the age of twenty something that I first met the 'stone baby' that I later wrote a book about. Something spoke to me and showed me a book based on images and dreams not starting with words and 'The Stone Baby' was born.

I reccommend reading

The Author Elizabeth Gilbert expands on the theory that genius has its genisis in not the self but god.